Windows of Light
In the whispers of prayer and the glow of morning light, I found you.
Faith lived in my house long before it found a home in me. I knew the motions of it– the way adults would close their eyes and murmur words I didn’t understand, the story of the Seven Sleepers echoing through the house on Friday mornings. I knew how we washed before prayer, each step repeated three times on the right, then three times on the left. I knew we faced a certain direction when we prayed to you, and that if I kept walking straight, I'd eventually reach your house, which lay seven skies beneath your exalted throne. The stillness of the evenings as my family bowed their heads was merely a part of life, like brushing my teeth or tying my shoes. It was just something we did.
Photo By: (Ayra Rajwani//The Underground)
Every morning when I woke up, I used to watch the light from my octagonal window slowly shift across the wall as the sun rose. There was something calming about it. I liked the way sunlight stretched itself out, like it was reaching for something. Maybe I was meant to feel the same way, like I was reaching for something—for you. But mostly, I just felt small, like the flicker of a candle against the vastness of the universe.
I remember sitting on the carpeted floor of the Mosque, my legs tucked awkwardly beneath me, trying to mimic the movements of the women around me. I was surrounded by the warmth of prayer, yet I remained an outsider, drawing hearts in the frosted glass just to get a glimpse of what was on the other side. My mind would wander to all the trivial things children thought about—wondering when we’d be done, or if I could have dessert later. I often wondered if you could hear those thoughts and whether it upset you that my mind would drift so easily. I mean, if you truly created the heavens and the earth, surely you would be able to hear my head and my heart. After all, I was always told you were near. I used to wonder what that meant. How could someone be near if I couldn’t see them, couldn’t touch them?
Why didn’t I hear you? Why didn’t I feel your closeness? It wasn’t that I doubted you existed, but I didn’t know how to find you. I thought you lived far away, somewhere unreachable, too high, and too vast for someone like me. I didn’t understand then that you were always there, closer than my own jugular vein, though I had been told many times.
As I got older, I stopped asking those questions, but I also stopped searching for answers. In the quiet of the night, when the world outside my window faded into a whisper, I would often find myself gazing at the stars—the glow-in-the-dark ones I had scattered across my ceiling with sticky tack. Real stars, immense and distant, twinkled brightly in the night sky. I learned in school that each one was a massive sphere of gas, and our beloved sun was only a baby in comparison. The universe held so many stars, magnificent colossal bodies that exploded into supernovas every day. A dramatic end despite their grandeur.
Stars, which carried weight much larger than me in the universe, met their destruction. And eventually, so would I. The darkness pressed down, making everything feel too big, too overwhelming. In that stillness, I turned to you, the Creator of this universe I am bound by. I spoke to you in my mind, and I knew for certain this time that you could hear me. I understood that you were always listening, even to the things I didn’t say.
Art By: (Hannah Gabling//The Underground)
I see now that true strength lies in turning to you. The Eternal Refuge. Your guidance had always been in the background, like an old book gathering dust on a shelf. I knew the verses, the stories, but they hadn’t truly come alive to me yet. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand everything, and perhaps I’m not meant to. What I do know is that my dependence on you doesn’t make me smaller or weaker. You ground me. You remind me that I am part of something bigger, something that isn’t just about me. And in that, there is comfort.
Looking back, I realize those moments of silence, the rituals I once dismissed as mere routines, were profound gifts—anchors I didn’t know I needed, holding me steady in a world that often felt like it was spinning out of control. You’ve never demanded that I have it all figured out; you’ve only asked me to believe. And in return, you’ve promised not to burden me beyond what I can bear, for you are always there to illuminate the shadows with your unwavering light.
