Love, Mercy, Forgiveness and other Big Words
We throw these words around thoughtlessly. But they are big words, with big responsibilities and big consequences.
Each one requires something in return — love requires sacrifice.
Mercy requires selflessness.
Forgiveness requires true overlooking of hurts and swallowing the pain and letting go.
They’re positive-sounding words that have a really painful reality. And I thought about this a lot in the last few years. For example, forgiveness is spoken about a lot in Islam and in the Qur’an. God doesn’t make it compulsory, but says it’s better. He knows how difficult it is to do so, and how much it would take for someone to truly forgive and that is precisely why forgiveness has such a great reward.
“The reward of the evil is the evil thereof, but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon God.” (Quran, 42:40).
The size of the reward is in proportion to the emotional/mental/spiritual work required.
I think that’s why I broke down and cried so, so much after a recent conversation. Basically, Person A is talking about God’s Mercy and how I need to have mercy for others to get mercy from Allah.
Yes, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam said:
“Be merciful to others and you will receive mercy. Forgive others and Allah will forgive you”.
I don’t disagree with this. I think people should always extend mercy. I will never ask someone to be unmerciful.
However, this is where it gets convoluted.
One. To encourage me to have mercy for others, Person A essentially is threatening me — if you don’t show mercy this time and in this situation, Allah will withhold His Mercy from you.
It wasn’t immediately clear to me then because the person saying this was someone I deeply respect and love, but this is unacceptable. Allah’s Mercy is not limited by what us humans think it is. This was a most painful and heart-crushing time in my life. I am always, but currently in greater need of His Mercy but also mercy from others. And yet, I am essentially being told that even at a point where I vulnerably and in tears open up, the response I got was “Allah will not have mercy on you if you don’t do so-and-so”.
While it may have been well-intentioned (and I don’t doubt it came from a good place), it was mistimed or mis-applied. We cannot play this Allah’s-Mercy card all the time. He decides who He will be merciful towards, and we will all be terribly and utterly surprised. Sure, maybe I am making a huge mistake, but guess what, Allah will still not give up on me inshaAllah. He knows what I’ve been through to get to this decision and He will have mercy on me regardless inshaAllah. No one else has a say on who gets or doesn’t get His Mercy. It’s not yours to give.
Two. Sometimes mercy is in giving, at others it is more merciful to withhold. Sometimes showing mercy means giving it one more chance, at others it is letting things run its course.
There is no one way to show mercy and trying to force what you think is mercy on a situation that you are not experiencing, is being unmerciful to the ones actually facing the situation every single day.
Similarly, forgiveness doesn’t have to look a certain way. I can forgive and still choose not to continue to engage in a situation that harms me. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t forgiven, but that I’ve decided to protect myself from further harm, whether to myself or harm to others coming from me. Forgiveness and access: those two are not mutually exclusive.
Please, let us never get others to act mercifully, or to forgive, or to love, by way of fear and the threat of these being withheld by God. It’s GOD! He literally is the One who has and continuously will be merciful and forgiving and loving when everyone else has given up.
I ask Allah for strength, for true mercy, true forgiveness and true love and to never withhold these from me and my family and friends and everyone (!) because if we lose hope in Him, then what could possibly be left for us to hold on to?!
