Good health is one of God’s greatest gifts to his servants.
No one knows its real value but those who lost it, and no one knows God’s due of gratitude for good health except those who’s been deprived of it even for a short time, or those with a fearful heart that senses meanings in other people, and see that others’ affliction is the best restraint. Feeling these meanings in the hearts of those who understand this gift depends on how faithful they are and how much God decides to allow them to.
God may give someone a live example during one hour of his day to get him out of his mental sluggishness and show him a new dimension in sensing this gift.
While I was making my morning round to check on my patients at the hospital where I used to work in Boston, I saw a man I used to know whose name was “Abu Jamil,” a man in his mid-forties who used to be a regular visitor to the mosque in Boston. He was a virtuous man, and he knew me very well like I knew him.
I was surprised to see him in a patient gown. I approached him and saluted him, and he answered but did not recognize me. I found that strange, so I started talking to him and found out that he did not remember anything I said. At that moment, the nurse who took care of him arrived so I took her aside and asked her about him. She told me that he had a stroke two days ago, and even though he did not have any kind of paralysis, he lost his memory and didn’t remember anything about his past. “What about his family?” I asked. “They are very sad for what happened to him,” she answered,” he doesn’t remember his wife or his children or anything about his past.”
I remembered that “Abu Jamil” memorized a lot of verses from the Quran, so I went back to him and asked him to recite one Surah but he could not remember and was unable to do so. I asked him to recite one Ayah, so he stuttered and tried, but couldn’t and didn’t remember but only kept repeating two words “fear” and “grieve” and I thought he was trying to say “Unquestionably, for the allies of Allah there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve.” Then he told me that he was tired of trying and looked away in sorrow, so I walked away from him but my heart and my mind didn’t forget about him for long days.
Where are you, tyrants of the world, to see what a tiny blood clot can do if it went with God’s order through a different passage and settled in a place other than its natural destination? Every second, there are thousands of blood clots that form in our bodies that are turned into thin blood by God’s orders, and every second we are exposed to dangers inside our bodies that we are unaware of… God knows them but shows us mercy and He is the merciful, the all-aware.
“Abu Jamil” was in good shape and health, and within minutes he was unable to remember anything and became excused, and unobligated to perform religious duties. His family missed him even though he was still alive; he was among them but not with them.
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