Assalamu Allaykum wa Rahmatu Allah wa Barakatuh.

This is your sister Danielle LoDuca.

Think about how many people live feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, or with feelings of lowliness, probably a lot more than we imagine.

As we grow up and start thinking about marriage, how many of us dreamt to find a soul mate: someone who would know and love us down to the most renowned aspects of our soul.

My background is in the arts and I found out a lot of creative expression has to do with the desire to be known and appreciated.

Personally, I would keep the sketchbook doubled as a journal. I remember thinking and hoping that one day, even if after my death, somebody would find that book and through my drawings and my writings they would be to know me on a deeper level, deeper that I felt capable of expressing through the usual means of communication.

What advised me and completely eliminated that feeling that yearning to be understood was when I came to understand that Allah is Al-Aleem (The All-Knowing) as Allah said in chapter Al-A’la: {surely He knows what is declared and what is hidden.} (Quran 87: 7)

Allah’s knowledge is perfect. He knows everything from our outward actions, the things that we say, to something that is insignificant as a leaf falling in a remote forest.

He knows the organism and the deepest part of the oceans, or underground. He knows our deepest thoughts, our feelings, our aspirations…

He knows the profound feelings of all that we experience when we observe the most awesome sunset…

Those thoughts are so hard to express that our words just don’t seem to do justice to. Allah knows all of them.

He knows us better than we know ourselves. In chapter 4:147, Allah says that He is Appreciative as well as knowing.

He knows and appreciates all our efforts. So if we think about some of real life examples, maybe a man who’s working hard, who’s toiling away to revive for his family. Maybe he’s working long hours or driving 3 hours in an awful traffic just to get to work and to get back.

Or if you think about a wife, maybe she feels that her life is a bit mundane, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of people all daylong, or if we consider a student who has stayed late at night studying and working so hard for their degree.

In all of our lives, we go through difficulties and we struggle and strive at one point or another. So the thing that Allah completely knows and understands and appreciates everything that we go through.

So when we feel that we’re reaching end of our rope, He knows exactly how we feel, and He knows how it hurts. He knows exactly what we’re sacrificing in order to do what we’re doing.

Whatever difficulty we’re striving through, He appreciates, and knows all of it deeply, and He lovingly repays us for all of it.

So, let’s do everything that we have to do in our lives for His sake because everyone and everything else will let us down in some point or in another but Allah will never let us down.

May Allah help us to remember that He is Al-Aleem and He is appreciative of our struggles and efforts.

And may He guide us to perform all our actions whatever we’re struggling with, when we do it with Him in mind, for His sake seeking His pleasure with the knowledge that He will never let us down and He is appreciative of all that we do.

Ameen.