We are shaped by time, not only by what we choose,
but also by what comes to us, even when we do not want it.

Life leaves traces: fine lines, breaks, layers.
They all belong to us, even if we only understand them later.

Initially, we want to control everything.
We believe that if we try hard enough, everything will turn out the way we want.
But life responds with resistance and change.
It takes what we cannot let go of,
and gives what we had no room for.

Between these movements, something invisible grows: insight.
Not as knowledge in the mind, but as quiet understanding in the heart.
We begin to see that every experience, however painful, has shaped us.

Disappointment teaches us humility, and loss shows us what we can truly hold onto.
When we resist what happens, we scatter ourselves.

We lose ourselves trying to prevent the inevitable.

Yet the moment we accept, we begin to see the hidden balance:
the order behind the fragments,
the meaning even in stillness,
the sense in the break.

True rest is not a state without movement.
It comes when the heart stops fighting and aligns with what Allah has decreed.
Then silence is not empty, but vast.
Then patience is not a burden, but a support that carries and shapes the heart.

Over time, we realize:
Nothing was in vain.
Every wrinkle, every scar, every regret has shaped us.
From resistance comes insight, from pain comes depth, from fear comes closeness to the One who was never far.

And so layer upon layer grows within us: patience, devotion, trust.
They wrap around our heart like rings around a core.

And around all of this, over time, an outer shell forms - not cold, not rejecting, but preserving.
It arises from knowing what nourishes us and what weakens us.
It protects what has grown, without enclosing it.
Like the bark of a tree guarding its rings, this shell keeps our inner self from scattering.
It is the balance between openness and boundaries, gentleness and steadfastness, a quiet protection that does not separate, but preserves.

Until we finally understand:
Everything that shaped us leads us back to the One who created us,
and gives the peace that every soul longs for.

Anna @ Min Sakinah