Excerpts from Hugs for Single Moms

"Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need." - Sarah Ban Breathnach

As a single mom you may be one of the greatest tightrope walkers who ever lived. Even you don't know how you manage to balance and juggle so many things. Nor do you know how you can be so many things to so many people. You take multitasking to a whole new level. Yet somehow you make it look easy, for there is a grace in your life.

It's OK to feel like taking a bow at the next Academy Awards ceremony. We'd all like to see the most accomplished actress try to pull off your role. You laugh when you feel like crying. You're strong though you feel weak. You allow others to lean on you when you'd like - just for a little while - to do some leaning yourself.

It would be fun, though, to sometimes change circumstances: to never again have to worry about bouncing a check or making the mortgage payment. It would be nice to have someone else clean your refrigerator, buy your groceries, and mop your floors.

But it's doubtful you'd ever consider changing roles: not with Donald Trump or Bill Gates, in spite of their mansions and millions. Because they have never been, nor will they ever become, a mother. For all its difficulties and challenges, yours is the role you were created to fill. You are the leading lady on the stage of your child's life, and that's worth everything. Go ahead.......take a bow.

It's easy, when you've been hurt, to put up walls to guard your emotions and protect you from pain. The problem is that sometimes it backfires. While walls might keep certain types of pain at bay, they can also block opportunities for joy. They can keep you from seeing the great gift of each new day and the blessing of rich, new relationships.

Sure, it's tough when disappointment hardens your heart and pain adds another layer of doubt and distrust. There's wisdom in protecting yourself - to a point. But the defenses that keep out hurt can also hinder real intimacy with others. They can cause you to keep your emotional distance and even hold back a part of your heart God intended for your children.

There is a time to mourn. There is a time to heal. There is a time to rejoice in new beginnnings. The key is allowing God to impart the wisdom for each new season in its proper time. Don't think for a minute He isn't working for and with you. Even now He is softening your heart and making it new. He's all about healing and restoration.

So don't let fear hold you back from a fabulous future. God formed you in your mother's womb. He has a plan to give you hope. He's giving it to you now, because you are God's great gift to others.

Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions
if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

-Pink-

New year....new beginning?

Chinese New Year is still more than a month away. Awal Muharam is around the corner. So the new year that we are celebrating is 2007..

Made your resolutions yet? I actually tried to write mine down this year. It's supposed to be better that way. I guess that's true. Writing stuff down makes them a little clearer and in order.

Amazingly, I actually have tangible resolutions this year. Concrete. Achievable but a challenge nonetheless.

Harith will be turning 5 this month. Since one of my resolutions is to concentrate on the NOW (rather than dwell on the past and sigh on the future, duh!), I've planned to fill his days with exploratory activities. He's enrolled in Taekwando, swimming classes, music lessons and his regular kindi classes which now includes mandarin lesson over and above the computer and Iqra' classes that he's already signed up for. Harith is a ball of energy and seems to have an endless supply of it. He's thriving on all these activities and so far so good..

He's got a concert coming up at the end of the month at the Civic Center and I'll bet that will be a thrill to watch.

As for myself, I've been a little more adventurous.....trying new things and venturing into new territories. I'm both excited and a little apprehensive. I have been stuck in a rut and complacent for far too long. I have spent too much time in my comfort zone and been missing on too many opportunities.

This is the time. I am all set now for Hijrah. My seatbelts are buckled and I am ready to SOAR.....

If Everyone Cared

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you’d be mine
But here we are, we’re here tonight

Singing Amen, I’m alive
Singing Amen, I’m alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We’d see the day when nobody died
And I’m singing

Amen I, I’m alive
Amen I, I’m alive

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We’ll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along

Singing Amen I’m alive
Singing Amen I’m alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We’d see the day when nobody died
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We’d see the day when nobody died

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We’d see the day when nobody died

We’d see the day, we’d see the day
When nobody died
We’d see the day, we’d see the day
When nobody died
We’d see the day when nobody died

Nickelback

Far Away

This time, This place
Misused, Mistakes
Too long, Too late
Who was I to make you wait
Just one chance
Just one breath
Just in case there’s just one left
‘Cause you know,
you know, you know

That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I miss you
Been far away for far too long
I keep dreaming you’ll be with me
and you’ll never go
Stop breathing if
I don’t see you anymore

On my knees, I’ll ask
Last chance for one last dance
‘Cause with you, I’d withstand
All of hell to hold your hand
I’d give it all
I’d give for us
Give anything but I won’t give up
‘Cause you know,
you know, you know

That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I miss you
Been far away for far too long
I keep dreaming you’ll be with me
and you’ll never go
Stop breathing if
I don’t see you anymore

So far away
Been far away for far too long
So far away
Been far away for far too long
But you know, you know, you know

I wanted
I wanted you to stay
‘Cause I needed
I need to hear you say
That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I forgive you
For being away for far too long
So keep breathing
‘Cause I’m not leaving
Hold on to me and
never let me go

Nickelback

What I was grateful for yesterday

1. The early morning rain.

2. The silence and calmness of the office before 8 am.

3. The hug I got from my 4-year-old son when I got back from work.

4. The delicious dinner my mum cooked.

5. The cool feeling of my plump pillow before I fell asleep.

Thank you

The words below were sent to me via email by a really good friend of mine and I would like to share it with you.....

By Oprah Winfrey

I live in the space of thankfulness - and I have been rewarded a million times over for it. I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased.That's because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.

Opportunities,relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.

"Say thank you!" Those words from my friend and mentor Maya Angelou turned my life around.

One day about ten years ago, I was sitting in my bathroom with the door closed and the toilet lid down, booing and ahooing on the phone so uncontrollably that I was incoherent.

"Stopit! Stop it right now ! and say thank you!" Maya chided. "But - you don't understand," I sobbed. To this day, I can't remember what it was that had me so far gone, which only proves the point Maya was trying tomake.

"I do understand," she told me. "I want to hear you say it now. Outloud. 'Thank you.'" Tentatively, I repeated it: "Thank you - but what am I saying thank you for?"

"You're saying thank you," Maya said, "because your faith is so strong that you don't doubt that whatever the problem, you'll get through it.You're saying thank you because you know that even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds. You're saying thank you because you know there's no problem created that can compare to the Creator of all things. Say thank you!"

So I did - and still do. Only now I do it every day. I kept a gratitude journal, as Sarah Ban Breathnach suggests in Simple Abundance, listing at least five things that I'm grateful for. My list includes small pleasures: the feel of Kentucky bluegrass under my feet (like damp silk); a walk in the woods with all nine of my dogs and my cocker spaniel Sophie trying to keep up; cooking fried green tomatoes with Stedman and eating them while they're hot; reading a good book and knowing another awaits.And when I feel that life is hard, all I have to do is read my gratitude journal. IT truly helps.

My thank-you list also includes things too important to take for granted: an "okay" mammogram, friends who love me, 15 years at the same job (and loving it more than the first day I started), a chance to share my vision for a better life, staying centered, having financial security. I won't kid you, having money for all the things I want is a blessing.

But as I look back over my journals, which I've kept since Iwas 15 years old, 99 per cent of what brought me real joy had nothingto do with money . (It had a lot to do with food, however.)

It's not easy being grateful all the time. But it's when you feel least thankful that you are most in need of what gratitude can giveyou:PERSPECTIVE.

Just knowing you have that daily list to complete allows you to look at your day differently, with an awareness of every sweet gesture and kind thought passed your way. When you learn to say thank you, you see the world anew.

And as Meister Eckhart so eloquently Stated:"If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'Thank you', that would suffice."

**

So here's my thank you to the world. To all those who have been there for me and have come in and out of my life, however brief it may have been, thank you from the bottom of my heart.....

Islam and me

I was born into Islam. I was lucky enough to have Muslim parents. I definitely took being a Muslim for granted. Just because you were born a Muslim doesn't make you a Muslim. Of that I am certain.

Growing up, Islam was always a part of my life, but more in the background. I learned the 5 prayers when I was seven but didn't really understand the significance of them. I went for Quran reading classes at a really early age, but since my Ustazah kept falling asleep while teaching, my mind was more on the playground than the Quranic verses.

Islam in the 80s was not as prominent as it is today. Public schools then were not really proponents of the faith. Religious class was a class muslim students were obligated to take but no real emphasis was ever given to the true significance of Islam.

I consider myself lucky that I made the decision to go to boarding school when I was 16. The reason was definitely not to delve deeper into Islam, but more for independence purposes. Being the only daughter, I wanted to venture out on my own and away from the protective cocoon my parents created for me.

To my utter amazement, Islam was not a mere class at boarding school, it was a way of life. Every facet of your everyday life is Islam. From the instant you wake up until you go to sleep, Allah is never far from your mind. I learned so much....not from the teachers.....but from the other students. They were the greatest teachers because they do not preach. They also do not look down on you. They teach by example and by having me join them. Religion is not spoken in a formal setting, but more after a good game of netball, or during a walk by the beautiful lake or even late at night, right before we all fell asleep.

I had finally found my faith. I had finally found my true religion. And at the ripe old age of 16 to boot. Oh, well, better late than never.....