Family. Let’s be honest. Sometimes it feels like your family just wants to destroy everything. Today was supposed to be a catch-up day. I had all my books laid out on the table for me to study. I finished Quran incident free and got through the majority of Nahw by noon. I had a bunch of other tasks that I wanted to finish in addition to writing. However, I found out quickly that the rest of the day was not going to be mine. The little one was running amuck around the apartment and the wife was in the room next door in her Arabic class. What was I to do?

I could have gotten irritated. I could have been snotty and told everyone that the main goal of being here is me studying, I could have. Instead I got down on the ground, opened a box of Legos that I purchased the week before and started building this little play set for my daughter. A while later the wife joined in and the next thing you know, everyone is happy and smiling.

One thing I try to remind myself of often is the power of perspective, and how having the right perspective, or changing it when needed, is one of the secrets to being happy and living a fulfilling life.

She destroyed the Lego set after we finished. Kind of like how you build things up only to watch those closest to you destroy them. Sometimes they do it knowingly, but oftentimes unknowingly. I felt myself trying to protect it, not wanting her to mess up our hard work. Until finally I just let her have it. Why was I holding on so much? Sure, it took some time to put it all together but more than that, her breaking it down was a learning process for her. It was for me as well. She was experiencing, and I was maturing. Not every perceived loss is in fact a loss. Sometimes we learn the most when we watch those closest to us seemingly destroy things, when in reality, God is just laying a new foundation for us to start anew.

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