Are Misfortunes Worth Wailing Over?

 

O helpless one, give up wailing over a misfortune, and put your trust in God.

Know that wailing compounds the misfortune and is a great error.

If you have found Him Who gives you the misfortune, then this misfortune will be a gift bringing pleasure and happiness.

So give up wailing and thank God like the nightingale, then all flowers will smile at you.

If you find Him not, know the whole world is all pain and loss coming from that destitution.

So why wail over a small misfortune while upon you rests a world-wide responsibility? Rather, put your trust in God!

Then, trusting in Him, laugh in the face of the misfortune so that it too will laugh.

As it laughs, it will diminish and change.

Know, O selfish one, happiness in this world lies in forsaking this world.

If you know God and seek Him, this will be enough; then all things will be for you even if you abandon them.

If you are selfish, this is total loss, and whatever you do, all things will be against you.

So, in either case, you should forsake the world.

Forsaking the world means to regard it as God’s property and deal with it with His permission, in His name...

If you want to do profitable business, it is in making your mortal life eternal.

If you seek your selfhood, it is both rotten and without foundation.

If you seek the outer world, upon it is the stamp of ephemerality.

So, nothing is worth purchasing in this market where the goods are all rotten.

So pass on... Beyond it, the sound goods are all lined up...

 

This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.