Can Fasting Be That Difficult?

Yesterday evening a friend called at around 2000 hours, just when I was super busy preparing food in the kitchen for break fast, on the second day of Ramadan. I was not really concentrating on the conversation but one thing that still stuck in my mind was our talk on Ramadan. This is mainly because I don’t understand and am still trying to understand what is so difficult about fasting that a believer just totally ignored it, especially when one is living outside the country. 

Well, in the conversation I caught this friend confused on the dates that we were to start fasting here; immediately I told him “obviously you are not fasting right”? The justification that followed was not convincing enough to me, and I shall leave it at that.

Anyways, prior to the beginning of Ramadan I met another friend while out shopping in IKEA. We made some small talks ending with me greeting her with a blessed Ramadan. I was so surprised with her respond especially in front of my hubby (note: hubby is a new comer to fasting), and the two girls. Evidently, she was very proud when she told me that “I don’t have to fast, God told me that I don’t need to fast”. To this I just smiled and bid her farewell.

It is so sad, really, really sad for I have met too many believers that no longer fast in the month of Ramadan just because they are no longer living with their family and country.

Why? Can fasting be that difficult?

Second Day Of Break Fast

 Fried meehoon (rice vermicelli) with tofu

 Mashed potatoes with caramelized onion

 Mixed salad with artichoke and grilled cheese (without any dressing) 

Grilled charred chicken wings

'Bubur pulut hitam'

First Day Of Break Fast

Our food for the first day of break fast.  Since it is summer, we only break fast at 2047 hours.  Alhamdulillah

 Dessert: Orange cake

 Chili potatoes

 Fried "selar kuning" or yellow-banded scad, found this packet of frozen fish in one of the Indian Store here.  It was not as nice as the fresh one, but it was not that bad either

"Singgang terung" aka aubergine soup (hubby's favorite)

Restaurant Without A Name

 Vegetable fried rice

 Sweet sour fish

Set lunch with grilled salmon

Took the girls out for lunch a day prior to the starting of Ramadan, after toying around with what to eat, we all decided to go to this little restaurant just around the corner from our place. This restaurant funny as it may sound does not have a name. We stumbled into this restaurant one day when I was super hungry and could not care to go anywhere else but headed direct to an eatery that was right in front of us.

The restaurant was owned by a very nice husband and wife from China and has been trying their life here for more than a decade. The husband is the main chef, while the wife cleans table and do the normal PR thingy. What is more important is that this restaurant does not serve pork at all.

Our favorite here is the vegetable fried rice, spring rolls, grilled salmon and many more.

None Of Us Is Guaranteed Of Tomorrow.

Of late, I have been thinking a lot of how simple life can be. Nothing is too difficult to overcome and no obstacles too tough to go through. I learned that everything here are just temporary, you take no one with you, neither do you take anything at all with you, except for all the good deeds that you have done and the faith that you have in the Almighty Lord. 

It was not a simple journey for me to come to this feeling, I was self-healing myself, self-counseling myself and towards the end I realized that I was still hanging on to the past. This was the very reasons that made me sad at time, because I was always looking at the past and wondering what could have been and what could not have been. One day the switch button that reminded me to purge the past was automatically on by accident or by the faith of the Lord, I don’t know, but I managed to bury them, and I am still burying more of them one at a time.

Now the tough part is some letters and pictures from my private collection that I am still holding on to. I don’t want anyone to come on to my collection one day when I am dead and gone and start speculating about all of them. I want to purge them all so that I can be totally happy in my present and not anticipate my future.

You can't take anything with you, I repeat. What you leave behind becomes the responsibility of your spouse. Therefore, when I think about some of my possessions, I really just want to dump them away together with all the memories, unless of course if they are something that could make my husband proud to hold on to.

I am pretty sure as of this entry that I have done a lot of burying and I am not going to put anything off any longer. None of us is guaranteed of tomorrow.