Ramadan is gone, now what..

Bismillah

Last week on Thursday we celebrated Eid ul fitr alhamdulillah which means this year Ramadan was 29 days for us. We went to the park near us where we prayed the Eid salah with the local Muslims, alhamdulillah. The day and night before Eid is always a very sad time for me. I know for sure that as soon as Ramadan leaves us, it will be quite difficult to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so intensely like Ramadan. May Allah accept our humble deeds in Ramadan and forgive us for our shortcomings through out the year, ameen! May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala enable us to witness lots of Ramadan in our life, ameen! 

This year Ramadan has been quite a hectic one for me, given my kids are a bit older and very demanding. I normally went to sleep after 4/4:30 but had to get up by 7:30/8 as kids were already wide awake! Lack of sleep made me quite tired and exhausted. If I compare my Ramadan this year with all the other Ramadan I was lucky to have in my life, this year praying Taraweeh was very hard. I think I hardly did that many prayers after Isha prayer. When I woke up at 2 am, I was more alert and were able to be awake till 4, alhamdulillah. The night prayers I have managed to do during this time is just priceless. No kids disturbing, so peaceful mashAllah. I am sure I will miss that very much. This year I put more effort in reading the Qur'an, alhamdulillah and I hope I can carry on through out the year, bi'idnillahi ta'ala.

So, how can I carry on the Ramadan feelings now after it has gone? I try to remind myself that Ramadan is a special month and nothing can replace it. No other month can be so amazing and full of baraka like this sacred month. Like the shahaba ( companions of our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihe wa sallam) we can pray and ask our Lord for six months to accept our humble deeds performed during Ramadan and six months before the next Ramadan we can start preparing and ask our Lord to let us witness the next Ramadan.

Also, we can carry on fasting some days every month to keep up this particular form of worship bi'idnillah. Our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihe wa sallam used to fast every Mondays and Thursdays. He also used to keep fasts in the middle of the month (lunar one), 13, 14 and 15th of every month. As you know, this is the month of Shawwal when fasting six days are highly recommended by our prophet. If someone fasts the whole of ramadan and fasts six days of Shawwal, it will be like fasting for the whole year! Subhanallah who can afford to miss this great opportunity to gain closer to Allah subhana wa ta'ala?! I have to fast 12 days during this month. Due to illness, I missed 6 during Ramadan so I must make that up first inshAllah. Then I hope to do the six of Shawwal bi'idnillah.