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Every phase of life brings its tests and trials. Once we were kids, trying to find our place in the world. Now we’re parents dealing with kids trying to find their own place. In our youth, we faced the tests of seeking companionship and finding a soulmate with whom to share our lives.

Then came the tests of childlessness, invasive investigations and treatments. Oceans of tears once shed in loneliness. Then came the little ones and now oceans of tears are shed because of them.

Once the tests of unemployment; now the tests of employment. The test of silence, the tests of noise. The tests of poverty, the test of wealth. Tests, over and over.

And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, who, when disaster strikes them, say, “Indeed we belong to God, and indeed to Him we will return.” Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are guided.

Quran 2:155-157

In the end, we embrace the tests thrown at us. Perhaps we will discover blessings we could never comprehend at the time. Once there was loss and doing without, but now we know we just had to wait our turn. One door once had to close for another to open.

At one time it was necessary for us to be broken, so that we might seek to be fixed. Once we had to feel the pain of isolation and loneliness so that we might appreciate belonging and acceptance. For every experience, an opposite. These, the tests of life.