Every Parent owns a Blank Dua Checkbook
For the past few weeks I’ve been having trouble with my iphone – my service would come and go and I was at my wits end because I didn’t have a reliable way to reach others.
I finally visited the Apple store and someone at the genius bar came to help me. While trying to figure out what was wrong with my phone, he told me they could offer me an identical replacement phone for $349.
I said, well let’s just see what’s wrong with the phone first, maybe I won’t have to replace it. I really didn’t want to pay the $349.
Twenty minutes go by and nothing is working, he can’t even do a factory reset. He says, look, I’ll talk to my manager to get the price of the replacement phone down to $99. I said okay.
I figured I’d just suck it up and pay the $99 to save myself from future phone troubles.
I waited around for another 15 minutes. Then he comes back and says, I talked to my manager and we can give you an identical replacement phone for free.
I was dumbfounded at this gesture because I didn’t even purchase my iphone from Apple to begin with. I bought it unlocked and refurbished from some sketchy, obscure electronics store. And now this Apple employee was telling me they’re going to replace my phone with a brand new one at no charge.
The employee kept telling me over and over – this is a rare thing we’re doing, an exception to the rule because usually for phones that aren’t under warranty, the customer has to pay to replace it.
He also seemed genuinely confused as to how I was getting the phone for free.
I thanked him profusely and walked out the store with a brand new phone in my pocket.
I sat for a while in my car feeling incredibly puzzled. How was it possible that I got out of paying any repair or replacement fees, especially considering I had no receipt and didn’t even purchase the phone from that store?
Then I remembered that just a day or two before, I was talking to my mom and she made a specific dua for me – “may Allah (swt) always send you people to help and serve you.”
And Allah (swt) sent me this person who literally placed something valuable in my hands for absolutely nothing in return.
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Imagine the richest person in the world gave you a blank check and said, “fill it in with whatever you want.” Your mind would race with the possibilities of all you could own and all you could accomplish with that money.
Would you just write in “$5” and go buy yourself a cup of coffee and a bagel? Or would you add as many zeros as you could possibly fit on that piece of paper and start thinking BIG?
The prophet Muhammad (saw) said: Three supplications will not be rejected: the supplication of the parent for his child, the supplication of the one who is fasting, and the supplication of the traveler.
Here Allah (swt) gives parents a figurative blank dua check. We can ask Him for anything and everything under the sun for our children, and He guarantees that our requests will not be rejected.
How will you fill that blank dua check? Will you think big and bold? Will you ask Him to make your child a vehicle of good on this earth? Will you ask Him to make leaders out of your children? Or will you throw the checkbook into the messy oblivion that is your purse and let it be buried under all the stresses of life?
Allah (swt) promises that a parent’s dua for his/her child will not be rejected. It’s a guarantee. The Lord of the worlds invites us to ask Him for anything. So as we struggle to provide our children with the best education, opportunities, and living conditions, we should continually and fervently ask God to grant them physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being.
