Ramadan Mubarak!!!

This is the blessed time of year when baraka are multiplied and sins are forgiven. It is easy for Ramadan to be reduced to simply going without food and water during the daylight hours, but it is much more. The pains of hunger and the bite of thirst are physical reminders of our fragility and tools to evoke humility in times when our thirsts are quenched and hunger subdued. On a physical level it allows our digestive system to take a break. The spiritual benefits exceed my knowledge to explain, but I know that the rewards are vast. From a personal development perspective, Ramadan affords us the opportunity slow down and focus on becoming a better Muslim. It can take about four weeks for a new habit to be instituted into a person's personality. This month we can return to habits that are good if we have strayed and develop more good habits (there are always more good habits to adopt). From increasing our knowledge about the deen to exerting control over ourselves and modifying our conduct, we should finish Ramadan as a better person than when we began it. Inshallah, we will take advantage of this benefit from it in this life and the next. We are not guarentteed to see the end of this Ramadan or the next.

All of the statments here I remind myself of first.