Happy Muslim Mama: Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Gratitude Journal Day 17

What in nature are you especially grateful for?

Some of my best memories from my childhood and then from my children’s younger days are to do with time spent in nature.

Strawberry picking as a child with the family in beautiful Kent

School visits to Epping Forest and Hainault Forest

Trips to the beach

Visits to rural Pakistan, with the freedom to explore the fields and nearby mountains.

Then with the children

We visited a glebe in Scotland and saw a waterfall in the Trossachs.

We raced the sea at St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall

We picked strawberries in Orpington, in Kent

Saw flowers and fell on a cactus at Lullingstone Castle

Fed seals at Gweek

Picnicked by the white cliffs at Dover

Scrambled over fallen trees at Epping Forest

Got very hot in the rainforest biome at the Eden project.

I love the way nature makes us feel: refreshed, soothed, as if the world has slowed down a little bit

When I see the sea I find myself in awe of Allah SWT: if his creation is so powerful, how great must he be?

I am most grateful for this connection back to Allah (SWT) and also myself  – the sense of being still, in the moment and peaceful.