 After your relationship in your home environment, the third component that many of these parents shared with me for nurturing spirituality in your children is having RIDDA with your children. RIDDA, contentment. Having contentment with your children. I touched on that a little bit before about how whatever you're witnessing with your children, it's just a moment in their lives. It's not the full story. You have to keep that in mind whether your children are doing everything right, quote unquote, the way you'd want it to be or whether they're making choices you're not happy with, right? And I know of an auntie here who has done an amazing job of raising her children. She has five kids. And actually when I say she's done an amazing job, I'm talking about I'm amazed by her relationship with her children. Now some of her kids are outwardly very, very pious and very impressive and very inspirational. But some of her kids actually are not. And on the surface, you won't see the piety and the taqwa that you will see in some of her other children. However, what stands out is how she treats all of her children. These are all grown adults now, her children. And she was the one who shared this with us. She asked us when we were asking her, you know, tell us a secret of raising children. And how can we be successful at it? She said, what is the one thing that you want for your children? If you were going to pick one thing, what is it that you would want for your children? And all of a sudden we would want our children to go to Janethel for those, right? We want our children to earn a lesbun at those pleasure and to one day be in Janethel for those. And she told us then the greatest gift you can give your children is to give them your ridah, your contentment. Because Allah swt is not going to be happy with your children if you're not happy with your children. And you need to embrace your children and love them and accept them however they are. That does not mean that you embrace or you approve param choices that they're making. That's not what we're saying. She's not saying that if your child announces that he or she is gay or he or she is living with a partner, a romantic partner without being married or he or she is drinking alcohol and you happen to know these things. It doesn't mean that you approve. It doesn't mean that you facilitate it or you allow it to happen in your home. What it does mean is that you still treat your child with respect. You still treat your child with love and you still keep the doors open. And with this auntie what I saw is that all five of her kids, she treated them with the same love and respect, whether the child was the hafiz who was leading prayers at the masjid or whether it was the child who's smoking cigarettes and has a girlfriend and pretty much the whole community knows who's making bad choices. She still loved them and hugged them and smiled at them when she saw them and you wouldn't be able to tell which one is her favorite if you saw her. I'm sure in her heart she's more inclined towards the ones who are loving alas about it all of the most but you can't see it from looking at her. And so the results are that those kids respect her and they love her and they want to be around her and that's a sign of having a good relationship with their children is do your kids want to be around you? Are they sad when you leave and are they happy when you're there? And with her I can honestly say all five of her kids, her grown adult kids, want to be around her all the time. And there's a quote by the poet Maya Angelou that I really like. I'm going to paraphrase it but basically a question she asked is or that she said is every child wants to see when they walk into the room that your eyes light up. Every child when they walk into the room and they see their parent there what they're looking for they want to see that their parent lights up when they see them. And so you have to think about that that when your child walks into the room are you cringing? Are you wincing? Are you ashamed? Are you embarrassed? Are you wishing they were different? Or are you seeing them as a creature of Allah s.a.w. as somebody that Allah s.a.w. has written their story and you don't know how it's going to end and your job is to teach is to warn, is to facilitate but you don't get to make your children's choices. We don't have any control over that. So after you've done your job of teaching and facilitating you just completely embrace your children and you accept them wherever they're at. Whether they're dyeing their hair purple, whether they're getting a tattoo, whether they're you know giving up going to college because they say they want to only focus on studying the Dean and maybe that's a choice that you know you're not totally comfortable with either. Whatever it is once they're young adults you embrace them after you know obviously sharing whatever your concerns are and you tell them you know I'm your mom and as your mom it's it's my job to worry about you and want the best for you. And I have to it's this is the role I've been given by Allah s.a.w. so I have to tell you that this path that you're on it has been known that if a person stays on this path it takes them to a bad end. It takes them to Allah s.a.w. displeasure and my prayer for you is that you're always on the path that's taking you to Allah s.a.w. pleasure. So I'm going to be praying for you and I'm going to be praying for you to make good choices but I cannot make your choices for you and I recognize that. So that's a conversation that many of us have to have with our children and if you have a good relationship with your children even if you end up teaching spirituality very late in the game when they're older if you have a good relationship inshallah your kids will be open to listening because they'll see that oh my mom is discovering something new or my dad is discovering something new in life that's important to him or her maybe I should look at into this that what what is it that they're excited about right and if they have a good relationship with you inshallah hopefully that will be their reaction now one sign that you don't have Rida that you don't have contentment is that your heart's heavy that your heart's heavy with your child and you're unhappy with your child so I just want to remind you to just remember that you're only witnessing one moment and the wheel is still turning and the person who's on top today can be on the bottom tomorrow and the person who's on the bottom today can be on top tomorrow the ultimate success the ultimate success is leaving this world with the shahada on our lips and in our on our tongues and in our hearts and in our minds and so we just keep praying for our children and I I have a friend who taught all of her children correctly you know she did everything right she was like a role model for us and one day her college age son called her and said I'm not feeling the prayer anymore I'm not feeling the theme so I'm not praying it's not doing anything for me and when she told me this she said it so calmly uh without you know freaking out about it and I actually I was a young mom at the time and I I asked her I said why aren't you freaking out why aren't you you know hysterical about this right now that your son is telling you he's not praying how can you not be freaking out and she said because I have a high opinion of my lord she said from day one I've been praying about my children's iman and my children's young theme and for my children to be believers and I don't believe that those prayers disappeared into thin air I believe that those prayers have been heard and that they're going to be answered but they're going to be answered in a last $100 time not my time and so I have to be patient I have to be content with the fact that I did what was asked of me and I know that inshallah inshallah on the day of judgment I can stand in front of Allah swt and I can say I did what was asked of me um and now all I can do is just pray for my child and know that those prayers are being heard and uh she kept an open door policy in her home she and her husband and her other children continued praying continued practicing continued believing continued welcoming their son into their fold but they made it clear that they were moving forward with or without him whether he joined them or not they were moving forward and eventually alhamdulillah a little while later her son did end up coming back did end up praying and not only ended up praying ended up doing makeup prayers to make up for the time that he wasn't praying so that's what we we need to have a very very high community of our Lord