At the end of surah Yusuf, after everything he’d been through, Prophet Yusuf (alayhis salam) simply said:
إِنَّ رَبِّي لَطِيفٌ لِمَا يَشَاءُ
“My Lord is gentle (so subtle, so kind) in the way He brings about whatever He wills.”
And when you look at his life, you understand why he said it with such certainty.
-Thrown into a well by the very brothers who were supposed to protect him.
-Sold for a few coins in a land far from home.
-Falsely accused and dragged off to prison.
-Forgotten there, year after year, while the one person who could free him moved on with his life.
Every single moment looked like disaster.
Every door that closed seemed final.
Yet every single one of those moments was Allah moving him, step by step, toward something greater than he could have imagined: authority in a kingdom, reunion with his family, and the saving of nations from famine.
But here’s the part that hits deepest:
Allah wasn’t only raising Yusuf to a throne. He was polishing his heart.
-The well taught him detachment from the world.
-Slavery taught him humility.
-Prison taught him patience and complete reliance on Allah alone.
-Being forgotten taught him that only Allah never forgets.
By the time he stood in front of his brothers (the same ones who once wanted him gone), there was no anger in his voice, no desire for revenge, no trace of arrogance.
Just full of mercy and forgiveness.
That’s what the fire does when Allah is the One controlling the heat: it doesn’t burn you, it refines you.
So when you’re in your own well right now… when the door feels locked… when people have moved on and it seems like even your dua is forgotten… remember Yusuf (alayhis salam).
What feels like punishment might be preparation.
What feels like delay might be protection.
What feels like breaking might actually be the gentleness of Allah shaping you into someone who can carry the blessings He’s about to give without them destroying you.
He is Al-Lateef.
He works in ways softer than silk, quieter than breath, kinder than we can comprehend.
Trust Him.
You’re not stuck.
You’re being carried.
Clint Eastwood said something about getting old that stopped me cold.
Aging is not gentle. You are still here. Still present. Still watching the world move.
The body that carried you through everything – the wars, the work, the wildness of youth – begins to ask for more than you can give it.
Joints that never complained now speak in the mornings. Eyes that once took in everything now flinch at the light. Breathing, which never required a single thought, starts needing little pauses. But none of that is the hardest part.
The hardest part is the quiet.
At a certain age, you reach for the phone and remember there is no one left to call. The people who knew you when you were young – who remember the same summers, the same streets, the same faces – are gone. One by one, then all at once, until the memories you carry, have no one left to share them with.
So you tell the story anyway. To whoever will listen. With a little more color than perhaps, the truth deserves.
With a touch of pride you’ve earned and a grief you don’t always name. You know the person across from you wasn’t there. You know they can’t quite feel it this the way you do. But you tell them. Because the telling is the holding on.
Those stories are not just memories. They are the proof that a life was lived. That people were loved. That things mattered. And if no one asked for them – you offer them anyway, quietly, like setting something down on a table and hoping someone picks it up.
Old age is not simply what happens to a face or a body. It is memories looking for a place to rest. And what an old person needs – more than advice, more than solutions, more than someone telling them how to feel – is simply someone willing to sit down, be still, and listen. Not to fix anything. Just to be there. That is the whole gift. And it cost nothing. Wild whispers.
The planet's most fanatical Israel loyalists now own and control (or are about to) Paramount, CBS, TikTok, Warner Brothers, CNN: all acquired in the last two years by Netanyahu's close friend, Larry Ellison, right as public support for Israel in the US and the west collapses:
It is often overlooked that the dancing Israelis didn’t just take celebratory photos (and video that was never recovered) of the burning towers on 9/11 with apparent foreknowledge of the attack.
They actually took photos from the same vantage point the day before holding up lit lighters to the tower (like burning it down)
It’s all documented in fbi reports- just a coincidence that a bunch of ex-Israeli intelligence officers were working at Israeli moving companies surveilling the attacks the day before and day of. Then they were caught with explosive residue found in their van and prepurchased plane tickets for each of them to different foreign countries scheduled for the day after (9/12).
When the fbi went to go raid the offices- they were abandoned, the Israeli owner had vanished and left everything (except some electronics) there.
All just normal coincidental Jewish behavior before being sent back to Israel and saying their purpose there was to “document the events”
The actually retarded 9/11 conspiracy theory is that osama bin Laden carried out the world’s most sophisticated terror attack from some mud cave in the mountains with no internet and a small handful of Arabs that couldn’t fly planes caused three controlled demolitions in NYC (including one building they didn’t hit), a physically impossible flight path at the pentagon, and a disappearing plane crash in shanksville. And we know it was them because they had indestructible passports and Mohamed atta decided to leave a briefcase with their detailed plans and personal information in the airport so the Americans could know all about them.
If you have not yet learned the truth about 9/11- or more accurately, the lies, you’re falling behind.
Catch up.
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.”
—Anthony Bourdain, American chef, filmmaker, and author, who died on this day in 2018.
Thank you to the survivors of the USS Liberty for traveling to Washington DC on the 59th anniversary of the attack.
Your courage to express the facts is the reason the tragedy of the USS Liberty will not be forgotten.
It was an honor to host you and to speak on your behalf.
The horrific knife attack isn't new nor "alien” to NI. The Shankill Butchers were Belfast born & bred. They cut throats from ear to ear. Let’s not engage in historical amnesia just because previous barbarity was never videoed nor went viral.
https://t.co/MDVPhwr1Me
Crime is now being viewed through an entirely racialised lens – but only when the perpetrators aren't white.
When Chas Corrigan stabbed a Saudi student to death, or Paul Doyle mowed down Liverpool fans, white people didn't have to fear being a target of collective retaliation.