who you surround yourself with

Who you choose to surround yourself with matters. Your choices reflect who you are with. Your thoughts, your ways, your priorities, your choice of words...

There is a certain person angry with me for a choice I made in my life. A person who's been judged publicly herself for the choices she made in life. 

My cousin and I started talking about the situation. I told her I ask Allah to protect my tongue from mentioning the person's public judgments (in defense of my (better) choices)) when she confronts me with anger. 

In response my cousin mentioned the story about how if you set light on sins of others in this world, Allah will set light on your sins to the public on the Day of Judgment. 

And if you withhold yourself from speaking about others' sins, then Allah will also hide your sins. 

If my cousin was any other way, she would stir the situation instead and talk about how ridiculous this situation is... and how unreasonable the person is being. 

As I listened to my cousin, I was humbled and grateful to Allah to have selected people of standards and purity to surround me.

And I pray that you also surround yourself with people who bring out the good in you; people who remind you of goodness in the world; people who push you towards doing good.

I no longer ask Allah to protect me from saying things I know are not nice. I ask Him to instead hide my own sins and protect me from humiliation in front of Him, the Prophets, and generations of people who will stand in one place watching. 

No words or mention of errors are strong enough a defense as Allah Himself. When this confrontation happens, and I know it will, I ask Allah to straighten all my affairs to my benefit.