When night fell, I set out, exhausted from the weight of charcoal in the wooden box strapped against my back. Winter had settled deeply over the village, and people needed warmth more than ever. That day I had sold every last lump, for winter knows no mercy. Icicles hung from the black roof tiles, smoke curled from chimneys into the darkening sky, and the scent of fried fish and warm noodles filled the air.

As I wandered up the main road, the glowing washi of the windows told flickering stories: one family gathered together in quiet laughter, another spreading futon mats across the floor for the night ahead. For a moment, the warmth of the village softened the thought of the long way home.

But eventually the lanterns behind me grew distant. The black dust of the coal stained my fingers and disappeared into my abaya, while the brown of the wooden box blended against my winter boots. The snow was deep, up to my calves as I walked, swallowing each slow step. Soon the houses vanished completely behind the hill, and only moonlight remained to guide me toward the forest ahead.

Each step beneath my feet cracked like a biscuit, while the wind hissed past my ears through the trees and rattled the bare branches. I climbed the slope slowly until the pitch black forest opened before me, its shadows swallowing what little light remained.

I stopped and reached into my cloak for the candle I carried for nights like this. My fingers fumbled for the matchbox buried deep within my pocket. The logo had long faded from the cardboard, only the words Sugi Woods still visible beneath my thumb. I smiled weakly at the sight of it and with my final match, I struck a flame.

A small light bloomed between my hands. The candle caught. Relief loosened my chest as I stepped carefully between the trees, watching the little flame sway with every movement. It was not much, but it was enough to keep me walking and to let me believe I still knew where I was going.

Then the wind suddenly whipped up a swirl of snow and blinded me. As I rub my eyes, the flame disappeared. Darkness swallowed everything.

I stopped breathing for a moment. No path, no lights, no home in sight. No sound except the wind weaving through the trees. The cold drilled through my clothes until even my bones seemed to ache with it. Somewhere behind me, a branch cracked sharply in the dark.

The thought brushed against me, I swallowed: Is this my end? With numb fingers I raised my hands, I whispered: “If not Allah, then who can still save me?”. And for the first time that night, I understood how small the candle truly was. How quickly a single gust could erase what I thought was guiding me.

A sound came again through the darkness. Not the heavy movement of an animal, but something softer.

“Mama?” I turned sharply. A small figure stepped forward, wrapped clumsily in a thick white cloak dusted with snow. “Abdullah?” My voice broke almost into disbelief, he quietly nodded.

The candle slipped from my hand into the snow as I rushed toward him and pulled him tightly into my arms. His face was freezing. I tucked his small fingers into the pocket of my abaya, the last warmth I had left. “What are you doing here?” I whispered. His eyes lowered. “I was looking for my teddy”, I almost laughed despite everything.

“I couldn’t find him at home,” he continued, “so I went outside to the iron swing in the garden. Then I realized…” his voice trembled slightly. “I already had him in my hands. But you still hadn’t come back.”

Snowflakes drifted slowly between us. “So I followed the frozen stream,” he said. “The fish under the ice are asleep. Everything was black… and you were still nowhere.”

I pulled him close again, holding him beneath the trees while the wind moved around us. My little boy, who had wandered into the darkness searching for me while I stood there believing I had already lost everything.

And suddenly I noticed shadows shifting. Shadows? I looked upward. Above us hung a round white moon, bright and clear between the branches, illuminating the forest floor, spilling across a small clearing nearby. There stood a wooden sign half-buried in the snow.

We walked toward it carefully and brushed the frost away. Cedar Path. My breath caught in my throat. Home was near.

The wind lifted the edge of my abaya as snowflakes danced through the pale light and settled against it like scattered silver. I held Abdullah’s hand tightly as we hurried forward together, and after some time, the faint scent of burning charcoal reached us through the cold air.

Home. With every step, my heart repeated quietly to itself what my tongue no longer needed to say aloud. The candle had gone out long ago. Yet Allah still guided us through the dark.

How often does one believe the small candle in his hands is what is truly guiding him?

Many people struggle with this today. Over-relying on built routines, plans laid out weeks ahead, emotional certainty, discipline, motivation, structure. Trying to create success entirely with our own hands to feel like we are in full control over our own affairs while forgetting that success is from Allah. So when things do not go as expected, one feels internally lost because the small flame he was relying upon disappears.

That said, the means are essential: the mother still carried the candle, she still struck the final match and walked through the forest instead of giving up. In Islam a person does not abandon the means, but they need to be understood correctly.

Maryam عليها السلام was commanded to shake the date palm tree while in labour, exhausted and weakened, even though Allah was fully capable of causing the dates to fall without effort from her. A person studies for an exam, works for rizq, takes medicine while sick, locks their door before sleeping. Take the means because Allah created this dunya as a place of causes and effort, not to attach oneself to the means as if those independently bring the outcome.

No story ever becomes hopeless once the candle goes out. In fact, it is only after the darkness fully settles that guidance begins appearing from places the mother did not expect: the child, the moonlight, the sign hidden beneath the snow. Sometimes Allah sends relief through places one would have never thought of. And due to us only seeing a pixel of the entire image, we do not see the entire wisdom and mercy behind it.

Tawakkul is not sitting still and expecting things to arrive without effort, nor total dependence on one’s own ability. For example, if one were to say: I shall not get married and I shall wait to have a child without getting married, that would be regarded as insane; It is simply not possible.

So Tawakkul is taking the appropriate means while the heart remains attached to Allah alone, knowing that the means themselves cannot benefit or harm except by His permission.

Just as you are trying to benefit by reading this article, may Allah allow us to. Just as you are trying to make your scales heavy by doing good deeds, we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’Ala to accept them.