A Rip And An Epiphany

I always try to find time for myself. Between bath time, playtime, feeding time, cooking meals, cleaning, folding laundry, there is always some spiritual time. I take that as an opportunity to take a break, slow down, ruminate and be thankful.
I had always read the Qur'an in the afternoons, alone, while the kids slept. Recently they have stopped taking their afternoon naps. Bummer, right?
Anyway,  this left me with no other option than to read it while they were up.
I begin to think of it as a good thing, I intended to plant early seeds of strong faith and love for God by reading out loud in front of them. So, one afternoon, I sat down with an air of excitement. I love it when the boys experience something new. I love to see how different  their reactions are towards the same situations.

So, in high spirits, I commenced what I thought would be a starting point to new afternoon activity for the three of us. I
read out loud to them and as expected, caught their attention at once. They dropped their toy trucks to the ground and scrambled towards the couch where I sat. I stole a glance and my proud heart watched them listen to the musical verses so very intently.
They couldn't have enough of it. Soon, they scurried over the couch and sat around me.
They hugged me and I hugged them back.
Then they tried to keep their fingers on the verses, trying to imitate what I was doing. Soon both their hands were discovering this fat blue book that they had never seen from so close before.
And then there it was.

rrrrrrrrrip!!!

OK, I kind of knew this would happen sometime or the other, but not just on the very first day!!

I looked down at the freshly torn page and then I looked at them. They looked back with eyes that knew something just went wrong.
I don't know which one of them did it, but my heart tore equally as the page I held in my hand.

After that moment of silence, I read on...

...and in my torn heart I knew that a well torn book is well read book...and I hoped that God would consider this tear better than the dust it would have other wise collected, sitting unread on my book shelf...and I prayed  that the love for knowledge of God would grow with every new tear.