Reading The Prophet After Everything

My mom gave me an old, worn-out copy of The Prophet in December 2023 while I was here in New Jersey. It had been sitting in her stash for years -- yellowed pages, softened spine, the kind of book that looks like it has survived more than one lifetime.

I only started reading it yesterday.

And I was not prepared.

Love.
Marriage.
Children.
Prayer.
Farewell.

Those were the sections that hit me really, really hard -- not as beautiful poetry, but as uncomfortable truth.

 
On Love

Almustafa says love will crown you and crucify you.

I used to think that was dramatic language. Now I understand it is not dramatic at all. It is honest.

I loved deeply. I did not love halfway. I did not enter marriage casually. I endured. I stayed. I sacrificed. I mothered. I carried emotional weight that was not always equally shared.

Love did not just give me joy. It broke me open. It exposed my fears. It tested my pride. It revealed how much I could tolerate before collapsing. It showed me how far I was willing to stretch to keep something alive.

And here is the truth I am finally admitting to myself:

The fact that my marriage failed does not mean I failed at love.

It means I loved fully.

If anything, I loved beyond comfort. And sometimes, that kind of love reshapes you through pain.

I was not foolish. I was faithful to love.

 
On Marriage

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”

That line unsettled me.

Marriage is not supposed to suffocate. It is not supposed to erase identity. Two pillars must stand apart yet upright.

In my marriage, I stood. I tried to keep standing. I tried to preserve the structure.

But one pillar cannot hold a temple alone.

When one grows and the other resists growth…
When one carries emotional responsibility and the other withdraws…
When animosity replaces partnership…

That is not sacred space. That is imbalance.

I see now that I was trying to sustain something that required two steady pillars. I was exhausting myself trying to compensate for what was missing.

That realization hurts.

But it also frees me from the quiet accusation that I simply “wasn’t enough.”

Marriage requires two whole people. Not one person over-functioning for two.

 
On Children

“Your children are not your children.”

That one pierced me.

I did not try to own my children. I poured into them. I protected them. I sacrificed for them. I built foundations so they could stand strong.

And now there is distance.

It feels like abandonment. It feels like rejection. It feels like something I must have done wrong.

But Gibran’s words forced me to confront something uncomfortable:

They are separate souls.

They have their own journeys -- including their own blind spots, pride, confusion, and emotional immaturity. I cannot force them to see me correctly. I cannot force them to defend me. I cannot force their father to help bridge the emotional gap. I cannot script their emotional development.

I carried them in my body.

But I cannot carry their adulthood.

That is the part no one prepares a mother for.

Their distance is not necessarily a verdict on my motherhood. It may simply be a chapter in their growth -- one that wounds me deeply, but does not erase who I was to them.

I can love them. I cannot control their path.

That is the most painful release.

 
On Prayer

When I reached the section on prayer, I expected comfort.

Instead, I felt exposed.

He says not to pray only in sorrow. Not only in need. Not only in desperation.

And I realized how often I have prayed in survival mode.

I have prayed through a failing marriage.
I have prayed through emotional abandonment.
I have prayed through health scares and silent nights.
I have prayed when I felt alone.
I have prayed when I felt misunderstood.

Those prayers were real.

But what struck me was this:

Prayer is not begging.
Prayer is not bargaining.
Prayer is not panic.

Prayer is connection.

It is not about informing God of my needs. It is about opening myself.

Prayer does not always fix marriages.
It does not force children back.
It does not instantly heal illness.

But it stabilizes the soul.

It softens bitterness.
It loosens resentment.
It quiets panic.

Maybe prayer is less “Fix this for me” and more “Strengthen me within this.”

That thought humbles me.

I do not have to grip everything so tightly.

I can pray without performing.
Without explaining.
Without solving.

Prayer changes me more than it changes circumstances.

And maybe that is the deeper miracle.

 
On Farewell

“A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”

When I read that, I did not think of reincarnation first.

I thought of reinvention.

I have lived multiple lifetimes inside this one body.

The young wife who believed endurance was strength.
The mother who carried everything quietly.
The woman who stayed from 1996 to 2018 in a marriage that did not make her happy.
The woman who walked away.
The mother who now feels the ache of distance.
The woman managing her health, her vulnerabilities, her aging body.
The woman rebuilding identity piece by piece.

I am not the same woman I was ten years ago. I am not the same woman I was even five years ago.

Parts of me have died.

Parts of me have been born.

The line about being borne again feels less mystical and more personal.

I am already that “other woman.”

Not another person -- but another version of myself.

Stripped.
More aware.
Less naïve.
Still capable of love.
Still wounded.
Still standing.

Reading this old, worn-out book now -- not when it was handed to me, but now -- feels intentional.

I was not ready before.

Now I am reading it not as literature, but as a mirror.

Love refined me.
Marriage revealed imbalance.
Motherhood taught me release.
Prayer is teaching me surrender.
Farewell is teaching me rebirth.

My ex-husband’s indifference does not erase my worth.
My children’s distance does not erase my motherhood.
My health challenges do not erase my resilience.

If anything, they prove I have lived deeply.

I am still here.

Still becoming.

And maybe this book found its way back into my hands at exactly the right time.

___________________________

 

I did not read The Prophet as a detached observer. I read it as a woman who has loved deeply, stayed too long, endured silently, mothered fiercely, prayed desperately, and survived quietly. Every page felt like it was peeling something open in me. I see now that my love did not fail — it refined me. My marriage did not collapse because I was weak — it revealed imbalance I tried to carry alone. My children’s distance does not erase my motherhood — it forces me to release what I cannot control. My prayers are no longer just cries for rescue — they are lessons in surrender. And every goodbye I have lived through is not the end of me, but the making of another version of me. I am not destroyed. I am becoming.