I sit in my room looking at all the boxes around me. Some are packed with my clothes, some with shoes and some are empty. So far, I’ve only packed one of my closets and I’m already running out of boxes. Ironically, even though I’ve started packing, I have no idea where I am going to move. My husband and I have been looking for a new home for three months now but we haven’t found anything that we like yet and we have to move out in two weeks.

Just thinking about this made me realize how much time and effort we are putting into finding “the perfect home.” We want it to have a certain number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The appliances in the kitchen have to be amazing. We want hardwood floors and a lot of open space. Subhanallah, we have so many demands for a home we are going to live in only for a year or two! This is not even going to be our permanent home. It is simply a temporary dwelling; yet we are putting all our energy and efforts to make sure it is just right.

But what about our actual permanent home, the one in the akhira? How often do I sit and ponder about what I want it to look like and how I want it to be? How much effort do I put into making that home just right?

Our permanent homes are not in this dunya and the fact is that almost everyone knows this. Yet despite having this knowledge, we live in this world as though we will be here forever and we don’t give enough thought to the homes we will live in for eternity.

Certainly, Allah ta’ala has revealed to us the certainty of death, the certainty of the afterlife, the certainty that we will have homes in Paradise or Hellfire. After knowing all this, why don’t we put more time and effort into finding our real estate in Jannah?

As I’ve been going through my closets and packing my clothes, I packed a box called “Donations.” Any clothes that I don’t wear, that I don’t like or that I don’t fit right, I throw them in that box and forget about them.

But when we go towards our permanent homes in the akhira, we will not be able to choose what we pack and what we take with us. No, we will not have neat little boxes with all our nice clothes and belongings, while the old, dirty things will be left in a donations box. We will take everything with us, the good, the bad and the ugly. We won’t be able to choose only our good deeds and our kind words to show to Allah subhanna wa ta’ala. All of our bad deeds, all of our sins, all of the gossip and lies will be right there with us. We won’t be able to hide them, nor pass them on to someone else. They will be with us, affecting the verdict of whether we will go to Paradise or the Hellfire.

Realizing this, I hope to make a conscious effort of creating my home in Paradise, the perfect home that I want to live in for eternity. I hope to seek repentance for my sins, so I don’t have to take my bad deeds with me in front of Allah ta’ala on the Day of Judgment.

May we all be neighbors in our perfect homes in Jannah, inshaAllah. Ameen!