Misty-eyed

Lombok Reflections

Misty-eyed

I hadn’t planned for anything significant. I simply wanted to take my daughter to see a waterfall during her visit to Lombok, a days outing, something different from my usual routine, a place where we could spend time together without distractions.

The walk was about thirty minutes through old steps and jungle paths. She took photos, asked questions, and we made our way down without much thought. It was just a simple father and daughter trip, nothing more.

But the moment we reached the clearing, everything shifted.

The waterfall’s roar swallowed up all other sound, pressing against our bodies like a living force. Mist spiralled upward, cooling our faces, settling in our hair, carrying the raw scent of stone and river. The entire space felt alive as if the jungle inhaled and exhaled around us. She stepped beneath the falling water first, jolting at the cold, laughing from deep within, and that sound, her laughter echoing against stone felt like a reminder of a time when she was small enough to sit on my shoulders. I followed, letting the icy water hammer into my back, stripping away the residue of weeks, of responsibilities, of unspoken weight. The world narrowed to water and breath. Nothing else existed.

And as we stepped aside, the waterfall continued its relentless rhythm, almost cleansing the mind in ways quiet moments never reach. The spray caught the sunlight differently with each second, shifting into tiny floating crystals that shimmered in the air. It felt as though the entire scene was preparing us. Calming us for something we did not yet realise was coming.

And then we both saw it.

A rainbow.

A full arc, bold and impossibly vivid, rising out of the mist with colours too sharp, too perfect to feel real. The kind of sight you expect to see in a photograph, not in front of your eyes. The mist carried the colours like a veil. Shifting, shimmering, yet completely intact, as though the entire moment had been crafted for no one but us.

SubhanAllah.

She turned to me, eyes soft, a quiet smile forming. One that didn’t need translation. The roar of the waterfall became background noise. The only thing that mattered was this shared stillness, this mutual witnessing of something that felt deliberately placed into our afternoon.

“And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and your colours. Indeed, in that are signs for people of knowledge.”

(Surah Ar-Rum 30:22)

The rainbow didn’t appear on the trail.

Not during the sweat, the heat, or the descent. Not while we were distracted or talking.

It appeared only after exhaustion softened us, after the cold shock slowed our thoughts, after something inside us settled. It appeared in the exact moment when our hearts were quiet enough to see.

And that is often how Allah teaches.

We want beauty without struggle, clarity without confusion, answers without patience. But Allah places His signs not at the start of the journey when we are rushing, distracted, or self-assured, but at the point when the heart has been humbled and softened enough to notice what has always been there. Without the crashing water, without the chaotic mist scattering the sunlight, without the noise that drowned out our thoughts, there would have been no rainbow. The difficulty was not separate from the beauty. It was the foundation for it.

“Indeed, with hardship comes ease.”

(Surah Ash-Sharh 94:6)

Ease is not always something waiting in the future. Sometimes it forms inside the hardship itself, In the middle of noise, fatigue, and struggle. How many times do we walk through a moment unaware that Allah is preparing a mercy we cannot yet see? Only when you stand in the exact place He intended, shaped by effort, softened by trial, do you realise the ease was already being written.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Wondrous is the affair of the believer.

Verily, all of his affairs are good…”

(Sahih Muslim 2999)

Sharing that moment with my daughter made it heavier and more beautiful. It wasn’t a private reflection I carried alone. It was a reminder written for two hearts at once. In the waterfall’s mist, I felt the weight of years. The distance, the growth, the changes, all momentarily quieted in a sign so gentle yet so powerful. A father and daughter, standing in front of a message designed by the One who knows exactly when the heart needs softness.

The Prophet ﷺ said,

“Allah is gentle and loves gentleness in all matters.”

(Sahih al-Bukhari 6927, Muslim 2593)

Some signs crash like thunder.

Some whisper like a breeze.

And some arrive as quiet, perfectly timed letters from Allah, written in colour, seen in stillness, received in synchrony.

That rainbow felt like one of those letters.

A message suspended in mist:

Your effort is seen.

Your bond is blessed.

My mercy surrounds you, even before you recognise its shape.

O Allah, open our hearts to Your signs and fill our lives with moments that draw us nearer to You. O Allah, grant us patience in hardship and clarity in ease. O Allah, protect the bonds between parents and children and guide them toward Your light. O Allah, surround us with Your mercy in every step, every climb, and every moment we do not yet understand. Ameen.