Salaam.
A verse you likely already know by heart — slow down with it anyway.
فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا
إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا
Fa-inna maʿa al-ʿusri yusrā. Inna maʿa al-ʿusri yusrā.
"So, surely with hardship comes ease. Surely with ˹that˺ hardship comes ˹more˺ ease." — Surah Ash-Sharḥ 94:5–6 (Khattab)
Read it once and it sounds like a promise about later: get through this, and ease is waiting on the other side. But that isn't quite what it says. The word is with. Not after the hardship, not once it lifts — with it, in the same stretch of road, not the next one over. The ease isn't only somewhere ahead of you; the verse places it with the hardship itself. And then it says it again — the same words, the same promise.
O Allah, when hardship feels heavy, help me remember that You have placed ease with it.