When Life Feels Out of Measure: A Moment with Surah Al-A’la

There are days when everything feels misaligned.

Not dramatically wrong just... not right.

Your routines still function. You still reply to emails, finish tasks, show up. But inside, something’s off. As if you’ve drifted slightly to the left of your own life, watching it unfold from a step away.

I had one of those days.

Not a crisis.

Just a quiet ache that followed me like a shadow. It made food taste dull. Conversations felt scripted. The sky looked too wide.

That evening, I sat on the floor. No candles. No plans. Just silence and a browser tab open a habit I’d formed recently. On a page with all 114 chapters of the Qur’an.

I didn’t pick one consciously. My eyes simply landed on Surah Al-A’la.

"Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High."

That was the first line.

It didn’t ask for understanding. It just asked for recognition.

Glorify not question, not argue, not fix just glorify.

The One who is above all that’s broken.

I kept reading.

"Who created and proportioned."

And there it was.

Proportioned.

Measured.

Something in me paused.

I realized the ache I’d been feeling all day was the sense that things were out of proportion. Too fast. Too loud. Too shallow. My energy didn’t match my environment. My thoughts didn’t match my responsibilities.

But here was a verse timeless and still telling me that there is One who measures, who creates not just existence, but balance.

"Who determined and guided."

It continued.

I thought about how often I feel lost even while doing everything “right.”

And yet, this verse didn’t say you must find guidance.

It said: He guided.

Already.

Before we asked. Before we noticed.

Then the imagery shifted:

"Who brings forth the pasture and then makes it black stubble."

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

It wasn’t about grass. Not really.

It was about life. Growth. Beauty. And how even the most vibrant moments the greenest fade. That fading isn’t failure. It’s built in. It’s divine.

And just like that, the ache made sense.

What I had been feeling wasn’t misalignment. It was impermanence.

And the surah didn’t try to fix it. It named it. It honored it.

Verse by verse, the chapter moved from creation to memory, from divine will to gentle warning.

It spoke of reminders, and how only those who fear God will truly remember.

It described those who turn away, the ones most unfortunate the ones who prefer dust over light.

And then it landed softly, with comfort:

"He has certainly succeeded who purifies himself,

And mentions the name of his Lord and prays."

It didn’t say “who perfects himself” only purifies.

Removes. Releases. Unclutters.

Like breathing out.

And in that moment, I realized:

I wasn’t broken.

I wasn’t lost.

I was just... full.

Full of noise, tasks, comparisons.

And Surah Al-A’la offered a way back to stillness not by solving, but by naming, by reminding, by lifting the gaze upward.

I’ve read many chapters before. Some longer, some more dramatic. But this one short, restrained, unwavering felt like a hand on the shoulder.

I didn’t need commentary. I didn’t need a lecture.

I needed the sound of balance.

And that night, it arrived.

I read it again the next day. On my phone, quietly, through a site I’d bookmarked: ayet.online

Simple page. Clean layout. Just the words. No noise.

But honestly, it didn’t matter where I read it.

What mattered was that it reached me when I couldn’t reach myself.

If your day ever feels slightly out of rhythm

If something silent is aching and you can’t explain why

Try opening Al-A’la.

Not to solve the feeling.

But to remember the One who measured everything including the moment you’re in.