Chaos of the Mind

What do you do when you are bored? If you are waiting for something and have an extra minute, where does your mind go or what do you grab?

From being in Uganda over the past two weeks, I have slipped back into patterns that I had from before we  moved to South Sudan. I've slipped back into needing my mind to be occupied all of the time. If I have a spare second, I grab my phone. If I have two spare seconds, I open my laptop and get on Facebook... or check my e-mail... again. I run to something that will entertain me and give me something interesting to look at or think about.

I will be the first to tell you that I love the internet. I think God has used the internet in many great ways. I am most grateful that it allows us to stay connected with friends and family in the States and keep up-to-date with what is going on with our loved ones. We find great joy in seeing cute pictures and videos of our growing nieces and nephews and receiving e-mails from friends and supporters.

However, I'm learning more and more that being so connected has done terrible things for our minds. It causes us to fill the empty spaces in our days with things that are meaningless. It creates noise where there used to be silence and time for contemplation and prayer. I process and pray a lot less when I have the internet at my fingertips. And you know what, most days I prefer that. I think that is precisely how Satan has used the internet (among many other ways...). He uses it as a trap for our minds. Something that can be so good and break so many communication barriers, but it can also clutter our minds to the point where we are distracted, self-consumed and busied.

I actually had the thought the other day that I am excited to go back to Mundri where we have to walk to get to the internet. We have to make an effort and take time out of the day to get online. It is not readily available. I usually complain about that when I am in Mundri, however, I am now becoming very grateful for it. The lack of accessibility to the internet allows me to have the head-space to pray and process and think through things that happen in the day. It allows space for my mind to be quiet and figure out how I am truly doing emotionally. I am grateful that we have the ability to "un-plug" and disconnect on a regular basis because it allows us to connect to those around us and to God. When I'm waiting in line in America and I'm bored, I would whip out my phone and distract myself from the boredom. When I am bored in the market in Mundri, I find someone to talk with and connect to (even if it is just by giggling at each other since the language barrier is still a challenge...).

I'm grateful that something that I found to be a huge inconvenience two weeks ago I now see to be a blessing. I thought it was so annoying that we couldn't check our e-mail at our own house and that I could not check Facebook at any given moment. But now I am finding that the empty spaces in the day are a huge blessing. They allow me to be still before the Lord and to process and think. When my mind is not cluttered by the noise of T.V. and the internet, it has space to process the new Moru words I am learning and to think through how to best love those around me. I'm grateful that life in Mundri allows for more silence and less chaos (of the mind at least ;)).