i’ve been thinking an awful lot about thinking. (if you can count on anyone to take the meta meta thing too far, it’s me.) and sorting through the glut of blogs that i subscribe to, i stumbled across a few sentences that seemed to name me.

in a post on segullah, titled battle in our brains, i read this sentence:

The battle today, between Babylon and Zion, is being waged between the synapses in our brains.

the original discussion goes into the creation of synapses and addiction to information, but as someone who has struggled with mental health this sentence means something different to me.

i think i often compare myself in matters of faith and covenant keeping to others — i think about those who joined the early mormon church, pioneers, i think about mothers just around the block who balance two armfuls of children, i think about my parents who have created this enviable family. i spend a lot of my time deciding that i have failed. at something. somehow. i feel like my challenges are not as heroic. i am not carrying children across a frozen stream and then dying of frostbite. i am not pushing a handcart across the vastness of the new territories.

and then i read that sentence and i think it is articulating something that God has been trying to teach me these last few months. the battle that i am waging is between the synapses of my own brain. and it is still a real battle. and an important battle. perhaps not as obvious or easy to cheer on, but it is there nonetheless. and i think our generation will spend more time wrestling our own minds than wrestling anything physical in our quest to live by faith.

so, i think the answer, at least when i am well enough for this kind of answer, is to drown my mind in the scriptures, to make sure that there is enough God between the synapses in my brain. because i really do believe that all is healed in Him.

and when i’m not well enough for that, i think it’s important to remember that sometimes you aren’t well. and being unwell between the synapses in your brain takes just as much care and attention as being ill elsewhere in your body.

so take care of yourself. and know that we are in a whole generation who wage the war in our minds.