Two in three Britons suffer from “Nomophobia” screamed my newspaper. Nomophobia! Now what could that be? I wondered. ‘Short for No-Mobile-Phone Phobia, research has found 2 in 3 mobile users in Britain are terrified of being without their phones. Their number has actually risen from 53 to 66 per cent in the past four years, the Daily Mail reported. Young adults suffered the most!’

Ha, I exclaimed!  So was this paper telling me I had some kind of neurotic disorder so fancifully termed and conveniently explained? Because if it did, I could be the next case study  for the scholars in Yale for their project on “Abnormally Normal Human Tendencies”  It’s not just my phone I can’t part with, there is also my favourite series I watch online; my brand of facewash and shampoo I’m loyal to with the core of my heart, kidney and intestines; am paralysed if I don’t flood the virtual world with my tweets, posts, updates, blogs, likes and what nots; I go weak on my knees when entering a clothes shop and have money in my card to splurge; feel suffocated when the internet does not connect… these are things I just can’t do without.

And I thought it was just too normal to fear departing with my beloved little precious thing of a phone. Oh c’mon! How could they ever be serious!

And this is only the tip of the ice-berg. Repeatedly washing hands, or frenzying around the room fretting it’s not as clean as you wanted it to be-it’s obsessive compulsive disorder. So if I were to define myself in such a case- I would be a neurotic, a maniac, an addict!

It seems funny how certain things in life are not as normal as it seems to be.

Does this sound similar?

Because if it does, there is a mighty huge sympathiser with you (other than me, of course) and He happens to be an even bigger addict and a lover. He is the one who’s passed on His characteristics to you. He braves these cravings and addictions too! One night without spilling His heart to His beloved, He feels so restless, and longs and desires to hear one word from us. He stays engrossed writing our destinies for us, so occupied working on us to make us what we ought to be. He was so busy parting the Red Sea, sending manna and quail, fighting down mega sized enemies, caught up in His own world of love that He totally ignored the fact that the Israelites would be unfaithful to Him some day. He excitedly mixes orange and purple to paint a sun set for our window.  It’s just that we’re so absorbed in our bubbles doing normal ordinary things, that we miss out on the more normal yet extraordinary things in our lives.

While we fret parting from our phones, He worries parting from us. And it was in such a harried moment, when He knew there is going to be a real eternal parting soon, that God sent His Son Jesus for us, so He could stay bound to us. Strange how all of it seems so insignificant when it’s just our phones and us.

As my friend posted, Falling in love (with the phone, in this case) is beautiful but temporary; however, encountering the one who is Love, is mesmerising yet eternal. So it’s ok if you’re an addict, a maniac, a wretch, as long as it’s for the one who’s crazy in love with us. The world could do with some No-Yahweh phobics!

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)