“You can never tell to what untold glories any humble path may lead, if you only follow for long enough.”
Lilias Trotter
When I think about the early days of April, everything melds into a blur of color and light and dusts.
A dear friend turned 18. I have one week’s worth of dual enrollment classes to complete. There is one day until a makeshift graduation ceremony with other seniors here. One season until the next one starts. So many firsts and lasts and in-betweens.
I knew this year would be bittersweet.
What I didn’t expect was to have a hard time letting go of the dusts.
Sahara Sands and Springtime Rains
In West Africa, instead of Winter, we have Harmattan. Every Harmattan, sands from the Sahara drift in on the wind and settle over the sky. Blue shifts to orange, the mold of rainy season’s touch is dried up by the clouds of dust, and a thick, heavy air coats the earth.
Harmattan is marked by feet stained red from sandy roads, houses layered in dust, and cracked, dry skin from the lack of water.
But, then, hot season drifts in.
In hot season, the sun finds new strength and washes away all the haze in the sky, beaming light into the endless blue. But even in hot season…the dusts aren’t totally cleared. They simply spread out, gathering in little places on the ground, settling in untouched corners.
It isn’t until the rain comes that the dusts disappear into the softened earth.
Right now, we’re waiting on the ends of hot season. The days are still drenched in sunshine and there are places where the ground is still cracked with lack of water.
But we have had a few rains. A few heavy, strong, rushing storms.
And more will come.
I was expecting this. I was waiting for this. Rain is one of my favorite things on earth.
But this time the rain is bittersweet…because, for me, it means letting go of the dusts for the last time.
The Beauty in Dusty Things
During Harmattan, my family traveled to visit some people who live closer to the Sahara and, thus, in more dust. While there, my dear friend and I took a walk in search of flowers. I know it sounds odd – to look for flowers in an arid place, I mean – but, it is surprising how many lovely things still bloom in desert places.
I gathered the flowers up in my shawl and carried them throughout the entire trip back to our town, planning to make a wreath when I returned. Except, school started the next day and I spent the next afternoon practicing piano and the next day I went to market with my teammate and…well, life happened. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I realized the flowers had been sitting on my desk, gathering dusts, for months.
I knew I should throw them out, but I didn’t want to. They were still beautiful. They had dried into a lovely bouquet and I didn’t want to let them go. So, I left them there. And more time passed.
Finally, after a number of waterless days, it rained. As it rained, I remembered the dried flowers collecting dust in my room. I went and found them, gathered them up, took them outside, and left them on the ground to be washed away with all the other dusts of the season.
Then, I gathered new flowers and made a springtime wreath.
To Everything a Season
The trouble with letting go of my dried flowers wasn’t really within the flowers. It was the concept. Letting go of these also, in some ways, meant letting go of my last dusty season in West Africa. And I don’t have any particular love for harmattan. In fact, I much prefer rainy season.
But I do have a love for what’s familiar and nostalgic and steady.
Letting go of the dusts means letting new light in. It means emptying life of things that were good to have, but are no longer good to keep. Not because their value has changed, but because their role in my life has changed. There was a time for these dusts. But that time is passing. Now is the time for letting go of the dusts and moving on to new things.
Even if the dusts were good and right for the last season, if I hold onto them they will only cloud my vision for what He wills for me to learn, see, and love in the next season.
He Remembers that We are Dust
As I’ve thought about letting go of the dusts – the treasures that crumble into broken things when they no longer fit the season – I have also been thinking about humans being dust. Similar to how the constant uprooting of this life requires loss, the uprooting of humanity from the Garden was full of loss. Yet, even the curse of sin is redeemed by the Son of Man.
The psalmist writes,
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him– Psalm 103:13-17
When He banned us from the Garden, He remembered we were dust. When Christ prayed in Gethsemane before the horror of the cross, He remembered we were dust. And as the Spirit dwells within the temples of lowly saints, He remembers we are dust.
He knows that just like the rain washes away all memory of Harmattan sands, so also the wind passes over our lives and the earth forgets we ever touched it.
The uprootings of this earth all go back to the perfect Garden where a rebellion of Dusts rose against the God of holiness and light. And even as God watched the first humans walk away from the perfect place He made for them, His heart was determined to redeem the broken things…to resurrect the dusts.
And, still, in our quieter, smaller, simpler griefs in this fallen world…He is resurrecting dusts. He is telling us to let go, so that He can give us the lessons and light of something new.
Letting the Dusts Go, Letting the Light In
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
– Isaiah 43:18-19
Isaiah 43 is often taken out of context and I don’t cite it to say that it literally means the same for us as it did when it was first given. I’m simply citing it because it reveals the redeeming nature of our God.
He is a God who delights to make things new. He is the God of springtime and morning buds and blooming things. And as I let go of these dusts, He is breathing new things into my heart too.
I suppose it is an ongoing process and no one really knows what letting go looks like until it is done. Even in the middle of it, the ending is blurred by the mind’s hesitation. But the end of this season does not concern me so long as it promises the beginning of a new one.
Ultimately, all the seasons of this earth are melded together for the journey to the eternal land and that is comfort enough.
As Paul said, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13-14.
Knowing Jesus is the Light that always filters in makes letting go of the dusts much lovelier. Because, after all, it is only by His light that the dusts were made beautiful to begin with.
As they drift out the window, as they’re caught up in the winds of shifting seasons and drifting days, I will smile one last time at how lovely they look caught up in the light. And I will wait, eagerly, for the new wonder I will behold when the next season takes its hold.
Maybe now you can too.
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