There are a six things in life of which I will never tire:
- the music of John Mark McMillan
- WORDS (of yellowed paper & ink & love)
- my home & my family
- diagrams outlining photosynthesis
- plants & all things green
- dust.
Dust everywhere. Dust in my shoes and dust in my hair and dust in my pores and dust in my mind. Although this obsession with dust may seem strange, it’s been slow growing, as dust often does, in layers over my heart for nearly eighteen years.
I think this dust-love story began when I was around the age of five. After hearing about the plight of orphans in Eastern Europe, I crafted an offering box out of disposed cardboard and collected change wherever I went. In total, I raised a little over two hundred dollars and whole lot of love to send over the ocean. Around this time, my mama went on a mission trip to Mexico, and her travels sparked an interest in my heart to go and share in person. I began saving my pennies, putting them in the bank and labeling them for a future trip to Mexico like my mama had done. Although I didn’t realize this movement toward dust was significant (I just thought these were ordinary things any American kid would do), my parents recognized this other-worldly love story beginning to unfold in my life.
The next bit of flirting between me and the dirt of the earth is a little unclear to me. Around the age of twelve, I know that I was friendless and seeking. Through my prayers out of loneliness, God revealed to me that “missionary” was something I could be.
And in July of 2013, I went on my first trip to a foreign land of dusty roads and dusty cheeks and dusty soccer balls. I remember waking up early early early on the day of our departure, and knowing I was realizing the biggest dream of my life, a dream so big I hadn’t even bothered to give it a bullet point on a bucketlist.
And wow, I can’t even begin to describe the joy and peace and grace I experienced on this first date with dust.
July 25, 2013 was the last day our team was on the field. I’ll never forget that day; it was perfection. God’s joy and presence was tangible around us as we kicked up dust with our tennis shoes, running and jumping and kicking. I think I fell into a love that day of which I will never escape. It was a love dressed in dust, a love of a Savior and his precious children, a love that supersedes any love we can understand in human terms.
And this dust-love continued to grow from that day to the present.
I went to Peru in February of the following year, and found that Peruvian dust is my favorite of all the varieties. Four months after leaving Peru, I traveled to El Salvador and further developed my love for mountains and green things. As I continued going and growing, God continued to move me deeper into his love, a dusty sort of love that involves grace and truth and the Gospel.
But somewhere between the volcanic lake of El Salvador to the gorge of Cedarville, Ohio, I forgot about my dust-love. I don’t think the dust layers of Latin America on my heart had been washed clean by the abundance of the States. But I think the lure of a career and success and pretty things did cloud my vision more than free-flying dust particles in Nicaragua ever could. So I pursued other passions, like nitty-gritty concepts in biology such as photosynthesis and prokaryotic gene regulation.
As a college freshman and bible-believing girl, I tried to fit all the things I liked into a box–a box labeled “The Life and Future of Christianna”. And I found that not everything could or would fit into this box. In pursuing a life of knowledge, I found I hadn’t left much room in my box for living in dust with a people of dust. I felt uncomfortable inside my box, and over Christmas break, I began to feel anxious about my box.
The beginning of this semester was then characterized by anxiety. “What in the world am I going to do with my life? What do I want to do with it?” and other questions which were difficult to answer kept me up at night. I asked my parents, and mentors, and other persons of wisdom, and of course the Father, many questions about life-planning. But an uneasiness rested over my dusty heart.
God said nothing specific about my future, but emphasized the word “wait”. I didn’t want to be patient, though. I wanted to have a goal, make a plan to reach it, and execute said plan. So I kept asking, and asking, and asking.
And I keep asking, and asking, and asking. I haven’t found complete peace with my future yet, but God has still been faithful to me.
One Sunday morning, God reminded me of the dust, and my earthy love of which I had forgotten. He reminded me of July 25, 2013, bringing to mind the smells and the sounds and the sights which I processed through dusty lenses that day. I remembered the love and the joy I experience in obeying the Savior–living in and for him. And I knew, regardless of my vocation, I wanted to be his child, and to fall deeper into dusty love with him.
And so I am continuing in patience, in waiting, but also in seeking. My dusty heart has a home south of the equator. But my mind is stuffy and prideful and greedy. I know the Lord will uphold me, even if I find myself disappointed in my life’s trajectory, on the status of my box. I am in the process of removing some selfish dreams from my box to make more room for dust-collecting. Maybe someday I’ll have a mind saturated in dust, rather than just a heart covered in it. I’ll trust God to be the refiner of that especially rebellious organ, but I know he’s upholding me. He certainly holds the whole dusty world in his hands.
(Look at photos of the dusty places here –> VSCO journal)
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24
A Harvest of Joy 