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  • Writer's pictureKaty D-H

Why it’s ok to be on the floor




Here's me reading it. x


I don’t believe in ironing.


Does anyone ever really iron anymore? Except for a wedding of course, then a very important part of getting ready is to run around the house in your underwear shouting at each other about where we actually keep the stupid thing...or is that just us?


I feel that people who still iron need to be told the good news: the war on creases is over! We have decided to live with each other and get on with our lives.


I also do not believe in dusting. Unless there is dust so thick and opaque that the dust itself needs dusting. Then something has to be done.


But in general I live quite happily with my own dirt and skin particles floating around me, collecting on my photo frames and storage solutions.




“He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:14


Lying here on my bed under an unwashed duvet and a heavy sky I think I feel exactly like a layer of dust. A remnant of yesterday’s skin, colourless and collapsed all over the surfaces.

Why are we so surprised that the trauma of the past two years has left us so uninspired and drab? Trauma doesn’t make us sparkle and teach us wonderful lessons, it makes us exhausted.




“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7


We are made of it. This dust. This layer of grief and death and nothingness. I am human with limits and mess and desperate incapability to survive on my own.


There are things that are NOT OK right now. How often I whisper from the floor on which I am crumpled...I can’t do this! Or more then that, I am not enough for this.


Anyone else here in the dust? Not feeling enough? Highly conscious of their limits? Wrung out by fear or death? Hollow?

Hi other human. We’re the same. Nice to know I’m not alone.


I wrote a blog a few months ago about things that offered me light in coming to grips with having chronic fatigue. Those thoughts helped me and I wanted to share them, but the truth is, I am not over it. Finding beauty in a horrible place does not stop it being horrible. I still hate it. I still rail against it and get frustrated and sweary every bad day I have. ME is not a good thing. There is no magic lesson that once you’ve learnt it makes sickness, or death or any of the pain of our lives ok. It’s not ok. God doesn’t think it is either. But even in the darkest corners of the darkest places of my death-ridden dust, He is there.




There isn't only dust in the creation of humans. There is breath.


“[God]...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life...”


The other part of humanity is “breath”.


The actual and very breath of God.


I watch the dust in streams of sideways light, flecks of gold hung suspended in the window. As he breathes we are lifted into full humanity, we are held as if in flight. We catch the light.


This is dust and breath. We are dead skin made alive. We are present, and God is present. He is with us in the dust. And that transforms it.



Even more than this, when God made us we were held in his hands and kissed into living. Could there be a more intimate way to be born?


To be kissed into life.


What an image of the love of our Father God, who before we could offer him any contribution at all, kissed us and gave us himself.


As I held my lovely little niece this summer I was thinking about this kind of love. I love her because she is of infinite value to me, because she is here, because she is her. She offers me nothing and gives even her parents nothing, except dirty nappies and sleep deprivation. And yet oh how much she is loved! And how she fills us with joy. And what is this compared to Gods love for us?



His breath is there in the beginning. He loves us from the start. He shares himself with us, he gives us his presence.


I am dust but also I carry his breath. I am carried by his love for me, lit by his presence. It is ok to be on the floor because he is there too, which elevates my dregs into something wonderful.


So my dusty friend I am finding not a cure, but I am finding rest, in accepting that I am dust. Dust in the shards of window light. The very nature of humanity is magical: recycled stars made alive with the breath of God.


There’s relief for me in the fact that I don’t have to make my own magic, my own light. I can stay dust. I don’t have to graduate or find the deep and meaningful lesson in my illness to make it ok that I am sick. We don’t have to scrabble around trying to find some silver lining to the complete devastation of the pandemic. We don't have to rise above our circumstances or live our best lives. We just need to hang out in the window. And enjoy the dance with the other pieces of dust. Together we look pretty special don't you think?



Really, this is a letter to those I love so much. You are dust and you are breath and when I catch Jesus glinting off your life, off who you are, you are mesmerisingly beautiful.

Who didn’t wonder when they were children what those bits of light were in the window, hovering over the carpet. Fairies perhaps? Tiny bits of the sun? Almost definitely magic.


But after all, only dust.




Katy x


I would love to hear from you! Please do leave me a comment or send me a message.


Feel free to pass on to anyone else who might be feeling a little dusty too. It is such a joy to me when this feels like sharing.




© Words, images and audio, Katy Hollamby 2021




Want to read some more?


Read about feeling lost here.




Read more about the lights I found in the dark here.







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