Dusty

I forced myself out of the comfy bed after lying awake for an hour. It was way before I would normally get up, especially on a beach vacay day, but it was nice to be alone in the old beach house. Everyone else was having no problem sleeping in.

I padded across the wide-planked floor and semi-quietly exited through the creaky screen door.  The weathered swing on the screened porch called me for a moment, but I realized that the sunrise would be easier to see from the beach. Grabbing a towel, I made my way down the wooden stairs, worn by sun and saltwater, onto the cool, morning sand. It all felt calming to my bare feet and to my soul.

Between me and the Atlantic Ocean, a choir of sea oats swayed in unison in the brisk July wind inviting me to join them. Snuggling into a pile of sand, I stared into the horizon and waited. Only a few other early-risers speckled the wide beach along with the ever-present seagulls. With the rhythmic lapping of the incoming tide setting the pace of my thoughts like a cosmic metronome, I began to thank God for this morning and all the other great things He had given me.

Then, out of His abundant treasure trove, He gave me this gift:

and this:

Spectacular. Amazing. Beautiful. Impossible to truly capture with a camera or describe with words and it was only my first blessing of the day. After the sun had fully cleared the horizon and dulled from fiery orange to bright yellow, I dusted myself off to begin my short walk back to the house. As soon as I passed the sea oats, I saw him.

There, directly in my path, was a solitary baby sea turtle. He was almost covered in sand, moving slowly in a circle. Knowing just enough to know that people shouldn’t ordinarily interfere with these little treasures, I decided to scoop him up along with as much sand as possible in my two hands and turned back to the beach.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a lady with a sea turtle patrol T-shirt was there and I motioned her over. She was out looking for turtle tracks because this was, it turns out, turtle-hatching season. It was concerning, she confirmed, that this little guy was all alone. She instructed me to put him on the beach a couple of yards from the water line and we could quickly see why he was alone and why he was moving in circles. His left front flipper was damaged.

In spite of that, he was still instinctively moving for the ocean but stopped, seemingly out of  energy, after a minute or two of striving. I wondered if he was going to make it and wanted to help, but knew that, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, these babies need to go through this early struggle. Then, when he appeared to have given up, the frothy edge of saltwater kissed his face and seemed to breathe new life into him. Three flippers began frantically beating the wet sand. Another wave washed over him, cleaning him of matted sand before it went back out and my little dusty friend was on a mission. Even the damaged flipper was moving and I imagined him calling out to his family, “Hey guys, wait up!”

Two more waves and he was a part of the ocean, part of an ancient tale of birth, struggle and freedom. I said my goodbyes to the sea turtle lady and headed back to the house stopping again at the place I found him to see if there might be any other stragglers. There were none, but, now that I knew what I was looking for, the sight of the innumerable turtle tracks that had surrounded him astounded me and I thought with empathy of how much he had endured. He would have hatched with as many as a hundred siblings and all would have headed to the ocean across the moonlit beach like a pot of water boiling over on my stove. And there he was, with his gimpy flipper, his brothers and sisters crawling instinctively over him carelessly throwing sand onto him as they went along their way.

Ever feel that way? I have. Struggling with pain that others can’t see as they brush past, busy with their plans, their dreams and their own pain, I have floundered around moving in circles until God has stooped down to gently lift me. Sometimes He used a aptly-timed song, Bible verse or sermon; other times, He used a friend placed in my life for that moment. Every now and then, He’s even pulled me out of my despair by sending me someone else to rescue.

I’m glad I was there for Dusty. I named him Dusty. The sea turtle lady said they often return to their birthplaces in forty years. So, if you’re at Folly Beach in 2057 and see a big sea turtle with a weak left flipper, tell him ‘hello’ for me.