Sunflowers

I love sunflowers.  They're always in full bloom in the late summer & early fall.  That was cross country season for me.  As a cross country team we'd put sunflowers in our ponytails & braids for our races.  It was our thing as a team...and maybe we thought it'd bring us a bit of good luck.

Then there  were the sunflowers alongside the road of River road.  River road was the most awesome dirt road behind my house growing up.  Quiet & empty except for the regulars I'd pass on my early morning runs- Mr. Bailey, my 7th grade math teacher walking with his large walking stick & Kathleen Davis out for her early morning run.    Whenever I was home from school I'd begin my run down that road.  I had a 6 mile loop that I consistently ran.  I thought, I prayed, I enjoyed the stillness.  I loved watching the sunrise.  I loved watching the sunflowers.   They always followed the sun.  I thought a lot about that symbolism on my runs.  Following the sun.  I thought of how I wanted my life to follow the Son.

I later served a mission in Spain.  I learned the spanish word for sunflower.  Girasol.  I was intrigued by it's translation- turn to the sun.

This year was our first year planting a garden.  This year was also a terrible drought.  Needless to say, after a few weekends out of town, our garden shriveled up & died...except for the weeds of coarse, and one sunflower (the other sunflower growing, was sadly mistaken for a weed & uprooted before its time).  Chad & me have talked about how our garden & this sunflower is so much like life.  We planted our garden with such great enthusiasm & hopes.  Then, unexpected difficulties arose.  Our hopes never came to fruition...except for this one sunflower.  It was like our little ray of hope.  Our little miracle that seems to beckon us to not give up on gardening...just like we never should give up on those things we pursue in life.

So once again, a sunflower has taught me a profound life lesson.