Father, why can’t I be more like the sunflowers? Why can’t I face the sun as faithful and hopeful as them? Why do I steer my eyes to every distraction around me except the abundance of the light, the power of its healing grace, the warmth of its love? Oh why, do I let the darkness of this world distract myself from the light that is literally right in front of me?
As I stand in this field of confusion one thing is clear: I’m embarrassed. Not because I don’t see the sunflowers, but because I’m not facing with them. I’m not receiving the light they’re receiving, not soaking up the source I so desperately need. I feel foolish, facing away.
I suddenly, for the first time, see my loneliness outwardly. How long have people been watching? How long have I been starving my soul from what it needs? Heavy in humility I turn, my eyelids lifting from the focus of my dirty shoes to the bright sun. It’s so illuminating I have to squint my eyes .But I decide I’m okay with it because the sun is so warm I’m held captive by its radiant embrace. It’s then that I truly understand why all the sunflowers never stop facing the sun and are always reverently still; they spend their days soaking in light so they can live in fulfillment. I wanted that. Was it utterly ridiculous to be jealous of a flower?
But then it hit me: this is what people meant by the fulfillment of God’s love in us. This is what God meant when He said, “You will lack nothing.”
I stopped to look around and all the sunflower heads turned into faces. I didn’t feel like the lonely person, the judged person, anymore. I saw life as the reality it was: we were all just broken people facing the Son. None of us better than the other. Sure, maybe some faced the Son sooner than others and that’s why I had felt so lonely in the anxious parts of my soul. But not anymore -- I didn’t need to, didn’t want to. I turned wading deeper into the field.There was a sense of belonging in these faces. I skirted left. I was finding answers; I pushed and weaved through the rows, the vines, the bees, the pollen. For the first time ever I understood love. As I kept wadding the intensity of the light got stronger. I felt a satisfaction to the aching. I stopped one more time to take in the sun. I was giving in to this transformation. What was causing it? The Son’s love. That was it, that wall all. As I basked all my confusion at God drained. He had never been hiding, I just had never made time to fully stop, turn, choose….but I was done wallowing in my brokenness. I was ready to choose the light.
