Winking Sunflowers

I've been thinking about our sad little garden again. It's just so brown, and it's time to get the plots ready for next year. The weeks of 100 degree temps were just too much. But the sunflower "patch" we had was very interesting and the plants did most of their blooming before the worst of the hot spell came.

I had tons of dried seeds from last year's beautiful bounty, so this spring we just scattered hundreds of those leftovers in a clear part of our pasture. I think every seed germinated and sprouted, and I was so excited! My thumb is only green when I'm using green paint, so this was just a wondrous surprise.

Well, the plants just never quite looked "normal" but grew tall nonetheless. Some of the plants began to show signs of blooming, but in the oddest places on the plant. Finally some flowers began to emerge, but these were no ordinary blooms. Some were half-flowers, some had only a few petals, some had oval shapes with tons of petals, some looked as if they were giant eyes winking, and many were what my daughter deemed "conjoined twin" blooms.

But these unique flowers didn't seem to know that they were odd or misshapen. They bloomed with such abandon and reached heavenward just as proudly as if they'd been prize-winning roses. Funny how the Lord used those little oddball flowers to teach one of my girls a wonderful lesson. She suffered a really serious injury to her foot last fall, and was on crutches almost 6 months. It sidelined her from her passion of running cross country until recently when she started training again. Needless to say, it has been, and continues to be a painfully slow process, and discouragement has settled in at times. We were reminded of the joy in reaching heavenward, in spite of circumstances, or even because of them. The Lord isn't really concerned with what the offering "looks" like, but in the fact that we're giving Him what we have.