The Sunflower

This year, as most of the house projects were complete, I had more time to invest in the garden. In the spring, I pulled up the rest of the fast-growing vinca (which is pretty for places where not much else will grow but a waste in a full-sun plot) and began to move around and add new elements to the garden. Mom had pruned the azaleas way back last year and they grew in a healthy shape again. I thinned out the black-eyed susans and divided irises and salvia. I planted a lilac bush rescued from the scratch and dent last season and planted some seeds for annuals that a school family had given me.

I planted sunflower seeds along the carriage house wall. Out of the packet, about five little shoots came up. Only one survived.

The one that survived was amazing though. It grew and grew until it almost reached the second story window, but still no bud was forming. Finally, it bloomed. The bloom was much smaller than I would have expected for the tall stalk. Then, more blooms came and more and more. There were over thirty sunflowers on the same plant with more buds forming each day. I could easily see it from my kitchen window and watched bees and other pollinators relishing its nectar.

It made me smile every time I left my home and every time I returned. I tried to get pictures of it’s many unexpected stages, but I don’t think any of them fully did it justice. I began to think of all the seeds, hoping there would be plenty to replant and even share.

I came home from a trip this week and my beautiful sunflower was on the ground. The weight of the blooms and seeds had pulled it down and broken the stalk. Sadly, I don’t think the seeds were far enough developed to plant, though I am holding on to some in case.

I was so frustrated. Didn’t God know how much joy that sunflower gave me in this difficult personal season? How it amazed me and left me thankful and full of awe? At the rate it was producing, I could have enjoyed it several more weeks and, in the end, had seeds to start over again next year…

Then I caught myself and laughed.

“And God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?’

‘It is,’ he said…

But the Lord said, ‘You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.  And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left…?” (Jonah 4:9-11)

Unlike Jonah, I did have a small part in tending the seed, but it was still God who made the seed grow. He was the one who surprised me with the beauty and majesty of this plant that far surpassed the description on the paper packet.

And if I can love dearly such a small part of creation, how much more does God care for the people he has created in his image? As with the physical harvest, the spiritual harvest is through God’s power, though we are invited to participate as laborers.” So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-9)

I’m thankful for all things bright and beautiful, all plants great and small, all people wise and wonderful…

The Lord God made them all.

P.S. If you have any guesses as to which variety of sunflower this is, I would love to know!