Turn Toward the Son

This morning I visited my daughter's sunflower field.

Hundreds of them.

Standing shoulder to shoulder like soldiers at attention.

Some stood perfectly upright, faces lifted confidently toward the morning sun.

Others leaned.

Some had begun to bow beneath the weight of the seeds they had faithfully produced.

A few looked weary after a week of relentless heat.

Yet none of them had lost their beauty.

In fact, I found myself drawn to those first.

The ones that had weathered the hardest days.

Years ago, these very rows became the backdrop for family pictures.

Little girls stood beneath towering blooms, dwarfed by flowers much taller than they were. One photograph captured two tiny cousins wandering through the field. Another, a single sunflower reaching toward heaven while others quietly bowed behind it.

This morning those photographs came back to me.

The children have grown.

The seasons have changed.

But the sunflowers still know what to do.

They simply turn toward the light.

Isn't that what faithfulness looks like?

Not perfection.

Not constant strength.

Not always standing perfectly tall.

Sometimes faithfulness looks like continuing to face the Son even after a week of scorching heat.

Sometimes it looks like carrying the weight of a fruitful life.

Sometimes it looks like bowing—not because you're defeated, but because you've spent yourself producing something that will feed others.

I think we admire the tall sunflower with its face lifted to the sky.

God may admire the one whose head has begun to bow beneath the harvest.

Because both are doing exactly what they were created to do.

Standing.

Turning toward the light.

Bearing fruit.

And perhaps that's why I couldn't stop looking at them this morning.

They weren't just flowers.

They were reminders.

Some seasons we bloom.

Some seasons we bend.

But every season invites us to keep turning toward the Son.