Beauty in the Son

I never fully appreciated the sun and all its splendors until I got sick.  Yes, I always liked summer and all it had to offer – tractor pulls on cool summer nights, days of county fairs amidst Ferris wheel rides, and canning just about everything in sight that grew from my family’s garden, just to name a few.  But I never truly appreciated the sun until I realized the magnitude it had on my soul.

I have always loved daisies.  They are so cheery and bright – I can’t help but smile seeing one of their beautiful blooms shooting out from their green foliage.  Every year for our anniversary, my husband has gotten me a daisy planted in a pot for my deck-viewing enjoyment.  I would like to tell you that I have them planted all around the boarders of our property, but since I firmly believe that if we can’t eat it, why plant it, in a pot it goes!

Burned upon my heart during one particularly rough health period of my life, I recall my husband brought me in a single daisy.  It had broken off on its own and my caring husband thought enjoying the beauty it shed would be of some healing for my mind that day.  He had placed it in a cup of water and put it on the window sill – the same window sill I gazed out from my bed-ridden confinement.  I just stared at it, for days – admiring the beauty it held and jealous of the new freedom it had found.  Oh, how I wished to be plucked and placed in a new area in my life and no longer riddled with the pain and depression I was trapped in.

As I watched and studied that daisy, I realized something – it was moving.  It was ever so slight – so slight that I almost missed it.  It was moving with the sun.  It needed the sun. It desired the sun.  As the sun evicted each previous space, so followed the daisy.

Surely, a broken off daisy couldn’t do that…

I was trapped in utter confusion when the Lord whispered to my heart, “Dear one, as the broken daisy follows the sun, so should you follow my Son”.  My mind raced – this daisy had no roots anymore, yet it moved.  It had been broken and if no one had cared for it in its current state, it would have withered and died quickly.  This daisy and I had more in common than I thought.  While I had been jealous of its freedom and was now in awe of it’s movement, I was being shown I could attain this also… with the Son.

The daisy was broken, but it still followed the sun.  It was its instinctive nature – broken or thriving, it still followed the sun. If the sun wasn’t out, it drooped and was limp, obviously missing what the sun provided.  And when the sun peaked back out, it would turn towards any little ray and perk back up to its fullest self.  And you know what’s unexplainable?  The broken off daisy lasted way longer than anticipated – it was beautiful in that cup for over 3 weeks. THREE WEEKS.  It was sustained by the sun and beat all odds.

I too, was broken and in need of repair.  My Maker’s Son scooped me up out of such utter darkness and decay and placed me in a cup of His refreshing love.  But I had a choice to make – would I turn with the Son into His life-giving rays, or turn from the Son, where I would shrivel and decompose?  The latter was the path I was on and where I was headed until that daisy reminded me just how important following the Son was.  It overcame all expectations and lasted longer than predicted by man.

Could that be me?

This pain-filled world had fogged over my mind until I believed the Son was never going to cast His rays of mercy on me again.  And to be honest, any ray He had previously casted on me in that difficult period had been met with my turned head.  But, the Son was showing me just as in that daisy, just because my heart, my spirit, my body had been broken, I could still thrive.  My heart could heal and my soul could heal. Come to find out, that’s all the healing this fractured body and my withering heart needed to continue and push through all the insurmountable odds against it.

Yesterday I stood in a field of sunflowers.  If you have never stood in a field of sunflowers, add that to your bucket list – it’s breathtaking.  The sun was out and I could feel its warmth on my pain-filled body, reminding me of the healing warmth on my aching joints.  As my children and I carefully chose the sunflowers to sever and take home, I was so gently reminded of that daisy’s truths.  All the sunflowers were turned away from us (this world) and toward their source of sunlight.  Oh what a beautiful reminder of the choice we have to make on a daily basis.

Will we turn away from this world’s hurts and pain and towards our source of light, the Son?  Will we live every single moment with our face in the Son’s beautiful glorious rays of light and love?  For it is there that we feel the healing warmth on our souls and true beauty makes its mark upon our hearts.

I’m so thankful that even in the midst of my tough physical pain yesterday, God touched my heart.  Even through pain, even through utter exhaustion, even through crowds of unknowing multitudes, God made His intentions for my light-seeking so clear.  Who would have thought that He uses daisies and sunflowers to show us the way – the way of daily seeking out His Son.

“The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)

Jodi