Sunflowers, Steps & Faith

Isaiah 25:1

O, Lord, you are my God;

I will exalt you and praise your name,for in perfect faithfulness

you have done marvelous things,

things planned long ago.

The past few weeks I have slowly been getting reaquainted with the real me - my heart. I gave God the invite to come back into my heart and take control. Since then, His faithfulness in showing me how much He loves me has been overwhelming; it has carried me through when I didn't want to take another step forward. One of the things He's done to capture me, and pull me in, is to show me His gentleness....along with His faithfulness.

I'm amazed by how carefully He plans for us, lines things in order for us, makes provisions for us, just because He wants us to know that He is there...for us.

I have a personal "for us" story, a story that started with a sunflower....and The Garden. Mrs. P., one of my former teachers, has been ministering to me about the sunflower.

Characteristics of the sunflower:

• glorious
• full faced to the Son
• unashamed
• transparent
• known for it's bountiful seed production.

There were many times when my head was sunken low in shame and defeat that I would think about the sunflower having an open face to the sky - to it's creator, and it would encourage me to keep my head up...and more importantly, to not give up! I practiced this a couple of times and it worked. It was a great reminder for me to remember to keep on going!

Soon after the sunflower reminder was planted in my heart, the time came to take our weekend getaway we planned months prior, to a retreat for special needs families. As the days approached for us to leave, I had alot of anxiety about stepping out of my shell and meeting new people. Still, because of how my walk with the Lord had been forming, I knew it was something that had supernaturally been lined up for such a time as this! And I got that reassurance on the day we left while checking my facebook page. A blog post from Whole Foods appeared in my feed about......sunflowers! It reassured me that He was with me, and that I needed to trust Him. I'm not saying it was easy to do, I'm just saying I knew that I was not alone - that I had backup!

When we got to the camp site later that day, I almost didn't want to get out of the car. So much of me wanted to turn around and go back to my comfy house where I was safe inside of my bubble. In those quick moments of anxiety it is easy to forget the reminders telling us that we are where we are supposed to be. I lost the battle of wanting to leave when out walked someone to greet us - I had to get out of the car! I did it afraid, but still -I did it! And looking back I realize that it is sometimes good to do things afraid. Part of my willingness to carry through with what I was afraid to do was showing the Lord that I was committed, and that I trusted Him - I was trusting Him enough to step outside of me to see what He had in store. When we were shown the cabin we were going to be staying in for the weekend, I was immediately drawn to a vase of flowers on the mantle. And by now you can probably guess what kind of flower they were - yep, sunflowers!

Seeing those gave me such a charge. I knew that I was taking the right steps forward - the steps of faith. There is nothing more boosting to your faith than seeing the confirmations! So that vase of sunflowers became one of my focal points for the weekend. There were times that I was as scared as can be to step out. I wanted to use that cabin as a shell and didn't want to leave it, yet those flowers were right there, next to the door, beckoning me out - telling me I had backup..to just do it! And again, I did it afraid - and again, it wasn't all that bad! I was able to work through my fear instead of giving in to it. Why? Because I had backup! Each step I took was faith, and in each step He was right there! Working through fear, with Him guiding me, is so much easier than working through fear all alone. When I do it alone I end up hiding, but when I do it with Him it leads to freedom!

On the last day of our stay, I finally began to get somewhat comfortable. My heart opened up considerably compared to the first day, and I could sense that God had His hand all in our weekend! The small steps I took, like getting out of the car on the first day, grew into bigger steps on the last day. I was able to open up enough and follow the direction God was leading me to. Each step he brings us on leads us to a place where we can be like the sunflower - transparent, unashamed, glorious and full faced to the Son! That is His heart for us!

Days later I heard greater confirmation about the sunflowers. Yes, that is how good God is! I simply emailed one of the hosts a link to website we had discussed. Out of that a correspondence grew, which led to the revelations of God's busy hand. Come to find out the sunflowers that were on our mantle were really not supposed to be there. They were actually meant for the tables in the pavilion room, but the hosts were not aware of that, so they put them on the mantles in the cabins. WOW, how awesome is that? He loves us so much that He would create accidental steps such as these, just for us!

One of the things that was said to me during the retreat was: "when we recognize His blessings, small or large, we recognize His love and it makes it so much easier to put one foot in front of the other when we really don't feel like it!"

So I encourage you to look for those reminders, look for the blessings - He's got them out there just for you!