By Lilly Lewin
Sunflowers are my favorite flowers! I love tulips too, but there is something about the yellow brightness of a sunflower that always makes me smile. I lived in Northern California for four years, and there the freshness of the sunflowers amazed me. They were freshly cut at the farmer’s market and so unlike the kind I’d experienced in Ohio where they’d been picked, packed, and trucked cross country. I now paint them and have them scattered throughout my house. This week, I need the newness of a farmer’s market, northern California sunflower. The continued abuse of children and families on our southern border, the lack of compassion from our government ready to deport more people, the threats of war with Iran…all are despicable and make me depressed.
I need to be reminded that God is in control and Jesus invites me daily to trust that His love can heal and conquer the hatred and division around us. I want to be like the Sunflower and face Jesus and reflect his light! I don’t want to live in fear, or despair or bitterness because I cannot fix things. What about you? Are you in need of the Sunflower today? This reminded me of a prayer station I created a few years ago inspired by my friend Martha Vetter. God spoke to her through the many sunflowers, both living and dried up and dying, that she saw along the Way as she walked on pilgrimage on the Camino di Santiago.
Maybe you need to be a renewed by the Sunflower and the Son today.
Find a photo of a sunflower or go out and buy some to brighten your day.
Find some sunflower oil, or use some olive oil and allow Jesus to anoint you with His LOVE!
Create your own sunflowers in paint, crayons or even clay!
Give some some flowers to someone you know needs cheering up!
Here’s the Prayer Station:
Consider the Sunflower
Anoint yourself with Oil
God is choosing you! Creating you daily, just like the flowers . Consider the Sunflower!
REMEMBER: God, through Samuel, anointed David when he was only a shepherd boy. David had not even been invited to the gathering, he was out taking care of the sheep.
Yet God knew David, and God had already called David for God’s own. God had big plans for David and God has big plans for YOU!
“God spoke to me using the image of sunflowers. He told me “Stand tall like the sunflower. Be beautiful, bold and bright like the sunflower. Remember that the face of the sunflower always looks towards the sun. The oil from the seeds of the sunflower is a symbol to you of my anointing. And even when the seeds begin to die, remember that the birds of the air are nourished by these seeds.
It is THEN, during the dying process, that the seeds are able to provide life, not death.”
Martha Vetter while on on pilgrimage Cammino di Santiago di Compostela
Anoint yourself with sunflower oil
Picture Jesus touching you with his great love.
Allow God to hold you.
Allow God to heal the broken places of the week, the month, or even those places of loss and hurt of the last year.
Picture God anointing you for love, ministry & God’s service.
Allow God to call you again! Allow God anoint you for new things, new ministry, new places, new people. Allow the beauty of the sunflower to bring you joy, healing and hope!
Consider the Sunflower and bask in the Son and the Sun today, even if it’s just in a photograph!
this is an older post that i needed again this week!
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com