The Sunflower

I wrote this little story years ago, before any of the troubles in my marriage surfaced, it's a true story, and perhaps truer today then the day that I wrote it! ever since that day, sunflowers have had a special place in my heart...

God spoke to me through a simple lowly sunflower once, at the time I thought he gave me this story for a friend of mine but as the years have passed, he continues to use this story to inspire and change ME.
One day as I was driving down the frwy, crowded congested afternoon, I was sitting in traffic, pondering life as I often do and I had a few things that were heavy on my heart, as I was driving I noticed out of the corner of my eye a beautiful Sunflower that had grown up out of a crack in the pavement next to the center divider, it caught my eye because it was "different" it stood tall, majestic, it almost seemed as if the sun was shining brighter on it, Is was beautiful, strong, and it was growing out of a crack in the asphalt, around its base lay litter from fast food wrappers and cups,broken glass and pieces of rubber from blown tires, trash no doubt thrown by people out of their cars as they zoomed by it, Then it dawned on me that we need to be like the sunflower, see God had placed that one single sunflower in that spot to grow, it did not choose it's surroundings or circumstances it just grew, beautiful and strong, it grew. It spoke so deeply to me that we as humans deal with life in a fallen and imperfect world, often times we dont "choose" our circumstances or surroundings and other careless people sometimes dump their garbage all over us, but we make the choice to succumb to the Trash that surrounds us or to stand Tall and beautiful giving glory to the one who created us and placed us their in that spot at that time, see because the sunflower was surrounded in such ugliness, it's beauty was all the more radiant, if it had grown in a sunflower patch it would have been just another sunflower.