A reminder of hope found in sunflowers…
A few evenings ago, while heading to a neighbors house for a quick visit, I walked down my driveway to be pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful row of sunflowers staring at me from across the street. It’s been a long couple of weeks and instead of rushing by, I stopped to take a picture (even though I felt a bit like I was creeping on my neighbors).
Shortly after I got home from my visit I remembered there was an interview on TV that I had wanted to watch. I have followed this couple for a few years on their blog and recently they just released a book (that I’m currently in the middle of) sharing their story – a story of love, of a brain injury due to a car accident, and of a much deeper love. A sacrificial love that I believe in this day in age is all too often replaced with a shallow, selfish love. This story shines of hope amidst the brokenness.
Well, “thanks” to the internet, I found the a clip of the interview online but felt it hard to believe that it was only a 3 minutes interview so I went searching for more. Big mistake … kinda. Through typing in a few key words in hopes of finding a longer interview, I stumbled upon some “troll sites”. For those unaware, a troll site is a world of its own where individuals sit around (on the internet) hating on other individuals sharing their story, the story that has been given to them (on the internet). Honestly I’m not really sure who has that kind of time? And really all I could think was, what brokenness is swirling and spiraling about, a brokenness that just leaves a disgusting pit in your stomach.
In disbelief that this site was really what it seemed, I scrolled through several pages of forum titles … until … I found another name, another blog that I follow. But like I said, it’s been a busy couple of weeks and I haven’t really kept up with the two blogs I tend to read. And then I quickly learned that a member of this family, of this other blog that I have followed for years, had died in a tragic, tragic accident. Again all I could think was, what brokenness.
And I could have sat there in that place, a place faced with the brokenness, the heartache, the mess, the hurt of this world.And then I was reminded of those sunflowers. Those sunflowers that had caught my attention just hours before and beckoned me to pause … even for a brief moment. And now these sunflowers, found in an Instagram photo on my phone, reminded me of hope, of Hope! A Hope that doesn’t turn a blind eye to the pain but a Hope that heals the hurt and the hurting. A hope that we must choose not to ignore.
A hope expressed in the words pinned by Edward Mote centuries ago yet continues to speak to us today.