Here is a photo of a Mexican Sunflower with its petals and one without.

10/17/22

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I woke up at 4:47 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. So I wrote this. I think God woke me up to write this. It was dark when I started and it is only just now light.

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Soli Deo gloria.

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This story is called,

Wake Up, There Are Flowers Here

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I died once.

The people who know me well may believe that it happened for ten seconds, but it was actually much longer than that. I don’t even know how long I was dead. Only God knows. Because He was there the whole time. Even when I wasn’t. He was.

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The girl was floating. She was floating through… time? Fog? She could not tell. She only knew that she was moving forward slowly through something, and that it was dark.

She did not know who she was. She had soft memories of people that loved her. They weren’t memories though. There is no word for this. True memories can not be made in a world that is so aimless and so dark. These were small bright moments of truth and love that would immediately vanish into the deep. They were so bright, they left an imprint on the darkness. The sensation was similar to looking directly at the only lightbulb just before it shuts off at midnight. A floating light remains, momentarily, just at the front of the eyes.

As she floated through the darkness, she could occasionally see their eyes. Their eyes would reach out to her with one bright white silhouette of a flower and say, “please” and “where are you going?” and “why are you doing this?” and “we love you so much” and “God loves you.” But as soon as their eyes were gone, she could see the flower like the midnight lightbulb on the front of her eyes, and then it was gone. The moment was over before she could respond. And she forgot. And she floated on into the dark.

There had been a time when she could have given a flower in return. In the past, whenever they’d been offered to her, two paths would appear. One path was an almost invisible small line of dirt, embraced by a field of flowers, stretching for eternity. The other was simply a dark paved road descending downward into what looked like a desert at dusk. The flower path was a little difficult to get to. Just before it, stretched a long, thin, rickety bridge. It looked impossible to cross, but when she thought about it, there was the warmth of a voice in her heart telling her she would not fail. If she had listened, she would have known it was true.

But she was always in a hurry. So, every time she was offered a flower, she chose the desert path instead, despite the warning cries of the warm voice in her heart. The voice that was always with her but she could never see.

Now, after choosing the desert path so many times, the flower path didn’t appear anymore.

The only thing she could feel were the eyes of the people who loved her, from time to time, momentarily. And the warmth of the voice in her heart. That voice didn’t leave. Now, instead of saying “I told you to take the flower bridge” and “you really should have listened to me.” It was gently caressing her heart alongside each heart beat with the words:

She didn’t remember who this voice was, and she didn’t understand how it had come here with her. But she knew she didn’t like the way it made her feel. It made her feel shame and guilt. Or, more truthfully, she was the maker of the shame and guilt, but blamed the voice for it. She could not remember why she felt this guilt. If she had asked, it would have shown her the flower path. But she didn’t ask.

As she continued into the darkness, the eyes of the people who loved her began to fade. Or were her eyes fading? Perhaps the contagious darkness had overtaken her own eyes with blindness. But still the warm voice beat alongside her heart,

She had not spoken back to the voice in a very long time. Then one day, when the guilt was so heavy, it threatened to crush her, she finally asked the voice to be silent.

She had no regrets. She had no direction. She was only numb. She couldn’t feel anything anymore, and she was glad. Except that she wasn’t, because she couldn’t feel gladness.

She was nothing.

She floated on in the darkness and the only thing left was the warmth of the silenced voice in her heart.

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She didn’t know how long she had been floating. But then, a new set of eyes appeared in the dark. She was surprised that she could see them. But there they were. They offered her one bright white silhouette of a flower saying “God loves you.” She could see the flower like the midnight lightbulb on the front of her eyes, and then it was gone. The moment was over before she could respond. And she forgot. And she floated on into the dark.

The eyes returned, offering her another flower saying “God loves you.” The moment was over before she could respond. But this time, the flower silhouette imprint on the front of her eyes stayed a little longer…

These eyes came back again and again, every time with the same words. And the memory of the flower grew longer and longer with each visit.

One day, the eyes held out something new. It was not the white silhouette of a flower. It was a strange green stick attached to a yellow ball. It was an actual flower. An odd and new flower that she had never seen before. But it was certainly a real, living flower. It glowed with the light of the sun. As if it knew that she was lost in the dark, it had saved some of its precious sunrays just for her that day. Then told her new friend, “bring me this time.”

The sight of this flower caused her to feel… everything. All of the joy and peace and love that she’d ever received from the faded eyes of the people who still loved her. How could she have forgotten them?

This strange golden flower was a Mexican sunflower that had shed its petals. It was now only the center of the flower on a stem. She looked closely at it and saw that within this lovely stage of maturity, the center, that had once been only a small yellow dot surrounded by a radiant, almost unearthly shade of bright orange, now housed over a hundred small yellow flowers. Like magic.

She floated in the darkness, looking at the glowing flower. Her slow forward movement had ceased. She was only floating and admiring the beauty. It was just her in the darkness, this flower casting light on her lost, perplexed face, and the warm glow that had never left her heart.

The flower used its beauty, love and peace to reach down into the deepest place of her heart and pull the small plug at the very bottom. As it released, all of the tears she'd been holding hostage for years, under the never-healing scabs of numbness, selfishness and guilt, filled her entire heart, like an alarmingly fast-rising flood. Once they reached the top of her heart, they rose up her throat and into her eyes.

Now they spilled out of her and began to fill the darkness, at the same alarming speed.

She cried for joy. She cried for grief. She cried for all of her loved ones she had been hurting for so long and all the ones she knew she would hurt again. She cried for thankfulness. Thankfulness for the people who loved her. Thankfulness for the faithfulness of this new friend. Thankfulness for the warmth that had never left her heart. Thankfulness for all of the prayers she knew had been for her, despite the hopelessness of her reluctance to return.

An ocean of tears poured into the darkness as she cried upwards into the empty expanse above,

A split second before she cried this, and before her heart could beat even once more, the voice in the warmth of her chest roared like a lion. The roar filled the entire darkness. It was the beautiful and triumphant sound of a lion that is roaring to protect you from evil, not to cause it. But it was also words. Words straight into her heart:

“I love you” | “I forgive you” | “I’ll save you” | “I already have”

The water from her eyes filled the darkness and began to lift the floating girl and the glowing flower swiftly upward into a light. It was a small light, but it was getting larger and larger, as they grew closer. She could feel the water washing away all of the guilt and shame that had first guided her into the darkness. The water echoed with a whispered promise, “I am always here, washing guilt away.”

As the girl grew closer to the light, she saw that they were approaching the underside of a long, thin, rickety bridge. By this time, the water was rushing upwards as if it were lava preparing to explode out of a volcano. The girl grew afraid she would be harmed as the water broke through the bridge. But the lion triumphantly roared, “you will not be harmed” and this time, she heard Him and she believed Him.

The girl’s head crashed through the breaking bridge, as the water shot powerfully out of the darkness, and she did not feel any pain, only complete freedom. Like the freedom that a calf feels when it is released from the stall into the lovely sunshine and grass.

She saw the flower become sliced into several pieces as it passed through the splintering bridge, but while they both continued to rise with the majestic water, the flower was pieced right back together, as if the broken bridge had never existed.

The water shot up about thirty feet above the now broken bridge and then descended with the same speed, leaving the girl and the sunflower floating, together, in the sky.

The girl looked around. She saw below her, the small path in the flowers. She looked at her flower and said, “how do we get down there.” At this point, the only movement that she knew was slowly floating forward. The sunflower said, “take me in your hand.”

When the girl grasped the flower, the wings on her back changed from unseen to seen. She looked at them and knew they had always been there. She had just chosen not to see them.

She flew down into the flowers, with her sweet sunflower in hand.

As she walked along the path surrounded by flowers in complete wonder and peace, her tears continued, but much more slowly now. Deciding to look more closely at each flower, she realized this one was the hug from her Grandma when she skinned her knee as a four year old. This one was the time she and her mother had laughed for two hours straight in the car. This flower was her dad praying for her as she lay unconscious in a hospital bed.

She looked at the sunflower in her hand. She couldn’t tell what it was. “Who gave you to me?” she said.

The lion answered for the flower, “follow the path.”

The girl walked along the path a short ways until she saw a man sitting on the side of the road. He was very far away. When she squinted, she thought he may be the pastor from her old university. Now closer and squinting again and believed he may actually be her dad.

As she got closer, she saw that He was Jesus. She had never seen Jesus before, but she knew Him.

She said, “are you Jesus?” and He said, “I am.”

“Did you send me this flower?”

He said, “I did.”

Then He said, “I love you” | “I missed you” | “I fought for you”

“I saved you before you were born, and I’ll save you every time”

“I will always fight for you and I will always search for you, when you’re gone”

The girl had only a few tears left in her body. She blinked them out. Then, when she looked at the man again, he was different.

She said, “did you send me this flower?”

He said, “I did.”

She said, “I’m sorry, it’s been so dark, I think I may have met you, but I can’t remember. What is your name?”

He said, “I’m called Ben.”

A year later, she married the man from the path of flowers. They kept the Mexican sunflower with them always, and together, they lived forever.

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Malachi 4:2 - But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

Ephesians 5:25 - Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

John 1:5 - The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Deuteronomy 1:29–31 - Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.

"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above." - Robert Robinson

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Soli Deo gloria.