One Sunflower

All summer long I've been spraying the weeds in my backyard on that hill where the city stole my trees.  I've had the hardest time figuring out what to put there: more trees, berry bushes, a flower bed, or grass?  This week, something beautiful showed up.  It was alone, but stood out among that barren vastness, one sunflower.

For some reason, this sunflower has brought me joy all week long.  This morning I made Matt get his camera and "do his thang."  Yes, he's the owner of the blog header picture as well.

My heart is extremely full today.  The past week and a half my heart has been aching for a friend who was struggling.   I wearied the Lord (and my husband) with my worries and pleas, my wishes to do more than I could to help.  The world looked barren, like my hill of dirt.  Today, the sunflower popped up.  I have witnessed an answer to fasting and prayer yet again.
 
It's amazing to see just how kind and generous people are.  With the bombardment of cruelty in the world,  we forget sometimes that the world is full of giving people.  I have watched friends rally around our friend in need; I have witnessed them be answers to her desperate prayers.  I have watched these friends lift another.  I have seen Charity in Action.

"Friends are like pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up and sometimes they lean on you." (Author Unknown)

You never know if you will be the answer to someone's prayers, and you never know when you will need to be: are you willing to be?  Are you ready to be?

Many of you have been the answer to my prayers.  You may say you don't believe in God, but I know that I do.  How can I not?  I have prayed for peace, strength, comfort, knowledge, preparedness, love, and so much more throughout the years.  You have been my answers at different times.  You've been my sunflowers in my fall.

"Know that the Lord, in His time, will bring about all your righteous desires—sometimes in ways we predict, sometimes in ways we could not have possibly foreseen. What a wonderful recipe for happiness and peace." Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Improving Our Prayers,” Ensign, Mar 2004, 24–31

Many times the way that the Lord answers our prayers is through our friends. 

 "A reassuring presence, A LIGHT when times are dark, A hand reaching out, Is what friendship is about."
Author Unknown