Greenflower

A sunflower grows in the melting blue of an ombré pot on the windowsill of my sunlit room. The suggestion of my supportive friends is advice I can attest to: It benefits a plant if you talk to it and sing to it, and whether it’s owed to the music of my voice, or the carbon dioxide brimming from my lips, I talk anyway, and I wonder if it would help me grow if I could hear You talk to me.

My sunflower is more of a greenflower now, standing with only a foot’s height of pride, still lacking the distinctive, bright yellow petals and clinging to an unwavering pencil for its needed support. Are You my pencil?

When I was seven, my dad planted maple trees marching along the front yard. When I was nine, my mother seeded sunflowers lining the winding driveway. Fast-forward eight summers: the sunflowers have long since wilted, and the shriveled maples have been replaced. My dad claims his thumb isn’t the faintest shade of green. But I know You have never failed to keep me alive.

I maintain my sunflower, and You sustain me. But a plant’s dependence is not on a person, and this is where the parallels end. You created an entire world of green and growth, sprout and stem, fern and forest, leaf and lily. There are fields, jungles, woodlands, oceans of plant life that man is unaware of. But if a single second occurred that I slipped Your mind, it would be the second I disappeared.

Sunflowers grow on the windowsill of my sunlit room and in a little corner of a vibrant cosmos. I was always taught that You listen when I talk to You, and whether it’s because You ordained my words or the fact that I am Your child, I talk anyway, because I am so much more dependent on it than a musical voice or the air that I breathe in and out.

I am more of a greenflower now, standing with only a foot’s height of pride, still lacking the distinctive, bright yellow petals and clinging to an unwavering God for support.