Look to the sun

Also known as: My love affair with sunflowers

I can’t remember when it started, really, but I know that I was never one who liked roses. Sure, I didn’t mind receiving them for Valentine’s day, but they were never my favorite flowers.

When I was younger, I thought my favorite flowers were daisies because I love the cheerful yellowness of them. I still like them, of course, but I can’t remember receiving them though. And then I started liking gerberas after a particular week-long trip to a GK site, where I received a pink gerbera before we left. Then there was also that one Valentine’s day when I received a pink one.

But if there was ever, ever one ultimate favorite flower, it would be the sunflower.

I can’t completely explain why. I guess that’s why sometimes favorites are favorites because you can’t explain why you like them so much. Sunflowers cheer me up, be it photos, the real thing or even game characters based on the flower. I love their bright yellow color, their dark centers and how they really look like suns! I love that they can be small or tall. I love that I can eat sunflower seeds, and you can make sunflower oil and that they’re just so darn pretty.

Most of all, I love that these flowers are heliotropic — they follow the sun. I like that idea, of how the leaves and the buds of the flower turn to face the sun as it rises and as it sets. It’s almost like a metaphor: for them it’s a way to life to look to the sun, just like how it is for us to look to the Son. To follow the Son.

I guess that’s the ultimate reason why I love sunflowers. :)

And it also helps that sunflowers provide a way to get rid of zombies that invade your lawn. ;)