When you bloom it means you flourish in beauty or excellence.

I heard a story about a little sunflower seed who wanted to bloom more than anything, but he didn’t know how. Most days he found himself getting a suntan while napping on some grass in a farmer’s field, and as much he wanted to bloom, nothing happened. Days turned to weeks and months as the sun would rise, the sun would set, but nothing happened for the tiny guy, and he couldn’t figure out why.

One day while the little sunflower see was fast asleep a big tractor suddenly came and scooped him up without warning. Then it threw him into a big pile of dirt and sticks and rocks. Before the little sunflower seed could even cry for help, he found himself flying-through-the-air once again, and this time he landed in the back of a pickup truck.

Wow! Things are getting rough for that little sunflower seed! As the driver of the truck entered the freeway, the whole back of the pickup seemed to shake like an earthquake. Rocks tumbled, dirt swirled and the little sunflower seed struggled just to breathe. Faster and faster the pickup seemed to go and each bump jostled him harder than the last, until finally a giant hole in the road caused the little sunflower seed to bounce high in the air where the wind grabbed ahold of him and tossed him out of the truck and onto the freeway.

Funny how we can be like the little sunflower seed or the fig tree. We get stuck in bad habits, dead-end relationships, and especially get stuck in fear that keeps us from being our best. Sometimes it’s good when God shakes things up, even though these times might be scary.
It seemed like millions of cars flew past the little sunflower seed. Tires were everywhere, but fortunately, he kept on bouncing and flying from the extra wind from each passing car. After the cyclone of being tossed back and forth, the draft from a giant semi-truck literally picked him up high into the air and tossed him to the side of the road where he tumbled, spun and fell exhausted into a soft crack in the soil.

And do you know what happened next? God sent a little rain.

And yes, when those blessings come our way, we can bloom! We can be like the little sunflower who breathed deep, opened up, and bloomed right there. He bloomed right where he was planted! And oh, my, did he bloom! Pretty soon he had all kinds of children, followed by grandkids and great grandkids who were blooming all over the place!

And that’s why we see so many sunflowers happily blooming, flourishing, and making our roads so beautiful, almost everywhere we go!

This is a simple story that tells about life, struggles with hard times, roughing up the soil, shaking things up and continuing to do our best. It’s a story with familiar themes because they happen in so many lives, and most of all, it tells a truth of how God loves it when we do our very best, so we can be ready to bloom!