Sunflower Sunrise Sermon...

It was a Sunflower Sermon kind of Sunday this week...
      We were going to go on Saturday at sunrise, but the clouds still weren't cooperating.

So, it was Sunday morning...or not at all this year.

While I was looking east taking this picture...

Randy was yelling at me...

"oh, Oh...there is a bobcat!"

It ran from this field to the west...right in front of our car...

right INTO the field of sunflowers where I wanted to go shoot.

"It will be running away from you..."  Sure honey!

(I'm wondering if this is like the fish that got away story!) 

:)

Good Morning Sunshine!

Seriously...fields of golden yellow sunshine on stems!!

I had my driver again...I think he was texting his cousin to see what field she was at.

He said he was driving 'Miss Daisy'...I told him by the end of the morning, 

he probably thought he was driving 'Miss Crazy'!  

I mean...how many pictures can you take of sunflowers in one morning?

Any guesses on how many I took?

There are so many different shots and perspectives...

The flowers really had an orange-yellow hue as the sun was coming up.

(or for all you photography experts...were my settings just wrong?)

Where's Waldo?  We said that often to each other...

and then we would pop up from our spot where we were taking a picture.

It was pretty funny...or, maybe you had to be there.

After awhile, the sunflowers seemed to have different personalities...

You see the tall one in the middle?

It was like the student in class that was overly eager to answer the question..

O,Oh...pick me, pick Me!

So, I said that we went on Sunday morning...

which meant that we skipped Sunday school & the sermon...I don't like to do that.

But let me tell you...there was plenty of worshipping going on!

How can you look at this beauty and not think about the God who created it?

Let's just say these two guys had plenty of time to catch up while we took our pictures!

When you are in the fields for almost 3 hours, you get the chance to see other things too.

Do you see what is on the flower in the middle?

It took a little while for it to warm up in the sun, 

and this monarch gave us quite a show once it did.

So not only were we admiring our creator,

we also did plenty of praying too!

"Lord, please let this monarch stay and open it's wings for us..."

This is one dedicated Dad!!

We were on the tailgate of the pickup...Randy took a pic of us bouncing 

through the fields with his phone while he followed us.

There were all different stages of sunflower growth.

This field had a lot near the end of their life cycle...

or they were just tired of the almost 50+ days of 100+ degree temps!

                                       

..."Lord, please let that bee land and stay for a picture"...

see PLENTY of prayer!

These guys are not a farmers friend...but today I thought it was a beauty.

It's all in your perspective I guess.

..."Lord, please blow those wispy clouds this way"...

This is what a mature sunflower looks like.

Man, I hope we age better than this!

There is not a side of these sunflowers that isn't pretty!

We decided that maybe some deer were munching on this one...

what do you think?

I'd never seen that before!

And there was Thanksgiving..."Lord, Thank YOU for these beautiful flowers, 

for the bees that pollenate, for your blue sky, for farmers that plant sunflowers, 

for husbands & dads who get up at o'dark thirty to be there at sunrise, 

for dads who bring ladders so you can get just the right angle"

...so there was PLENTY of worship going around! 

I had walked through so many fields...I was covered with pollen.  

I thought maybe a bee was going to try to pollenate me too!

(Note to self:  don't wear brown & black when going to the sunflower fields!)

So, the big question at lunch today was...

do sunflowers really follow the sun?

Can someone let me know?

Because they were facing east at sunset and east at sunrise...

I tracked this guy to many flowers!  He is so laden down with pollen 

that I didn't think he'd be able to fly!

These were the triplets...

...and these were the twins.

A chorus of sunflowers...

Yes, moving to yet another field!

They wanted to make sure that I got to see the talking sunflowers.

Don't these two just look like little gossips!

The sunflowers were starting to take on personalities!

This sunflower had some competition in it...

Dueling Bees.

Can you see the sunflower that is taller than the rest 

in the field across the road?

We decided that it was the 7th grader that 

matured before everyone else!

Do you see why Randy thought he was driving Miss Crazy near the end of the morning?

Well, before you give me the boot...

I promise..I'm done with sunflower posts for the summer.

(I think!)

It was time to head on down the road...

We did pass another two fields that his uncle planted 

for someone else on our way...by this time it was all a blur!  

I think I saw yellow & pollen every time I closed my eyes for the next 24 hours!

So, since we missed church...

Randy's Uncle told me he expected to see some 

scripture on my blog to go with these pictures.

I loved both of these, and I decided maybe I needed a bonus 

scripture for missing Sunday school too!

   Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

   “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  Matthew 6:27-29 NIV

   For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.  For,


   “All people are like grass,
   and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
   but the word of the Lord endures forever.”


   And this is the word that was preached to you.  1 Peter 1:23-25