The Sunflower

There will be times of sunshine and times of rain—we have days, and we have nights, and when we go through each season, we know they will faithfully return.

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I have a small sunflower tattoo on the back of my neck, with the word ‘Beloved’ written in script. All of my tattoos mean something very deep to me, and this specific tattoo came from a vision I had when I was going through a season of inner healing, years ago. This was when I first began to know Christ as my Beloved, and the Sunflower was a picture to represent how God saw me — His sunflower.

Sunflowers grow always facing the sun. In this way, God was speaking to me as His sunflower, and if I always face Him, no matter what season I may be going through, I will always be planted where He wants me and growing from the right source — His Light.

This is why you see sunflowers appear in many of my older paintings.

Recently, God has been reminding me of the sunflower a lot. Actually, it’s been the last 6-8 months that He’s been reminding me, because I painted this watercolor painting (below) at the end of 2018, and wrote the poem for it in June of 2019. Especially going through a season of ‘replanting’ at the moment, I am reminded of the beautiful process of the sunflower seed itself, which must first be planted in a dark place, and broken open to become the full, beautiful plant it was created to be.

Seasons are always coming and going. There will be times of sunshine and times of rain—we have days, and we have nights, and when we go through each season, we know they will faithfully return with every year. It’s the process of life, and to me, this is both naturally and spiritually. As the book of Ecclesiastes reminds me, ‘What has been, will be again. What has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun’ (1:9 NIV).

I’ve gone through inner healing before, years ago, in the season where I first received that vision and word of the sunflower. Now I feel I’m back here again, dealing with deeper things from the past, and finding God bringing back that identity once again.

Every year, the seasons come back just as before, and although what has been will be again—It’s finding the light of the Son through it all, and facing Him. This is where, when the seasons return, we truly see just how much we’ve grown.

 

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The Sunflower

To the one who truly made me
I fall upon my knees
Surrendered, but surrounded once again by my Creators hands
Have your way.
Open me-
Break me if you must
Like the fallen seed upon the earth
Planted in the dark,
It cracks from the desire it holds within-
Reborn from a place of total surrender.

Shattered- but not to be destroyed
All it knew itself to be
Now only pieces left behind
Broken to grow- to Rise-
To discover the true beauty it has always been
Growing from the call of the Light
Above it, and within.

 

This is an updated edition of a post originally published on sarahcamillesi.com.

Featured Image by Conner Baker

The views and opinions expressed by Kingdom Winds Collective Members, authors, and contributors are their own and do not represent the views of Kingdom Winds LLC.

About the Author

Hello, my name is Sarah Camille Soltani Icely. I have been an artist since I can remember; always drawing and painting in my free time. Once I knew how to write, I began to journal and soon found a passion for poetry. I have always loved and believed in Jesus, but it wasn’t until my late teens/early twenties that I truly started to know Holy Spirit. This is where I say my true walk with God began. 
After this time, I began to hear the Spirit through my paintings, and the things I heard and felt in these times later became the poems I wrote to take people deeper into the meaning of each art piece. Painting is how I worship my Creator; Not only because He is the one who blessed me with these gifts, but because He is the love of my life; the one who gives me strength in every storm I face. In these times of painting and writing, where He speaks to me so deeply, my biggest hope is that my art can be used to bring others the same encouragement, faith, hope, truth, and love that this time with Him brings to me.