My Sunflower Sunday

I had everything planned.  I would leave at 8:15, which would give me plenty of time to make it to Cherokee for Sacrament meeting.  Afterwards, I would meet with a new primary presidency, a task I always look forward to.  After almost three years serving in the Stake Primary presidency, I've had the opportunity to visit each of the thirteen units in western NC a number of times.  I was confident that I knew how to get to the Cherokee building, so I didn't bother to take an address to plug into my GPS.  I had this under control.  Or so I thought.

It's a beautiful drive through the mountains and I was enjoying the scenery, listening to Michael Wilcox on the way.  He's one of my favorite speakers and it doesn't matter how many times I listen to one of his talks, I still learn something from him.  I must have been deep in thought, because I drove right past my exit and kept on going.  After a little while, I realized things didn't look quite like I remembered they should.  That disconcerting feeling was warning me I was headed the wrong way.  Turns out I had been on this road  before, when I was going to Murphy!   I stopped and tried to find the address to the church on my phone - no luck.  I remembered I hadn't brought my notebook with all the addresses in it with me, so I kept searching, to no avail.   All those cool Apps that I had downloaded on my phone were not helping.  I just needed an address, for crying out loud, and couldn't find it.   Meanwhile, I'm already seriously late for church and I'm getting stressed.  My husband is on assignment in another ward, so I text him to see if he can help me.  Within minutes he's on the phone trying to locate the address.   The clock is ticking, and I really hate to be late, especially when people are counting on me to be somewhere at a certain time, so I can feel my anxiety level rising.  Finally, we have a physical address and I turn around the car and start retracing my route.  But my GPS on my phone and the Garmin won't recognize the address.  So I have a little meltdown on the side of the road.  It wasn't pretty.  Through tears, I text my husband and tell him "I'VE HAD IT.  I'm frustrated and I'm coming home!"   He responds, "Stop, pray and be thankful.  Get out of the car and stretch your legs, and just breathe."  Rolling my eyes and feeling just a little annoyed by his calm demeanor (you know what I mean, don't you?  Nothing is more irritating than a rational person, when you're not!), I took his suggestion.  I readily admit his settling influence is good for me and after thirty two years, he usually knows how to help when I'm losing it.  On the road again, I felt completely lost, questioning myself and every turn I'd made, wondering where I had gone wrong and where I actually was at that moment.   With no map in the car, I realized how dependent I've become on GPS devices. 

That's when I saw them.  In NC, the highway department has a wildflower program and each year the DOT plants thousands of flowers along the interstates.  I always admire them, but I had never seen sunflowers planted before.  The sight was so breathtaking that I audibly gasped and felt myself slowing down the car.  I dearly love sunflowers and to see so many in one place, well, I just had to stop and take it all in. 

Grabbing my camera from the car, in high heels and dress, I ran across the busy road and got right in the middle of those flowers and started snapping pictures.  It probably wasn't a smart thing to do, but I couldn't help myself.

What a tender mercy from the Lord, this gift of sunflowers.  I had been praying for help, but this wasn't the answer I was hoping to receive.   As I headed toward home, I came upon the exit I should have taken and realized I wasn't as lost as I thought I'd been.  I was really pretty close all the time.  So trusting in that old adage, "better late than never",  I took the exit and went to church. Feeling silly and humbled, I tried to clean up my make up smeared eyes, that were looking a little puffy from my crying episode, and went to primary. I had missed Sacrament meeting and I felt badly about that.  But on my way home I realized the Lord had taught me some lessons today anyway, even though they didn't come to me while I was sitting on a cushioned pew.  

I wasn't as prepared as I should have been to make this trip.  I needed to be humbled a little, and I was.  You better believe I won't leave home again with out addresses and directions.  I was disoriented and upset and felt much more lost than I really was.  It was as though the Lord was reminding me that sometimes I can be really hard on myself, when I'm not as far off track as I might think.  I need to offer myself some grace.  I needed to pray and trust in the Lord to help me find my way.  His spirit is the ultimate GPS. That's one of those obvious lessons, that I need over and over again.   Ask, trust, listen, ask, trust, listen.  Being in control is an illusion.  We like to think we are in the driver's seat, but in reality we're just the passenger, along for the ride.   I was reminded how blessed I am to have a husband who came to my rescue (like he always does).  And then there were the sunflowers.  Had I not missed my exit, I wouldn't have seen the flowers.  All of this, not to mention the things I learned from being with the children, were the lessons I needed to learn on this Sabbath day.  Sometimes we think we know what's best, we have our plan, but the Lord has other things in mind for us.  Now, I'm not advocating skipping Sacrament meeting to take nature pictures, but Heavenly Father knows the lessons we need to learn and how we need to learn them.  And sometimes they will come in the most unexpected ways.