My friend Heidi Tucker—one of the most cheerful souls I know, despite any challenge she might be facing—posted this spectacular photo of a sunflower on her Facebook page. It really caught my attention. But it also started me thinking.

I’ve always loved sunflowers—for many reasons. One is obvious: they are bright and cheerful and look like they’re about to rain sunlight down on everything around them, even if they have scratched their way out of a miserable little plot of uneven dirt on the side of a road somewhere. They don’t seem to mind their circumstances; they radiate cheer regardless of their situation. That started me thinking. Am I bright and cheerful, regardless of my situation? Is anyone prompted to smile just because they looked at me? I fear I have some work to do on that. To read more, click the button below.

Here’s another reason why I love sunflowers: despite knowing that they won’t be here for long, they still choose to live the brightest life they can. While there’s nothing quite as breathtaking as a whole field of sunflowers, there’s nothing quite as sad as that field in late autumn, when the flowers are gone and the stalks are withered black against the dying earth. But that’s no matter to the sunflower: she makes the most of her time in bloom. That started me thinking. I don’t know how long I’ll be here; none of us does. But do I seize each day for all it’s worth and make the most of my time in bloom? Not always.

And don’t forget that sunflowers not only look like the sun, they follow the sun. From the moment the sun first licks the predawn sky until it kisses the western horizon, the sunflower tracks the sun’s journey across the sky. Wherever there is the littlest speck of sunlight, the determined sunflower will find it and follow it. That started me thinking too. I have been blessed by the Light that radiates all life, that bestows all goodness, that invites me to conduct myself in such a way that I will forever bask in that Light. Do I seek that Light out in all I do? Or do I become lazy, distracted, stressed, figuring that I’ll catch back up to the Light once I’ve pulled myself out of some pressing ordeal? Do I fail to realize that the Light itself is the surest way to guide me out of anything in which I find myself?

But this? I love this picture of two sunflowers, facing each other, almost touching each other. I don’t know what caused them to move toward one another like this. But I like to imagine that maybe, just maybe, one of them needed the energy the other had to offer. I like to imagine that maybe, just maybe, the light of the sun was temporarily obliterated, and they looked to one another for sustenance and comfort.

That really started me thinking. Both of those sunflowers might have been robbed temporarily of the light they so diligently follow. Both of them might, in a way, have been in trouble. Yet both of them turn to the other, offering all they have, nothing held back.

What about me? I’ve found myself in some pretty dicey situations where I have wondered if I will ever again be flooded with light. St. John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite monk, wrote “The Dark Night of the Soul” in the middle of the sixteenth century. It’s an eight-stanza poem that outlines the soul’s journey from the distractions and entanglements of the world to the perfect peace and harmony of union with God. I think perhaps I am wrestling with my own dark night of the soul. Maybe you are too.

What does that have to do with sunflowers? I am sad to realize that when I’m the one desperately seeking the light, when I am stumbling around in that dark night of the soul, I have not turned to another and given of my hope, my faith, my cheer, and my protecting care, as temporarily weak as they might be. No, I have expected others to do that for me. But how do I use my gift? How do I give what might amount to an emotional widow’s mite? How can I remember to always seek the one I might be able to help? How do I put aside my cares and concerns, as heavy as they might seem at the time, and go in search of the one I can lift?

When I do, I will have become even as a sunflower . . . a partaker forever of the Light.