“The Lord God is a sun and shield. . . . No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11
The sunflower is a tall North American plant that is part of the daisy family. It has a large, sun-like flower head with surrounding “sun rays” of bright-yellow petals. It’s interesting that the flower head follows the sun. During a part of its life, the flower head turns and faces east in the morning as the sun rises and then turns, following the sun until it sets in the west in the evening. Then it turns east the next morning to begin again.
Sunflowers grow in many places in the world, but most are grown in North America, particularly in the central United States, where their bright yellow color adds beauty to thousands of acres of farmland. They are planted in early spring in moist soil.
A sunflower grows rapidly, and it doesn’t take long for a flower to appear on the top of its 6- to10-ft.-high stalk with its huge green leaves. The seeds soon fill the center of the big golden head that looks so pretty. A healthy plant will have about a thousand seeds on its crown. It takes most of the summer for the seeds to ripen for harvesting, and they are tough enough to withstand frost, which helps to dry them.
There are two kinds of sunflowers. The one described above is known as an oil sunflower, with rather small, black seeds. These are sold to mills that make vegetable and salad oil and margarine from them. After removing the shells, the kernels are heated so the oil can be squeezed out, eventually to be used by bakeries and many other food companies. The oil is also sold in food stores.
The other type of sunflower is called “non-oil.” The main difference is that the seeds of this one are white with black stripes and much larger than the oily seeds. These are also known as confectionery sunflower seeds, because they are used as a tasty snack, sprinkled over salads or added to cookies and other bakery goods. Moms sometimes put a handful of shelled sunflower seeds in packed lunches for a snack. No doubt most of you already know how good they taste.
One problem farmers have with both kinds of sunflowers is that the seeds are a favorite food of many kinds of birds. To protect their crops, sometimes scarecrows are placed among the plants; some also make scary noises to keep them away. But this remains a real problem, for it is hard to fool the birds. Some people fill their bird feeders with sunflower seeds during the winter, attracting many different kinds of birds.
The way sunflowers turn to the sun all day long is a nice picture of boys and girls who can say that “the Lord God is [my] sun and shield,” as our opening Bible verse states, and can always remember that His love is shining on them. Can you say that?
ML-07/23/2017