This is an impressive flower. I balk to even peg it as a mere flower since it is probably taller than I am.

Last spring I came home with a slender package of seeds, fewer than I expected for the price, and poked them into the dirt. A couple of weeks later there were couplets of green leaves stretching their necks out, clearly eager to find the sun.

Although the stalks of my sunflower plants are four feet long, there are no flowers yet. Still I am hopeful. The neighbors up the street have a row of golden heads along the fence by their front door, and I never tire of seeing their bright orbs when I drive by.

I cannot explain how that puny example of green botany somehow explodes into a bounty of color and texture in such a short time. Water plus dirt plus sunshine plus sunflower seed gets me... this? Is there any other investment you can think of that gives such a generous return?

Well, marriage is a fierce competitor for the Best Return for Your Effort award.  But to be candid, my struggles to become a blooming wife have seemed more rigorous than those of the sunflower seed. Although I admit I was not watching 24/7 I detected no sweaty exertion, heard no feisty dialogue about who gets the nitrogen. There was not even any measurable improvement on any given afternoon. In fact, watching too closely makes the progress inconspicuous. 

The same is true of relationships. If I peer at every interaction with my family under a microscope, it looks like nothing substantial even happens. But if I can let other things draw my attention for awhile, the lost homework, the strategic plan due on Monday, the catalytic converter, when I come back there is something novel, something beautiful, something bigger than me.

I guess Time is really an invisibility cloak for the True Gardener. Perhaps it is because I never actually see His fingers, or the paintbrush, or the construction tools He so deftly wields that I paste other labels on what He does.