Sunflower Seeds? Why the Change?

Ok, so you may, or may not have noticed the change in the title of my blog, but I am currently bringing it to your attention.

Reasons: 
1. Time to Tell Tales was always a temporary title.
2. It had nothing to do with anything except that I would tell a story sometimes.
3. Sunflower Seeds seems more appropriate for my life.

Somewhere in Slovakia or Austria

Sunflowers always look happy. But more than just their beauty, they produce many seeds, and those seeds then produce more sunflowers that then produce more seeds and so on. I want to be like a sunflower. I believe that it radiates God's beauty, and glory, and that because of that, it produces more seeds. It's a pretty simple desire, but it's mine. 

Eastern Europe has miles and miles of sunflower fields.

Did I tell you?

Did I tell you about my first impression of Bulgaria?

At 1 AM we leave Thessalonika on the bus for Burgas, Bulgaria. We immediately fall asleep... or at least we try. At 4 AM I wake up out of discomfort and can't fall back asleep till about 5:30. Unfortunately at 6 AM we arrive in Sofia, the country's capital. There they announce... something. Yeah, like I speak Bulgarian. So everyone gets off and I figured, hey I don't need anything, I'll just take advantage of the bus not moving and try and sleep some more. As soon as I shut my eyes the driver comes back, wakes me up, and begins to yell at me in Bulgarian. Again, I don't speak Bulgarian. But I figure he want's me off for some reason so with my back pack at my feet, I stand up and don't bother taking it with me. After all we still have 5 hours to go, and I'm still half asleep. My backpack only has my computer, and all my books for the summer no big. So I'm off the bus on the sidewalk waiting for my parents to show up from the restroom. My dad walks right by me just in time to see the bus driver hop in the bus and pull away. In a frantic, and not knowing I was off the bus, dad calls out to the driver looking for me. I call out to him and he sees that I'm off the bus. He then asks about our bags, and some how the driver says that he will be back by eight. 

So all we have to do is wait, right? Well, not exactly. You see dad was supposed to be able to pick up our tickets from Sofia to Burgas at that bus station but for one reason or another they don't have them and we have to buy new ones. Now we're not sure if we have tickets for the same bus. The "ticket lady" tries in her best English to assure us that we will be on the exact same bus, and our luggage will be on it. But we're still not sure that she understood us, and at the same time there's nothing we can do about it.

Everything I had for 9 weeks. Really not a lot.

During all of this, I kept wondering what we would do if we lost all our stuff. My computer would be lost, all my clothes that I brought would be gone, and all I had with me was my iPod and my camera, and the few things in my purse. Of course once you  begin to think of all of this you worry.
 "How am I going to survive with out my luggage? The three of us probably have 100's of dollars worth of stuff! What's going to happen to it." 

Well first of all, worrying is a sin. Secondly, God is in control. Thirdly, I value my stuff WAY too much. We would have eventually been able to replace most of it. But it hit me while we were sitting and waiting for the bus that Christ is more valuable than all of this. This song came to mind:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. 

I would have survived with out my stuff. Luckily the bus came with our stuff on it, but even if it hadn't we would have been ok because God is with us. He is the one that we should be looking to. We shouldn't have to worry about our stuff because He should be everything to us.
Granted, it's going to take a lot more for me to be 100% satisfied with Him, but I'm on my way. 
What about you?