Scatter Sunshine

One of the sappiest hymns in the LDS hymnal is Hymn 230, Scatter Sunshine, but earlier this evening, I found myself humming it because that is exactly what we had done weeks before, and boy did it pay off! The birdseed we sometimes buy has lots of sunflower seeds in it, which our pet cockatiel doesn't eat. I took to sifting the sunflowers seeds out from the other seeds, and over a period of months, we had collected several buckets full of sunflowers seeds. As a family, we decided that what we wanted to do with the seeds was to scatter them in a vacant lot near our neighborhood, so that's what we did.

That was some months ago, and the conditions of that lot haven't really been conducive to growing things. The drought has been terrible, and the lot had been mowed a few times. Though we had once fantasized of seeing rows and rows of sunflowers, we had all but given up on seeing any of our sunflowers grow. However, earlier this evening, Mom spotted one, and our whole family was happy that at least one of our sunflowers had grown.

Now, it may be that our sunflower might soon get mowed down along with the weeds that grow in the lot, or maybe the drought will kill it; I'm not sure. But I am sure that those few minutes of scattering sunflower seeds paid off in the happiness we felt when we saw that one of them had grown. It was only a little thing, but it made us happy.

Scatter Sunshine recommends doing "little kindly deeds" because "slightest actions often meet the sorest needs." I don't know if what we had done met any "sorest needs," but it certainly brought joy to my heart, making it well worth the few minutes it took to scatter the sunflower seeds. Similarly, we may not change many people's lives very dramatically by doing "little kindly deeds," but we might make a few people a little bit more happy, and when we do, we'll find that it was definitely worth the effort.