Sallie Dawkins

Sometimes a message doesn’t end when the words are spoken. 
 

In April 2026, I had the opportunity to share a message at the Worship & Word Prophetic Conference in Versailles, Kentucky. The message I shared was titled, “The Seed Still Bears the Name.” The heart of that message was simple, but deeply personal: what we go through does not get to define who we are. Identity is not shaped by circumstance, but rooted in Christ.
 

At the time, I had recently released my nonfiction book, “When Faith Is Shaken: Discovering Wholeness in the Midst of Chronic Illness.” That book came out of my own journey of learning to trust God in the middle of long, difficult seasons—especially when life does not look the way you expected it to.
 

I didn’t plan to revisit those themes in a different format. But as I prepared for the conference, something began to take shape. The message wasn’t just informational—it was visual. It was alive with imagery.

A seed.
A hidden place.
A process that feels like breaking but is actually growth.
 

The response to that message was incredibly meaningful. People connected with it across ages and life stages. There was a shared recognition of what it feels like to be in a hidden season—to feel delayed, unseen, or even forgotten—and a renewed sense of hope that God was still at work. After the conference, I found myself asking: What would it look like to share this message in a way that families could experience together? That question led somewhere I didn’t expect.
 

I have always loved gardening, and one of my last large projects was a sunflower garden. I think there’s something special about how sunflowers grow and turn toward the light that stayed with me. As I reflected on the message, those images returned in a new way. This time, not as a scripture heavy sermon, but as a gentle story.
 

“Rooted in Christ’s Identity” became a short, family-friendly allegory about a little sunflower seed who believes something has gone terribly wrong. After being taken from the Gardener’s workbench and dropped into the soil, the seed finds itself in darkness, unable to hear the Gardener’s voice. It begins to wonder if it has been forgotten.
 

But underground, something holy is happening. Through hiddenness, change, and the slow work of becoming, the seed begins to discover deeper truths: silence is not the same as distance, wounds do not change worth, and what the Gardener has planted is not renamed by fear, delay, or pain.
 

Writing this story became more than a creative process. It became a way of continuing to listen—to what God has been speaking about identity, wholeness, and trust. It also became an invitation to share that message in a way that is accessible to children, meaningful for teens, and encouraging for adults.
 

Because this story is meant to be shared, I wanted to create a Small Group & Homeschool Leader Guide. With Scripture tie-ins, discussion prompts, and reflection questions, it is designed to help families, classrooms, and small groups slow down, talk together, and anchor the story’s themes in truth. In my work as an Early Childhood Training & Curriculum Specialist for the Marine Corp and Navy, then later as I homeschooled children in four different states, asking questions to extend a story or including questions for reflection or journaling to my books, sort of comes naturally to me.  
 

While this book was not originally part of my publishing plans, in many ways, it feels like a natural overflow.
 

If you have ever walked through a season that felt hidden, if you have ever wondered whether God still sees you, or if you are looking for a way to have deeper conversations about identity and hope with your family, my prayer is that this story meets you there. Because what God has created still bears His name. 

 

“In every seed is a hidden life waiting to grow. A sunflower seed is still a sunflower, even before it blooms. The seed already contains everything it needs to become the flower, because the Creator set the blueprint into its DNA.” (p. 3, “Rooted In Christ’s Identity” by Sallie Dawkins)