What My Flower Beds Taught Me About Rhythm

At the end of last year, I moved from the home where I had lived for the last thirty years. I thought it was my forever home, but it wasn’t. Even so, there are lessons from that place that will stay with me forever.

I had several flower beds in my front yard. From the start, each was planned with intention, not just for how it looked in spring, but for how it thrived through all the seasons. Flowers were always in bloom, but not everything at once.

What made those flower beds beautiful wasn’t constant bloom. It was the rhythm. The pattern. The way one thing made room for the next.

My favorites among all of the flowers, though, were my roses. They were a delight not only because of their beauty, but because so many gardens before mine had them. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother. Each of them had roses. I remember when we first moved my mom into a retirement home, her main worry was where she would be able to have her roses. We provided the plants (she actually brought them with her), and they graciously allowed us to plant them just outside her door. It made that place her home in an instant.

Coming in a close second for what I loved in those flower beds were my trees. Some were blooming trees, others were markers of the seasons, and still others were evergreen. It seemed that, for me, everything in those flower beds was always changing, even as they held their place.

Yes, there was a rhythm to those flower beds—loose and a little surprising, just like the best jazz.

Sometimes, we play a part in their rhythm. Sometimes we wait for the blooms to fall before making space for what’s next, but at other times, we prune the blossoms ourselves. Not because they’ve failed, but because we know that cutting them back is what makes the next bloom possible. In fact, the health of the plant depends on it.

Over the decades I spent with those flower beds, one of the things I learned was that preparing a garden for the next season is as sacred as tending it in its prime. The soil needs feeding. The beds need clearing. The roots need time to settle and strengthen. That quiet work is never wasted. It’s what ensures beauty returns. Not by accident, but by design.

There’s wisdom in that.

And perhaps that’s the deeper truth and lesson those flower beds taught that will stay with me. We were made for seasons, not for sameness. And in every season, whether we’re blooming, resting, or preparing, there’s a place for us in the garden.

Because, like the flowers in those beds, we weren’t made to be in full bloom all the time.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we started measuring our worth by our productivity, confusing our output with our identity. We push through the weariness, stack calendars with commitments, and mistake exhaustion for accomplishment. But no flower blooms forever. No tree bears fruit in every season. Even the tide rises and falls.

So why do we believe that we should always be in full flourish?

If we could listen to creation, I think it would whisper: You don’t have to always be in full bloom. Sometimes, you’re just meant to be.

The Sacred Pause

Honoring the Sabbath wasn’t a suggestion. It was a commandment. And not just for people. God extended rest to the land, the animals, and the entire created world. There is holiness in stillness.

When we refuse to rest, we reject the very design we were created to live within.

That’s why we can know that rest is not laziness. It’s not quitting. It’s not giving up. Rest is receiving. It is a declaration of trust. Trust in the process, trust in God, trust that the work we’ve done will hold even when we step back.

Earlier in my life, I went through a season where I had no choice but to slow down. I’ve written about it in my book Adjusted Sails: What does this make possible? Everything in my life — my career, my health, and my relationships — was asking me to let go, to listen, and to stop forcing forward momentum.

It was as if all the gears had ground to a halt. At first, it felt like failure. I had spent so many years pushing through, producing, holding everything together. To not have an answer, not have a plan, not have forward motion felt terrifying.

I remember one morning during that season, I just sat on the bench on my back porch for a while. No rush, no list. Just quiet. And watched and listened to the wind in the trees just beyond the fence. And I realized I hadn’t felt that kind of stillness in years.

Slowly, something softer emerged from that time.

When I finally surrendered to the pause, I discovered something I hadn't expected: Space. There was space to think again. Space to reconnect with my values. Space to reflect and reimagine. Not to try and fix anything, but simply to be present. And in that quiet, I reconnected with my own spirit. And I remembered what mattered.

I felt something stir that hadn’t been there in a long time: Peace. I wasn’t blooming. I was healing. And that, too, is growth.

What Rest Really Looks Like

For many of us, the idea of rest feels unrealistic, even indulgent. We associate rest with escape. But rest doesn’t need to be ambitious. In fact, some of the most potent forms of rest are quiet, ordinary, and woven into daily life.

Rest can be stillness from turning off the noise and letting silence speak. Rest can be creativity—baking a cake, planting a flower, painting a page, just because it brings you joy.

Rest might be as simple as closing your eyes for 15 minutes with no plan. Or laughing at something silly with someone who sees you. Sometimes, rest is prayer with no words, just presence. That kind of rest may be my favorite of all.

But rest does ask something of us. It asks for our surrender, and it can require resistance. It means that we might have to resist the constant pressure to prove our worth, the cultural narrative that says we must always be achieving, growing, and becoming. And it must resist the lie that slowing down means falling behind.

Because the truth is this: Rest isn’t about any of those things. And it definitely is not about falling behind. It’s about catching up to yourself.

August As An Invitation

We were never meant to bloom year-round.

We were meant to live rhythmically, like creation itself. Like my flower beds. With seasons of brilliance, seasons of quiet, and seasons of sacred becoming, often hidden, always holy.

August sits at the edge of two seasons, holding summer in one hand and reaching toward fall with the other. It’s a threshold month, a time of turning. And in that space, we’re invited to breathe.

 We’re invited to tend the edges of our energy, our relationships, our dreams.

What in your life is asking to be watered with gentleness? What needs pruning? What needs to be left alone so it can root more deeply?

Jesus often withdrew to quiet places—before the miracle, before the moment, before the crowd. There’s a message in that rhythm that reminds me of the garden. Even the Son of God didn’t bloom endlessly. He made space for rest, and so should we.

So if August is offering you rest, take it. Answer the invitation not with guilt, but with grace.

Remember the flower beds.

They didn’t ask permission to rest. And neither should you.

Not everything has to bloom today. That’s the beauty of the rhythm.

So tend your soil. Trust your season. And let rest do its quiet work.

And always remember that even when nothing’s blooming, perhaps even especially then, the garden is still alive.