What a Wild Unkept Rose Bush Taught Me About Being Present
I grew up hearing about roses my whole life. My grandmothers had rose bushes at their homes. My mom loves roses and gifted me with rose bushes more times than I can count. My mother-in-law loves roses too. Roses were everywhere in my story, talked about, tended to, passed down like a family heirloom.
And still, through all of it, I had never really stopped for one. I had never really stopped and smelled the roses.
We had nine children in our home. Nine children. And if you are doing the math on what that means for a household, you are not wrong. It was beautiful and loud and full and exhausting and wonderful all at the same time, sometimes within the same five minutes.
Outside our home there was a rose bush. A big, wild, unkept rose bush that nobody had time to prune or fuss over. Every year it bloomed anyway, full and sprawling and covered in roses, completely unbothered by the chaos happening on the other side of the door.
One day, in the middle of all of it, I stopped. I do not even remember what stopped me. But I leaned in and smelled one of those roses.
I was not ready for it. The scent was the sweetest, most full, most real thing I had experienced in longer than I could say. I stood there and breathed it in and I could not make myself walk away. I just kept breathing. In and out. Rose after rose.
That moment changed something in me. From then on, no matter what was happening inside the house, no matter how loud or hectic or undone things felt, I made my way to that rose bush. It became part of my day. The smell of those roses settled something in me that nothing else could touch. And that old phrase, the one I had heard my whole life and never really understood, became completely real to me.
Here is what I learned standing next to that wild, unkept, nobody-planted-it-on-purpose rose bush: you cannot inherit presence. You cannot catch it from the people around you who already have it. My grandmothers loved roses. My mom loved roses. My mother in law loved roses. But until I stopped and breathed one in for myself, it meant nothing to me.
Presence has to be discovered on your own. And it is usually waiting for you in the most ordinary place.
Life Is Hectic. That Is Not the Problem.
Nobody is going to tell you that life is not busy. It is. The to-do list does not empty. The notifications do not stop. The week disappears before you figured out where Monday went. That is real and it is not going away.
But there is a difference between being busy and being absent. Busy means your plate is full. Absent means you have stopped showing up to your own life.
Absence is sneaky. It looks like sitting at dinner with your family while your mind is still at the office. It looks like someone you love telling you something important while you give them the nod that says you are listening when you caught about every third word. It looks like driving a route you have driven a thousand times and arriving with no memory of a single moment of the trip.
Psychologists call this autopilot. Your brain, efficient as it is, shifts into a kind of cruise control when tasks feel familiar. And while that works fine for tying your shoes, it is not great for being an actual human being in relationship with other actual human beings.
When we live on autopilot long enough, we stop noticing. We stop noticing the way our child laughs. We stop noticing when our spouse has had a hard day. We stop noticing the quiet moments that will not announce themselves but are, if we are being honest, the ones we will miss the most someday.
The Roses Are Already Blooming. Are You Looking?
My rose bush did not wait for me to have margin in my schedule. It bloomed every single year whether I noticed it or not. The sweetness was there the whole time. I just had to stop long enough to find it.
What if the thing you have been praying for, working toward, and waiting on is already here? The house you prayed for. The kids who fill it with noise. The job that pays the bills. The friend who keeps showing up. The marriage that is still standing. The body that carried you through another year.
These are not consolation prizes on the way to something better. For many of us, these are the answered prayers we rushed right past.
In the book of 1 Kings, the prophet Elijah is burned out, running for his life, and convinced that everything has fallen apart. He collapses under a tree and tells God he is done. And God does not argue with him. He lets him rest. He sends an angel to feed him. And then when Elijah is ready, God shows up.
Not in the earthquake. Not in the fire. Not in the rushing wind that tears the mountains apart. God shows up in the still small voice. The gentle whisper. The thing you cannot hear when you are running.
The life you are looking for might be speaking to you in a whisper right now. The question is whether you are still enough to hear it.
Selah: The Word We Keep Skipping Over
If you have ever read through Psalms, you have seen it. Selah. It appears 74 times. Most people read right past it, assuming it is some kind of ancient musical notation.
But the Hebrew root of Selah means to pause. To stop. To lift up and consider what was just said before moving on. It is essentially God pressing the pause button in the middle of the poem and saying: did you catch that? Sit with it for a moment.
We live in a world that has deleted the Selah. We consume content at a speed that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago. We get the news and skip to the next story. We hear a song and swipe to the next one. We have a meaningful conversation and check our phone before the other person has finished their sentence.
We are not bad people. We are overstimulated people who have forgotten that some things deserve a Selah. Some moments are asking us to stop, breathe, and actually be there for them.
Your kid’s game. The conversation over coffee. The drive home when the light is just right. The moment your person reaches for your hand. A wild rose bush in full bloom that nobody planted on purpose. Those are Selah moments. They do not come back.
What It Actually Costs Us to Never Slow Down
Chronic rushing has a real cost. Not just to your stress levels, though that is real too. It costs you your relationships.
When you are never fully present in a conversation, the people around you feel it. They may not be able to name it, but they feel it. There is a difference between someone who is physically in the room and someone who is actually with you. Kids especially know this. They stop bringing you the big stuff when they have learned that your attention is always somewhere else.
Spouses feel it too. Some of the loneliest people in the world are sitting in the same house, at the same table, watching the same television as someone they love and feeling completely unseen. Not because anyone is cruel. Because everyone is distracted.
Researchers who study relationships have found that one of the most important things spouses do is what they call turning toward. It means noticing when someone reaches out, even in small ways, and responding. A comment about the weather. A funny thing that happened at work. A sigh. These are small bids for connection. When we are always half-present, we miss them entirely.
Presence is not just a nice idea. It is how people feel loved.
Practical Ways to Start Noticing Again
Nobody is saying quit your job and spend the afternoon watching clouds. Life is demanding and real people are counting on you. But intentional does not mean slow. It means aware. It means choosing, in small moments throughout the day, to actually show up for the moment you are in.
1. Take one breath before you walk through the door.
Before you walk into your house at the end of the day, stop at the door. One breath. Let the work stay in the car. The people on the other side of that door deserve the version of you that actually arrived.
2. Put the phone face down during conversations.
Not in your pocket. Leave it in another room. Research shows that even the presence of a phone on the table reduces the quality of the conversation, even when nobody is using it. Remove the option.
3. Ask one real question and actually wait for the answer.
Not “how was your day” while you check the mail. Something real. “What was the best part of today?” “What made you laugh this week?” Then stop and listen like the answer matters. Because it does.
4. Notice one thing on purpose every day.
One thing you would have missed if you had kept scrolling. The way light comes through the window in the morning. Your child’s face when they figure something out. The smell of dinner cooking. Start with one. Then two. Build the habit of noticing.
5. Find your rose bush.
It does not have to be a literal rose bush, though it can be. It is the thing that pulls you back into your body and out of your head. A walk without earbuds. Coffee on the porch. Five minutes of quiet before the house wakes up. Whatever it is, build it into your day. Not because you have time. Because you need it. Because the people who need you need you present, not just nearby.
The Life You Have Been Waiting For Is Already Here
That rose bush outside my home never asked for my attention. It just kept blooming. Year after year, full and sweet and unhurried, right there in the middle of all our beautiful chaos.
Your life is doing the same thing. It is blooming right now. The people in it are not going to be small forever, or close forever, or here forever. The seasons change. The children grow. The moments pass.
The question is not whether you have enough time to be present. The question is whether you are being intentional with the time you already have.
Notice the people around you. Really listen when they talk. Look up from your phone long enough to see what is happening in the room. Let someone feel like they have all of you, even if it is just for ten minutes.
And if there is a rose bush near you, even a wild unkept one that nobody planned, stop.
Lean in. Breathe. Selah. This is your life. It is a good one. Stop and smell the roses.
If you find yourself constantly running on empty, struggling to slow down, or feeling disconnected from the people and life around you, talking to a licensed therapist can help. You do not have to keep living at a pace that is costing you more than you realize.
Reaching out is not a sign of weakness. It is one of the strongest, most honest things you can do for yourself and for the people who need you present. At Crossroads, we are for you through life’s journeys. Call today: 225-341-4147.
