On Cultivate What Matters and the end of a season.

Today, the Cultivate team announced that Cultivate What Matters will be closing. Many of you have already reached out.

Although I haven’t been part of the company since it was acquired in 2022, Cultivate has never left me. It was never just a company I founded; it was my heart.

Long before there was a business, there was a garden. And a very unlikely gardener.

Tending that garden, and the children who’ve grown up in it, changed the way I see all of life. I may have started a garden, but it started me.

Alongside the zinnias and tomatoes, there have been dreams planted. Dreams that grew beyond what I could ever accomplish on my own. God used the garden to teach me to believe in what I couldn’t yet see, to prune to make things more fruitful, and to learn – imperfectly – to tend what matters most.

Today’s announcement is deeply sad for me. But no announcement can take away the good things grown.

We’ve been growing good things together since 2009, friends. From Southern Weddings to Making Things Happen to Cultivate What Matters, I praise Him for it all.

The best part of this journey has been you. Your stories, leaps of faith, dreams pursued, relationships strengthened, and meaningful things grown. Today, I’m celebrating all the women who discovered that little by little really does add up – and that the dreams God has given you are worth tending.

Mine included.

These last four years have shown me even more how to live what lasts. They’ve held unexpected endings, the loss of my dad and my best friend, health challenges and renewal, closeness with our children, and learning again that God is faithful in every season.

Through it all, I’ve loved the cultivated life even more. My Season by Season Planner has remained open on my kitchen table. I’ve tended my days with PowerSheets, covered notes to friends in far too many Cultivate stickers, slept in a faded Little by Little t-shirt more nights than I can count, wrapped gifts (and my life) in Tending Tape, and found fresh formation in the pages of my Write the Word journals.

And one of my greatest joys has been meeting so many of you who have stopped me to say hello and share how you’re cultivating what matters, too. Thank you. Your encouragement has been an unexpected gift, especially over these last few years.

Grace, who was born right before Cultivate was, told me that when you lose a person, you spend the day doing things that remind you of them. She said it should be the same with Cultivate. So today, she has declared we should do Cultivate-y things: pick lots of zinnias to give away, make little-by-little progress on a meaningful goal, have a photo shoot with the cats (!), and I should wear all of my Cultivate clothes. So, that’s what we’re doing.

Today I’m sad, and I’m grateful. Grief and gratitude can live in the same heart.

I’m grateful that God allowed me to be a part of this alongside such wonderful women and all of you. I didn’t deserve any of it, but His grace changes everything.

I’m grateful for every teammate who poured her gifts into this mission. Emily, your 17 years have changed the world.

I’m grateful for every woman who invited Cultivate into her story.

And I praise the Lord that the truest parts of Cultivate were never confined to a company. They were planted in hearts.

The flowers fade. Our stuff and our accomplishments won’t last. My garden, which is overflowing with life as I write these words, will fade with the first frost.

To everything there is a season. And sometimes the end of a season is not the end of the story.

After winter always comes spring.

With love,

Lara

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