Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse
Welcome to the Greenhouse! Join Denise each week as she has conversations with women who have experienced God’s power in their lives. We'll cover everything from relationships and parenting to running a business and building up our communities. We hope these stories inspire and enable you to make an impact in your world.
We at E's Greenhouse equip, encourage, and enable God’s Daughters to embrace their true identity as mighty women in the earth. We offer a variety of resources to help you achieve your goals, including online courses, videos, training manuals, blog posts, live video chats, podcasts & coaching groups. Our team of experienced mentors are here to guide you every step of the way, and we're committed to helping you achieve your full potential. Join us today and take your story to the next level!
Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse
**SPECIAL EPISODE** A Texas Tale of Divine Intervention with Denise Jackson
This week's episode comes from the Sidewalk Conversations podcast! I had the chance to sit-down with Piet and share so much from my book of remembrance. It was so fun, and I hope you enjoy it too!
Sidewalk Conversations is a podcast that shines a light on ordinary people who do extraordinary things. In these interviews, Piet Van Waarde (a 40 year veteran of pastoral ministry) has heart-to-heart conversations with regular people about what it takes to stay faithful and effective in the things that matter most. Find Sidewalk Conversations wherever you listen to podcasts or find Piet Van Waarde on Youtube.
In 1998, we had the opportunity to. Both of us are school teachers, but I had built this little business with the school districts in Texas and we had the opportunity to move closer to our families who were in Laredo and San Antonio. And so we picked Wimberly and moved there and our house flooded away four months later.
Denise Jackson:We barely got out. In fact his mother was pregnant with him. They had just gotten married. They came down for the weekend and we had stayed up all night talking to them and I said don't you wake me up in the morning, lee Jackson, I'm sleeping late. At five o'clock in the morning he wakes me up and I'm like what are you doing? He said water's coming in the house. We barely got out and his mom was coming across the Creek. I'd already made it. The road was a Creek now, so I'd already made it across. She's coming across and she slipped and fell and was zooming down the river and I just reached out hoping to find something and there was a piece of rebar in the ground and I grabbed it and her hand oh my goodness that's preston rivers, jackson is that your middle name?
Denise Jackson:that's where he got it I love it but in 2006 we moved back, we bought a house back.
Piet Van Waarde:We're not more punishment.
Denise Jackson:Yeah, we're well we're not right on the river, we're across the street from the 500-year floodplain, but our neighborhood has access to the river, which I love, so it's all good.
Piet Van Waarde:Best of both worlds.
Denise Jackson:It was good, we got safely out and God led us on another great journey that we couldn't have imagined if we hadn't gone through the flood, because we never would have moved again. Right, we loved it yeah uh, but we had to because we lost everything and then you have to get into that. Yeah, it's a really really great story, but okay anyway, that's one of the stories, of the many stories of god blessing our lives, and we just couldn't see it right in the middle of it that's how it is, isn't it?
Piet Van Waarde:That's right, oh my goodness. So welcome to another episode of Sidewalk Conversations. We're so glad that you are joining us and we have another special guest that I am anxious to introduce to you. But before I do, I want to say thank you to our sponsor for this program. Today's sponsor is Stone Stash Coffee. We've talked about them before, but the proprietors are good friends of mine and they developed their own unique brand of roasting coffee. It is air roasted, so all the beans get the same amount of heat and therefore they are very, very good. I have this coffee every single morning, and if you're looking for a good cup of coffee in the morning and you're ready for a change of what you're doing, I'd like to recommend Stone Stash. You'll find their information here in the notes, and if you live in the Austin area, they'll hand deliver it.
Denise Jackson:So there's that bonus as well.
Piet Van Waarde:So I am delighted to introduce you to Denise Jackson. Hi Thank you, denise, for joining me. Denise is the grandmother of our technician, preston Jackson, who we generally make fun of behind the curtain, and so we got introduced a couple weeks ago and I am so glad I've heard a little bit of her story, but I am going to be learning more about her story even as you do, and so welcome.
Denise Jackson:Thank you for joining me today. Thank you, it's so good to have you. It's lovely to be here. I'm so glad that Preston connected us today. Yes, me too.
Piet Van Waarde:So let's start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about how you grew up, where you grew up, maybe some of the significant influences in your life.
Denise Jackson:Okay, so I grew up mostly in South Texas. I was born in Hawaii because my dad was in the Navy and then, when I was two, we moved to Houston because my dad went to dental school. And then, when I was six, we headed for South Texas because my parents were from Laredo.
Piet Van Waarde:All right.
Denise Jackson:And so that was—.
Piet Van Waarde:So like basically a Texas girl through and through.
Denise Jackson:Pretty Texas, even though I was born in Hawaii. Yes, and I have you know, I'm very biased towards Texas.
Piet Van Waarde:I just think it's Most Texans are I grew up with land around me you know, with the ranches.
Denise Jackson:My granddaddy had a lot of land in different parts of Texas and I would travel with them sometimes and see those places and I just fell in love with that Horses, you know all of that stuff. So those were influences. I love it yeah.
Piet Van Waarde:Now, from our previous conversation, I know you're also a person of faith, and so tell me a little bit about. Was that something that you grew up with, or was there a significant transition at some point?
Denise Jackson:So that's kind of interesting. I am the oldest of six children and my father was Baptist and my mother was Catholic.
Piet Van Waarde:Okay, wow, we don't usually see that.
Denise Jackson:You do not normally see that, you do not normally see that, and so I went to both churches until I was 10 years old and then dad converted to Catholicism and so then we liked I used to say he was more extreme Catholic- than anybody.
Denise Jackson:It's like when you convert. So he would read us the Bible, which was kind of different for breakfast, but then he was very faithful to going to the Catholic church and so that's how I grew up and I knew God. I remember, even at three years old, climbing a tree in the backyard and I would sing songs to God, but didn't really know about Jesus that well. You know, I didn't have a relationship, but when I got married at 16, pregnant with my oldest daughter, and Lee was 19.
Piet Van Waarde:Which I guess when you hear about that now you're like wow, that's really young, but back no, no, no, no, I'm not that old, it was really really.
Denise Jackson:Oh my gosh.
Denise Jackson:Yes, it was such a big deal all right and um and everybody was pretty sure that we would not stay together. But I've shared with you. We've been married 50 years this last September and that is only God, because it was hard going for a while there boy, two teenagers. But when I was 19, we had moved back to Laredo. We had gone to college, spent a couple of years on our own, and then we moved back to Laredo to we had gone to college, spent a couple of years on our own, and then we moved back to Laredo to work with Lee's dad and both Lee and I started going to Bible studies. That one was hosted at my parents' home my mom and one that Lee went to that was a men's group and I think that was the first time we really started reading the word and it became personal and both of us decided yes we want to follow Jesus.
Denise Jackson:And, yeah, not that it changed everything in our lives. It's taken a lot of years, but you know it was a profound change, and at one.
Piet Van Waarde:Bible study.
Denise Jackson:I was 19. Bible study I was 19. And so I was in that Bible study with these ladies who were at the time older ladies but younger than me now, and they were teaching on love the Lord, your God, with all your heart. And I was a cynic and I walked up to him afterwards and said I don't know how you could love the Lord, your God, with all your heart. I can't see him, I can't touch him. I mean, I just don't understand that.
Denise Jackson:And Jenny Leindecker said you ask him and he will show you. And sure enough, I prayed with those ladies and asked him to show me how to love him. And what he did is he showed me how he had loved me through the word. I read it before I thought it was boring, and then I started reading it again and everything I read was like wow, you love us so much, you've chased us for so long and we're so ugly to you. I was so mad at those Israelites. For a while I was real offended for God, for those Israelites. And then he showed me Denise, you're the same.
Piet Van Waarde:Oh, don't you hate that.
Denise Jackson:Well, I've come to love it. Just show me, show me. Lord those things in my heart. But yeah, at the time I did hate it Anyway. So that was the beginning, and thank God, because a year later I said I was the oldest of six my brother, who was 22 months younger than me, was killed in a car accident. I was so mad at God, but at least I had a relationship with him, you know. So I talked to him about it, I screamed at him about it.
Denise Jackson:I was really, really upset. But you know, like now, looking back, I see that my relationship became so much closer and he'd given me a dream that really helped me and in it basically said you have a job to do where you are, and Ford has a job to do where he is. And it just relieved me, you know. And then I went on. I was like, okay, I have a job to do. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm ready.
Piet Van Waarde:Now there are a couple of ways I want to take the conversation today. First of all, you mentioned that you were married for 50 years. That is a rare thing in our day. So tell me, are there and I'm sure people ask you, but I'm just curious myself are there some things that you look back at in your relationship and say these were some key decisions we made along the way that aided our longevity?
Denise Jackson:So early on we. So I'm going to step back to when Lee was saying let's get married. We need to get married because you're pregnant. And I was like, no, I'm 16. And he said if we get married, god will take care of us. Neither one of us had that strong of faith then, but those words out of his mouth, I think, really made a difference.
Denise Jackson:They convinced me that I could trust him and that somehow we'd make it. Then, a little later in our lives, we started praying together. It was from desperation, normally. At first we were living in Lakey, texas, and we'd lived there a year and the economy around Texas fell apart because gas prices went up to $2 a gallon and nobody would travel. You know we laugh at that now, but back then it meant that his construction job was going away and we didn't have any money. We couldn't live and so he decided he needed to go back to college. So we had done everything we could to go back to college and every door closed. So Kerrvillevil was 60 miles away. We decided to go finish up, uh, the basics there, and he applied as a dorm director, I applied as a kindergarten teacher. Neither one of us had degrees.
Denise Jackson:Everybody wanted degrees yeah, yeah and um, so those doors closed and so we really just didn't have a way to move. And it was two weeks before school started and he took my hands and said we're gonna pray that god will do something. And I said, okay, let's, I mean we're at that point. So we started praying and the phone rang and it was Shriner College, saying the guy that was supposed to be the dorm director had backed out at the last minute. Would he be willing to do it still? And he said yes, and so we got off the phone.
Denise Jackson:He got off the phone and he said but babe, we still need to pray because we don't have any money coming in. We had a, we had tuition, we had a place to live, we even had food. We could eat at the cafeteria with the kids. So it was like huge. But we needed money to drive a car or to do anything, pay the electric bill, um, and so he said we still need to pray and so he started. We he held my hands again started praying. The phone rang again and it was Zion Lutheran Children's Center in Kerrville saying the kindergarten teacher that we had hired has told us they can't be here.
Piet Van Waarde:Oh, wow.
Denise Jackson:Can you come be the kindergarten teacher? So you know, along the way we learned prayer praying together. God listened to those prayers even more than our individual prayers. It was just holy. It was like he was just right there in the middle of us. He was in the middle of us from the beginning because of Lee's words, I think.
Denise Jackson:And then we went through a hard time in a church. We went through this great time in this church because we learned so, so much about the word, but then, a few years in, it broke apart, and it was very devastating. And through that, though, we learned you can't trust any wonderful individual man or woman that's leading a church. You have to put your faith in God and spend time with Him. So I would say the first thing is back to what I learned at 19, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, so when the other person fails, you're not trusting them, you're trusting God. Second thing is that you pray together. And the third thing, which is just as important, is pouring in the Word of God helps the Word to be in your heart, and it comes out of your mouth, and when it does, it's powerful.
Denise Jackson:And so I began first to pray for my husband and my children the Word of God when we were in that church where we learned so much, and I've continued to do that. And now, lee, over the years, we started praying together and he started praying for me the word of God, and I just feel like that's just been such a game changer, because we don't trust each other more than we trust God. So when one of us hurts the other one, unintentionally or intentionally, we go back to God. We know that we need to pray together to stay together. That sounds kind of cliche, but it's the truth. And then we know that the words that we speak about each other need to be what God says about us, and so that's just been really powerful in our lives.
Piet Van Waarde:Yeah, you know one of the things that I often use as an illustration. So my wife and I we did a lot of premarital counseling when I was pastoring, and you're bringing up a point that I think is so crucial, and that is that a lot of times, when people think about their relationship and how God fits into that relationship, they think about it in terms of a slice of life. So I have my finances, I have my career, I have my kids, I have my hobbies and, oh yeah, I should have a slice that's designated to God, and you know, then all the other things have a way of edging out. Or maybe the thought is I need to have a really big slice of God and then how do I fit everything else?
Denise Jackson:in.
Piet Van Waarde:But the analogy I like is to have God at the center of the circle and His word, his influence, his spirit informs all the other things. So, whether we're talking about our finances or we're talking about how to raise kids, or we're talking about our finances or we're talking about how to raise kids, or we're talking about even things like recreation, you know what are the things that renew us from God's perspective To have that as a centerpiece, and then you're both looking at that like that's equally important to both of you.
Piet Van Waarde:It just solves so many of the problems it does.
Denise Jackson:It doesn't mean that everything's easy, of course we still have walked through things, but we walk through them so differently. My mom just died the other day and I keep thinking about we don't grieve like other people, grieve that don't know the Lord. We still grieve, we miss them, but we know we're going to see them again and we know that we are not without hope, that they are with the Father, they're with Abba and they know what we don't know. We just see through a glass dim. That was hard. We were really shaken in that season but you know, we just had to hold on to Abba, to trust that in Jesus' name we were healed, or that Lee was healed and then he is. Praise God.
Denise Jackson:But it was a really, really scary walk and then we had to come to terms with well, if he's going to meet the Father sooner than I am, then how am I going to make that journey and just coming to a place where I could be peaceful about that and him coming to a place where he could be peaceful about that? I don't know how people even walk through the earth or problems with kids. Our four teenagers acted just like me. They were wild kids because they like to talk and they're out there and they're leading my old kids because they like to talk and they're out there and they're leading and you know, I would get so worried about them and then I would just take them and hand them back to God and say, okay, this is the word. I'm praying over them.
Piet Van Waarde:When they're old, they won't depart from it, cling to that, you know, so that you know I could have peace and joy and continue in life with that. I've noticed that too. We've talked a little bit about my journey with cancer, and one of the things I'm discovering and I'm guessing you knew the same is that you can, on one hand, feel the reality of your sickness, your disease, and you're in front of a doctor and he's telling you all these ominous things, and so that creates a certain reaction, obviously. But then you also have this other thing that is at work in you, which is God's promises, God's word, God's spirit, which is reassuring you. God's promises, God's word, God's spirit, which is reassuring you. It's like, yeah, this isn't real, but there's this other counterbalance that is just as real, that provides perspective and hope in the midst of the trial.
Piet Van Waarde:And the more experiences you have like that, the more trustworthy it becomes isn't it?
Denise Jackson:Yeah, that's true. You have like that, the more trustworthy it becomes, isn't it? Yeah, that's true? I think, too, like going through that. We know heaven is a reality because we've walked through so many things, because we know how God reached down and made those two phone calls. And reached down, those two phone calls and reached down. He told us to pay off our house and then opened the door for a job and then the job ended May 15th of 2021.
Denise Jackson:I got laid off because it was COVID ramifications and no, on May 30th and on May 15th, we made the last payment on our house and, like other people would be like, oh, I lost my job. And I was like, yes, you told me to get this job so we could pay out the house. And it was paid off. Everything was done. You know, just learning to. Whatever we're going through, trusting that you know, as long as I'm here, I have work to do and you have work to do. And when we're going through trusting that, you know, as long as I'm here, I have work to do and you have work to do, and when we're not here, we have work to do. It really mattered even all that time ago, but still matters to me that it doesn't stop you know, and he's got it, and so if one of us has to live without each, other.
Piet Van Waarde:It won't be easy, but it will be something that we can do, because our faith will be the thing that holds us. Yeah, I love that. So you also have now a very interesting role in talking to ladies. Yes, so part of how we connected was that you also have. Is it a podcast?
Denise Jackson:Well, it's an upcoming podcast. I look over at my podcast producer over there. We've done a lot of recordings and they're on the website already. They're on YouTube, but we haven't put them into a podcast format.
Piet Van Waarde:So tell me a little bit about what he did so.
Denise Jackson:I'm sorry I'm going to have to scooch up and give that little mic. So I have been consulting with small businesses for the last few years since I left that other job in my own business and I've enjoyed that. But I have been so drawn for so many years to supporting women in these different areas that are hard in our lives, and so a dream that I've had is to start a business where I could share my stories of remembrance with God, with God, and God has just really spoken to me about expanding that and talking to a lot more women about their experiences when God was mighty in their lives at different seasons, and so we're recording those and that's one of the pieces of it, because the E's Greenhouse of it, because the E's Greenhouse E the letter E, s for Sam greenhousecom is a place where women can also learn and they can also be coached in these different areas of their lives. So the piece of the videos is a great place to just hear and be encouraged for women who are going through whatever season in their lives, and then my hope is that also they'll get trained up in the ways of the Lord rather than their ways of the world.
Denise Jackson:So when I'm running. When I'm coaching in business, I'm coaching about God's way of running a business which is really important, very different from the way the world wants us to run business. Marriage with God is very, very different than what the world says a marriage should look like. Raising up your children very different. Being a member of your community is very different. You love your neighbors. When you get into situations, well guess what? It's you that's going to have to figure out what the word wants you, what God wants you to do about that, and that's usually harder than you think.
Denise Jackson:But in doing that like you build community you build community with the women that you're around, and so, anyway, I just want to share that. I just want to share those stories and equipping and I was a teacher for 13 years, in between running businesses and corporate work, and I feel like that's just the gift that has sustained through the years, you know.
Piet Van Waarde:I love to teach. Tell me a little bit about the stories. Like do you have an example of, like a story that maybe that you've heard recently that, so yeah, inspired me, um so one of, uh, the ladies that I talked to who, uh she she was really worried about doing the interview.
Denise Jackson:she said, oh, no one's going to want to hear me. Even afterwards, when she saw it, she was like, oh, nobody's going to care about that. What she was talking about was she got a puppy when she was young after her dad died at a young age, and she loved that puppy. But then five years later that puppy died and she loved that puppy, but then five years later that puppy died. Well then the next time she wanted to get a dog, after she was married and was pregnant with her first child, she like did all of this genetic testing. I mean, she was just like doing all of these things to try to make sure that dog would live. You need to watch the video to see the rest of it. But what she learned through that is she can't put her trust in what the world has to offer. She has to let go. She can't control every situation. She has to let go.
Denise Jackson:You mean we can't, we can't, we can't. We have to kind of be on the river and just let it take us, and it's God's river and so, anyway, it's a wonderful interview. Some of the other ones that just stand out to me are Paisley Jackson, who is Preston's sister, went on mission for three months to Burundi, in the Congo, and she's used with a mission, and that video is so wild Like most of us can't comprehend what it would be like to go serve in some place. That is very dangerous, but she fell in love with it. It was so funny because I recorded her while she was in training and she had hilarious ideas, and then I recorded her after, when she had done the trip and and faced some things, and so you got to see both sides like the way that we think about going to someplace like that.
Denise Jackson:and then what she found, what she came back with, was such a love for the people in the Congo and Burundi. And then she went to Mongolia for a month to staff a prayer room and again came back with so much love for these people that she met, and so it's a pretty powerful, powerful.
Piet Van Waarde:That sounds like it, so where can people find this?
Denise Jackson:At easegreenhousecom Okay, right now and you can look on YouTube for Ease Greenhouse and you'll find several videos. I think we have 12 so far and our goal this year is to reach 100 women so that there's so much content out there that other women can watch and they can sort through and find their issue or their struggle and know that God's not a respecter of persons. He says that, but when you listen to like me, broke and needing a job, and Lee needing a job for our lives to continue, god was faithful. If he would be faithful with Denise Jackson, he's going to be faithful with you, and so that's the message that I really want women to hear is you are able to be strong because God is strong on your behalf if you will just trust in him and lean in Because God is strong on your behalf, if you will just trust in him and lean in.
Piet Van Waarde:Which leads me to my last question I have for you, which is and it may be just what you said, but maybe you want to elaborate on it Given all the things that you've experienced, both in your marriage and leaning on God to find direction and resources, and now in the work you're doing with women, is there something that's kind of been a common theme through it all.
Denise Jackson:That has become sort of a life message for you. Well, for me, early on, god just spoke to me to write a book of remembrance so that when I went through the flood, when I went through the fire, I would remember who he was, so that I would not stumble. And so I believe that's still the same message. It's been a theme I think through my teaching, through the companies I've run through the companies I've run through my own startups, is just to write down everything that I'm going through, good or bad, and then look back and see God's hand in it, and it does really build up my spirit to remember that he never has let me down, and we were talking before this started about.
Denise Jackson:You don't see the crooked path until you are down the road, and then you see every spot where his hand just guided you and kept you safe and walked you through whatever you needed to go through and, like we said before, not that there aren't hard things, but you're never alone.
Piet Van Waarde:You're not alone Right right.
Denise Jackson:And when you know that it just changes everything.
Piet Van Waarde:Yeah, I love that. You know the scriptures often talk about, you know, remember, and you kind of wonder well, why is that such a repeated theme? And I think it's exactly what you're alluding to. Is that we have a tendency to forget. Yes, the need of the moment or the disappointments tend to outweigh all the good that God does.
Piet Van Waarde:But if you have a place that you can go on a regular basis where you have a tool or a journal where you've written down these things. It's like okay, when I'm in that place where I'm getting ready to doubt or be discouraged, I can go back and read about the faithfulness of God. In fact, I think that's part of what the scriptures are for right.
Denise Jackson:That's right, that's right. That's the best book of remembrance that we have. But I think that what if nobody wrote that book of remembrance? What if nobody was obedient to keep track of what God was doing? None of us would have what we have today, and of course, god made sure that that happened. But, yeah, we need our book of remembrance to help us get through these things and one day face to face. Amen, yeah.
Piet Van Waarde:Well, that's a beautiful place to start a stop, and thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a pleasure to meet you it has been a pleasure meeting you too.
Denise Jackson:I can't wait to meet your other half. You've been married a lot of years too, so you know a lot. Thank you for asking me to join you today.
Piet Van Waarde:You're welcome and thank you for joining us. We're so grateful that you were part of our time together today, and please join us again for another episode of Sidewalk Conversations.
