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
About Saving a Marriage
What happens when you drive home determined to leave your marriage and God intervenes with a blank billboard and an unmistakable voice? Mary Dunn's powerful testimony anchors this intimate conversation about marriage, divine intervention, and the courage to stay when everything in you wants to leave.
Mary takes us back to her corporate career days when, feeling isolated and emotionally distant from her husband, she made a bargain with God to let her out of her marriage. The response she received on that highway flyover would transform not just her relationship perspective but her entire life journey. "I was there when he made the promise," God told her, "so getting out isn't an option. However, I can make you the wife that Paul needs."
Now approaching their 44th anniversary, Mary shares the hard-earned wisdom that came from choosing to trust God's voice over her own desires. With refreshing honesty, she and host Denise Jackson explore the communication breakdowns that plague most marriages and the transformative power of simply asking, "What do you need from me?" Their conversation reveals why unspoken expectations become breeding grounds for resentment and how those "little irritants" that seem so important in the moment fade to insignificance with time and perspective.
What makes this conversation truly remarkable is the practical spiritual insight both women offer. They discuss the difference between immediate "Red Sea miracles" and the slow-unfolding transformations that sometimes take years. They share tangible practices like writing down both frustrations and appreciations, helping listeners shift their focus from problems to blessings. Most importantly, they remind us that each marriage is uniquely designed, with both partners bringing different fingerprints to the relationship.
Whether you're struggling in your relationship, supporting someone who is, or simply wanting to strengthen your marriage foundation, this conversation offers both comfort and challenge. Listen now and discover how to hear God's voice speaking into your specific situation, transforming not just your relationship but your own heart in the process.
Welcome to Rooted in Rising. I am so thrilled today to have a friend, mary Dunn, who is so talented and God has used her so much in my life. She actually brings the message at church often and she's spoken to women's groups and she's written, and she's so talented. I'm just thankful to have her here to just have a conversation between girlfriends, and so we're really glad that you've joined us today. I'm Denise Jackson, this is Mary Dunn, and let's get started.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Hey, would you like to just tell a little bit about your background to the ladies tonight? Sure.
Speaker 2:So I grew up in Houston and went to high school there, went to college at Texas A&M and actually had no idea what I wanted to do. But a friend of a friend of mine graduated before and said I think you ought to go into sales. So I did and I went into telecommunications at the time this was in the early eighties and just went through the sales cycle, went through sales management and then regional sales and all that kind of thing and did that for almost 20 years and got married and had two kids in the process and then, after leaving corporate America, I actually found out later they were taking bets as to how long I would be gone, because I didn't think I could be a stay-at-home mom, and I lasted six weeks. But anyway, a few years later, over a very interesting period of time, we had moved to Montana. Two different women that I had run into just on a walk one day one woman on walk and then the next week later at an event both looked at me and said I really think you ought to consider being a life coach. I had no idea what that was. They didn't give me a good explanation.
Speaker 2:Then I came back to Texas and I was here having lunch with a girlfriend and she said Mary, I think you'd make a really good life coach. And I was like, you're the third person and I don't even know what that is. And she was like, well, don't you think you ought to figure it out before God uses two by four next time? So I looked into it, went back to school, became a coach.
Speaker 2:I did most of my coaching with people who were in corporate jobs, but then it started to shift, and so I believe that God used that education in coaching not just for other people's benefit, but mostly for my benefit, as he often does. And through that, it was through that I got involved in the International Coaching Federation and I was asked to be on the board of the Austin chapter, and so it was through that that I started speaking. People would ask me to come speak, and then, you know, I love neuroscience, and so I was always intersecting neuroscience with my faith, and so that's how I got to speak at women's conferences and faith-based organizations. So, anyway, so, and then, as you know, occasionally our pastor both our previous pastor, the family pastor, and this pastor, our pastor both our previous pastor, the family pastor, and this pastor will occasionally ask me to share a message with the congregation, with the body, and that's always a very humbling experience.
Speaker 1:And it's a very big blessing for the congregation.
Speaker 1:We always feel like it's so perfect for the moment, which we both know is God. He has this perfect timing. That's right, absolutely. I love knowing more about your story and you knowing more about mine. It's so interesting. We grew up in the same age of this earth and so similar in the things that we faced and our choices as we moved through life, and one of the reasons that I love this podcast is because it gives us the chance to help other women see that we're not so alone out there, and when I was young, I felt that way.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And when I was young I felt that way, oh, absolutely Absolutely. Because of choices, like you say, that I've made, and poor choices on my part that I often made, I felt alone and isolated. Yeah, and you and I spoke a little bit before we started that. You know, relationships are hard. They are. You know, relationships are hard. It doesn't matter if it's with you know, a family member, a spouse, the people who are closest to us, relationships are just hard. And even relationships with sisters. I have two sisters and you grow. You're from the same gene pool, you grow up with the same parents and yet somewhere along the way two will get along well and the other two cannot get along well. And I was raised in a very traditional Catholic background and so I had more religion than I did. Relationship, yes.
Speaker 1:And so, so I have that same background and I also am one of four sisters. Yeah, well, I have two sisters and a brother. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So when I told you the story about I was married and we had had our two children, and we had a son and then we had a daughter, and in my mind I was like, okay, we've had one of each. Everything after that is a repeat. We're just going to call it good, we have one of each. Everything after that is a repeat. So we're just going to call it good, we have one of each and that's good.
Speaker 2:And I was working, I was a working mom, so anyway, but my relationship and my husband was working and that's a hard place in life, you know and our marriage at the time that you and I were talking this was a long time ago was very difficult and I did not have the tools to navigate how that was supposed to be. And I have a strong personality. I had a big job, I had a lot of people working for me, I could motivate them and inspire them and that kind of thing. It worked at the office, but those same tools did not work at home and I did not know how to shift gears and or if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:I mean, I remember that I was like look, if you're not going to get on board, yeah yeah, that's right, absolutely, and.
Speaker 2:I've always been very direct Diplomacy is not my strong suit, but I have a pure heart most of the time when I'm talking to people directly. But anyway, I told you it was one of the first times that I felt so alone and isolated because I couldn't tell my parents. I didn't feel like I could and I really didn't have any girlfriends. When I was in the corporate world my job was really. I was surrounded by men. It was mostly men. I was one of two managers in our company female managers so I didn't have a lot of girlfriends there.
Speaker 2:And I was on my way home one night and I was in a tough spot in my marriage and I felt like emotionally I was kind of checked out not kind of I was, and I didn't know what to do about it and I was afraid. But in my mind I went to logic and I said, well, I have this great job and I can support myself and my two kids. So I got that. And then I went through a list in my head of all the things that I would take from the house and all the things that he could have.
Speaker 2:You know, I did the whole. Thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were preparing yourself ahead of time.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I had, you know, it was all the lists and the thing, and then I was going to put together a strategy on how to get it done, because productivity was very important to me.
Speaker 1:Let's not miss a beat. That's right.
Speaker 2:We're not going through chaos, we're not going to miss a beat and we're going to check all the things off and we're going to do it with excellence, yes. However, I was on my way home and I told the Lord. I was like, hey, I can't do this and so I need to help you. I need you to help me. You know, back away from this marriage, and I did not know the Lord as my Lord and Savior at the time that my husband and I got married, and so I said you weren't really involved. I didn't get you involved on the front end of this, but if you let me out of this, I'll get you involved in the next one.
Speaker 1:I laughed at that before because it's like that's what we do. We'll like make deals with God until we really have that deep personal relationship with him and then we can trust him. But when we're beginning we're, we're like look if you'll do this.
Speaker 2:I'll do this because it was weird to me and I was like this makes sense and it's logical, and so here's, you know.
Speaker 1:And so now I don't I don't do that anymore now.
Speaker 2:I'm just like here's the situation and I'm listening.
Speaker 1:Yes, because yeah, but you have to tell the billboard story, because I was like oh, okay, so I um.
Speaker 2:So I said that to the lord, you know I'll start over, let me start over and I'll get you involved from the get-go. And I also told him. I said, look, I need a big sign here because I need to know that it's you. And at the time I had never heard the Lord's voice. I'm sure I probably had, but didn't recognize it. But you didn't recognize it yeah.
Speaker 2:But I was looking for it now. I was like I need to hear from you. And we lived in the woodlands and I worked in downtown Houston and so I was coming home and there was kind of this flyover area of the toll road that you know went to the Intercontinental Airport and they had one of these new billboards. That it was one thing for a while and then the whole thing flipped over. It was like levers on a shutters, you know, and then it flipped over and it was a different advertisement. And before I got to that point I was like Lord, you know, I need a big sign, like I need a billboard. You know, I need you to write it out that I'm good to go. I'll do, I just need the green light. And I got it, you know.
Speaker 2:And um, and so I came, I just remembered, I remember, like it was yesterday, driving up over the flyover, and I looked up at the billboard, cause I'd seen that billboard every day, right, and it went from one thing and it went to flip, and I was ready for the next thing that it said. I honestly, it was a state farm advertisement. I was ready for the guy from a state farm to show up and it was nothing. It was blank white and it frightened me because I thought, oh, my goodness, I mean I thought what just happened to this billboard? And so I remained quiet. And I know that, I know that I heard the Lord's voice, as if he was sitting right there in the seat beside me, and it wouldn't surprise me if I actually turned and looked. But he said in a way that could never have been my voice, because he never says what I would have said and he never says it like I would have said it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree.
Speaker 2:You know. So he said I was there. I was there when he made the promise, and so getting out isn't an option. However, I can make you the wife that Paul needs, and my next statement was well, see, here's the thing, I'm not the problem. So I thought he was having like an identity crisis. You know that he was like oh, I'm going to work on you, when I was saying no, no, you need to work on him.
Speaker 1:I'm only laughing because I remember me in the same spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we think, and, to be honest, I could have given the Lord a list.
Speaker 2:Here are the things that you have done or he has said, or he has not done or has not said, never reflecting on my responses or my reactions. And so he basically said you know I can work it out and in the moment I wasn't sure what that looked like, but as you and I have also talked, I do know now that, and I've seen this many times from that time to this time, which has been 30 years, um. So next month, just to let everybody know, next month, may 16th or this month, this is May.
Speaker 1:It's like next week honey.
Speaker 2:Good planning, yeah, good planning.
Speaker 1:I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:So May 16th we will be married 44 years. Oh my gosh, what a blessing. So, yeah, so the Lord just basically said look, you know I'm going to work on you. And what I didn't hear him say is I'm going to work on Paul. But what I do know now is that there are Red Sea miracles, there are immediate miracles. I still believe those, I have seen them, we've had one in our own family, and so I have up close and personal experience with there being a miracle. I also understand that sometimes miracles are 10 years in the making or five years in the making, and we're looking. You know, I needed in my world, in that corporate life, that I was living right. What I was asking for was by Friday. I needed to see something by Friday so that I knew, okay, that there was hope, that there was the next thing.
Speaker 1:So you had this conversation with the Lord and then you're walking in it and it's not happening. What did he do? Were there other ways that he encouraged or taught you so that you kept going? Because you stayed in that path, Right?
Speaker 2:right, I absolutely did, and part of it was even though I did not have a close personal relationship with Jesus at that time. I knew by the tone of his voice when he said I can't let you out, but you know I can make you the wife on these that there was hope that he, that there was something. Just hearing his voice, that there was something that was going to happen. And then I had a friend along the way that I confided in about you know that I was struggling with this and she kind of looked at me like you know, it's just another relationship and every relationship has issues.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2:So sometimes the issue lasts for a minute or an hour, you know, and sometimes the problem lasts for a day or a week. And I'm communicative. My husband is not as communicative and I had to find the place where I could ask the question and then be quiet, Because in my job I was the one that people came to and said Mary, I have this problem, what do I do? And I was like okay, this is what you do, blah, blah, blah, and I could give the answer. You know, I was the shell answer man.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:There was a shell answer, man, I understand, so I knew how to do that part. I didn't know how to do the part that says what do you need from me? Are you happy? What do you need from me? Um, and here's what I need from you, or yes?
Speaker 1:wait, wait, wait. You just flipped over that too fast, because that is the. There are two parts there. What do you need from me? And here's what I need, here is what I really need from you. I remember telling lee we were in a fight and young and I said he said what do you expect of me? And I said right now, I would just really like a hug, I would just like you to stop talking, and I will stop talking and you will just give me a hug. Do you still love me? You know, and I needed that, and but I had never said that. And then, after that, he knew that. He knew that when I got really wet, what I really needed first was I just needed him to hold me and remind me that, no matter what it was, we could get through that season If he would do that one little thing, you know but I'd never told him that season if he would do that one little thing, you know, but I've never told him, and that's right, and we don't.
Speaker 2:and and let me just tell you unspoken expectations are the invitation to resentment as soon as you realize that you are not speaking your expectations. If you're not speaking them, they're going to end up being a resentment because you're going to want it and not know why he won't give it to you and it's because you've never asked for it.
Speaker 1:There's going to be at some point where you can't hold it in anymore and it's going to come out like a dang volcano pouring lava over everything, not just your husband everything.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I don't want that in my life anymore. I've chosen that I've done that too, I mean we go through that.
Speaker 2:We think these blow-ups will help things, yeah, and so, um, it really was a function of learning how to communicate, and you know, you and I've talked about this as well. But, um, you know, men are typically fixers. They want to know what they can do to help to fix the whatever. And because they're seen that way, they're wired to provide and protect and that means to fix the problem. And women, we have a high level, high threat level, because we have, you know, children and all kinds of things. We're looking for anything that could threaten us. You know, our brains are just wired that way.
Speaker 2:And so when we're upset, when I've been upset, I have gone to Paul and said this, this, this, this, this and and these three things. Well, I like dump eight things. Yeah, because you held them in for a while. I held them in and the reality of it was, the reality of it is is that really, seven of those things are symptoms and we really haven't found, you know, the root cause yet.
Speaker 2:And so I think, maturity, and maturity in this regard, having a conversation when you can back away from some of the emotion and speak in a way that says this is what happened and this is what you said and this is how it landed. Is that what you meant? Those kind of things. And I know that. You know, you and I love God's word and we've heard a lot of pastors say, a lot of preachers say, you know, don't let the sun go down on your anger Right, and so that means fixing the fight before you get back. Well, the Lord and I had to talk about that and I said to the Lord I trust you to make the sun go down again tomorrow, Because this is not talking to him today, this is not going to get worked out tonight.
Speaker 1:But you know what, denise, that was the right thing to do at the time because I needed Well, it's because those laws are too hard to bear too that people put on and it's not just God's word laws. They put it on us and say this is how it should work. But when we get with the Lord, he's so patient and he's so kind and he walks us through and teaches us what we can do right then and what we need to do right then and what we can let rest, and I think that's the best thing that.
Speaker 1:I've gotten out of hearing his voice in those seasons.
Speaker 2:Is let it rest, just let it rest. And the other thing is, you know, I hope we're talking to women that are half our age, because those are, you know. And I have a daughter who's 38, and she's a widow, and I remember little stories that she told me she was married for 13 years and just became a widow a year ago, and some of the things that she remembers now are she remembers all the good things and I said and there were a lot of good things, right, like there's a lot of good things in my marriage, but there's also those little irritants. And let me just say to you that those little irritants are not even worth discussing, because if you have a good husband, which you and I do, I know that I irritate him and he overlooks it because it's like that's not worth the time and the energy and the disconnect to deal with that. That's just not worth that.
Speaker 1:So that just made me remember. God spoke to me once when I was so angry with Lee. I actually have Gail Brown, my friend. That's been one of my friends for my whole life. I started telling her about it and she was telling me how good we was. And I went home and the Lord just spoke to me and said I want you to pull out this paper and write all those things down that you're mad at me about. And then he said and then I want you to write down why you loved him and love him today. And I did that back in the 90s. I found it the other day when we were getting ready to talk to some married couples and I realized that I've been doing that since then.
Speaker 1:Whenever I was frustrated in any situation, I wrote down all that frustration. I put it down there for the Lord to see and for me to see. And then I said but wait, what is good? And the good was like so overwhelming that the bad just got forgotten. It just got tossed into a box for me to find years later and the things that I said were good. I remembered I'd written those down and looked at my husband and he was so much more of those things now than he was back then. So I think that you know that was such a good word.
Speaker 1:Oh my god you guys, I, you know I think the Lord speaks individually to you. He speaks one-on-one to you. He wants you to hear his voice and I, like um, can say his voice doesn't sound like my voice. He says things to me that I'm not going to tell myself. I don't even want to hear it sometimes. Sometimes I do want to hear it. He knows just what my heart needs to hear.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you will seek Him. It says in the Word that if you seek Him with all your heart, you will find Him. When you seek Him with all your heart that's the Word you will find Him when you seek Him with all your heart. So seek the Lord, because he wants personal relationship with you. They'll writ and you don't have to wait on somebody to tell you what his word says. You can come in freely and hang out with your father. He wants that. So like this has been such a great conversation and I'd hate to even wrap it up. So what I'm going to tell you is you're coming back because we have so much more to talk about that will help these younger women to walk their walk and even even women, our age as married, as as long as we've been married, there's still things along the way.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, part of what our journey is is is to become more like Christ, and we will never get there until we take our last breath. So there's always things, and I think one of the last things I would say to anybody watching is understand that how you're built is so unique and your fingerprint is like no one else's and your husband is so unique and his fingerprint is like no one else's. And your husband is so unique and his fingerprint is like no one else's. And God called you all together because we learn from one another and growth is not comfortable and we rub up against one another and it's like sandpaper, but your relationship is nuanced to the point that every relationship ultimately is to reflect Jesus. So you are only asked to do your part. You are not asked to do his part, and that's where I pray for my husband is. I pray for my part and I pray that the Lord is speaking to him. I don't have to speak to him.
Speaker 1:So normally I will say what is the last word that you want to give, and Mary is so good, she just knew that. I just like to pray for us right now. Father, I just thank you that this conversation is going to encourage and inspire more women to trust you more deeply. I also ask for friendships to surround them, because it is good that we don't walk alone through the earth, that we walk with our husbands as friends, but also that we have girlfriends. So I just pray for that, father, that you send those girlfriends, the ones that will build us up in our inner man, that will help us hold tightly when things are tough, and to remind us that we have what we have already the blessings that we have in our lives. I pray that for each one of these women that are listening today. I pray it over our families. I trust you, we trust you, we love you, lord, and we're just grateful that you call us by name and the name of Jesus. Amen, thank you. Thank you, okay.
