About Finding Transformation Where Judgment Ends

What if transformation is both a miracle and a muscle you build every day? We sit down with our dear friend Anne Rolling to trace a faith journey that spans a childhood of scraped knees and sacred hymns, a 59-year marriage, a son’s astonishing healing, and the unimaginable loss of her daughter Emily. Anne’s stories are vivid and grounded—paying tuition with cream from a cow named Daisy, learning grit at a boys’ school, and shaping a morning “teapot prayer” that pours out fear and fills up on grace. She invites us into a practice of no judgment, no condemnation, and a fierce loyalty to Scripture that feels fresh enough to be “still wet” on the page.

The heart of our time rests on two turning points. First, the season when her infant son endured daily seizures before a community’s prayer ushered in healing and hope. Second, the winter night when a phone call brought news of Emily’s accident—followed days later by a graveside gift, a chrysalis opening into a butterfly. That moment became a living parable of metamorphosis and the seed for the EmilyAnn Theater and Gardens, where remembrance, art, and community create a space for courage. Anne calls it “spiritual insurance”—not protection from pain, but a deep assurance of identity and destiny that steadies your steps.

Across grief, miracles, and the daily grind, Anne offers simple tools with profound impact: surrender like a teapot, reject negative confession, seek Scripture until it sings, and when heaviness hits, go meet someone and shake a hand. We talk about strong women sharpening each other, honoring first responders, and choosing words that heal. If you’ve been carrying a quiet ache, or you just need courage to face today, this conversation is a warm hand and a steady light.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Anne And A Lifelong Friendship
• 2:59 Roots Of Faith And Finding God Personally
• 6:59 Childhood Stories And Early Resilience
• 10:59 The Teapot Prayer And Living Surrendered
• 15:29 No Judgment, No Condemnation
• 20:29 A Son’s Healing And Faith Deepens
• 26:29 Emily’s Accident And Spiritual Assurance

Transcript

Denise Jackson: 0:30

Welcome to Rooted and Rising again. I have an amazing guest, Anne Rowling. She's been a friend for a long, long time now. We moved here in 2006 and we lived here in 98. And I actually met her in 1998 at Emily Ann Theater. It it right at its inception. I had to travel through a dark pathway with people holding flashlights to get to an open space where they put on a play, a Shakespeare play one night. And I'll never forget it. And God had a plan for the two of us to connect, and we've been connecting pretty much since then. Yeah. Yeah. And Anne is the mom of four children and the wife of Norm and Yes, he's pretty cute. Uh how long have you been married? 59 years. 59 years. Girls, do you know that weddings, marriage, God wants them to be for a lifetime in this earth? He doesn't think it's good for us to walk alone. So he will show us the right person. But she has a great story I want her to share to start us off, to kick us off. So take it off.

Ann Rolling: 1:41

And thank you. There's no one I love to see on Facebook or in person than this young lady because she illuminates the Lord and nature, and she just has that cute smile that you just want to just gobble her up with a spoon. Well, you know, she is she is a lot to many of us, and to myself particularly, because when you need a woman to share your story, your person, it's this lady. Because Denise Jackson really brings the Lord with her everywhere she goes. So if you're lacking, she's full of it.

Denise Jackson: 2:19

So no, I am full of it. But yeah, you were telling me that you were um you were really looking to deepen your relationship.

Ann Rolling: 2:32

Right. I grew up with with a sense of faith my whole life. I know the Lord dogged me into loving him from young. I was the youngest of four, three older brothers that were amazing. I had grown up in uh as a Catholic, and um our family, very old-time Catholics in our town. Our my grandparents had helped build the church that we attended, put the stained glass windows in, amazing Catholic family. Norm had grown up, as he would say, I'm really glad I didn't have your childhood. You have all that fear of the Lord, and I have loving the Lord because he grew up Methodist. So somehow. We would go down to the cathedral in Fort Worth attending TCU as we were, and he walked in and just felt the power of the Lord. I think we both did. He said, I want to know you, Lord. And I that had been my search all along. I wanted to know the knowing of the Lord.

Denise Jackson: 3:35

I just want you guys to know that that it's not just us having this inner need to know the Lord. The Lord wants us to know Him. He's drawing us, He's always drawing us in, and He's calling our name. He created us, He sent us for purpose here. And so I just love this story because I know where it's the last part of the story up to now, I know really well. I know the impact these people have had on my life and so many lives in Wimberley and so many lives in lots of places. Um, God draws us because of his purpose, because of his love for us. He first loves us.

Ann Rolling: 4:19

And no abandonment. No. I was never abandoned. I've had sort of traumatic as a childhood with different issues with folks and brothers, and you know, they were always trying to annihilate me in my childhood, throwing me off the roof. So, you know, my mother would would would gather me up and take me back in the house. I mean, I grew up and I think we were more like house apes than children flying with the furniture. We would we were raucous. And you know, back in the day, I mean, back in the day, I had a cow named Daisy. I was five years old. I was the only one that can milk that cow. And so my good old brothers would have to carry the bucket down. So Daisy was a prolific milker. And my brothers were given tuition into a uh Catholic day school for uh, the nuns had it for a boys' day school. Many, many people back in the early 50s would come uh and board there. It was a boarding school for boys. But my mom said, okay, if I give you cream and sugar from this awesome Daisy cow, will you take the girl? So, yes, the nuns said, Yeah, we like cream and butter, so bring it on. I was the only girl in a boys' boarding school, so I was constantly in a in a wonderful fishbowl of growing up in a tomboy fashion for sure.

Denise Jackson: 5:49

Yeah, that's what I like too, it was like that, and I loved it. I I loved the freedom and the power that it taught me, you know.

Ann Rolling: 5:56

Yeah. Growing up in a small East Texas town, having an opportunity through some scholarship and work plans, I was able to go to a real university, which which wasn't that's God's plan. He had his eye on me. Maybe he has his eyes on sparrows, but guess what? He has his eye on me and on you. I look back and I think, you've never, never not been at my side. Maybe I wasn't facing you as I learned to. You know, it's turning our eyes upon him when he fully can flood us. I really feel, and and as I grew into a stronger faith, especially knowing my cute hubby to be Norm, I I I I love that childhood song about I'm a little teapot, short and stout.

Denise Jackson: 6:47

And don't fear is my spout. When I get awesome enough, then I shall just tip me over and pour me out. I remember that too. My grandmother taught me last year.

Ann Rolling: 6:59

Well, I remember that in a long time. I realize my morning prayer should look just like that. I want to be that little teapot. I'm rusty and I have some areas that need cleaning out. But first in my prayer every morning these days, I'll feature myself in my bedroom, say that old cracky top. The more I empty, the more he feels. Amen. That's my day. Yes, and such a good life. It's such a good life. I'm sitting around my my house going, I lose it. What short time? I'm gonna empty out more of me because when I go out, I might meet Denise. I might be in this wonderful town of Wimberley and meet someone, and then something comes out of my mouth that's more me than him, and I go, oops, I better empty more out so I can be more filled.

Denise Jackson: 7:50

Because those are the things that like when we I know that that's his word, is that we fill up on his word, and then it comes out of our mouth, and the words that we speak in our meditations please him so right so that we have the impact of showing his love in the source while we're here, because we're just here for a short time, you know. Even you and I who've been here for a while now, um, we're not here for very long, right? Didn't it feel like yesterday?

Ann Rolling: 8:15

Yes, we were those little kids running around. Absolutely, and we can remember back and see our joy and see our direction. But you know, there's so much about what I have to caution myself every morning to be less of my personality and more of his. And when I do that, I'm the better for it. And my go-to scripture, red letter edition, as a Catholic, hey, I'm talking red letter edition, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I remember the Lord's wording and saying, I could judge and be correct in my judgment, but the father has me only to do his will. That's Jesus' words. If he turned himself over to the Father's will, the father's words, the father's travel each day. So before I get out of that bedroom, after being a teapot, I like to get into no judgment.

Denise Jackson: 9:10

You know, let's not. And no condemnation either. Like, like don't receive condemnation. You know, I was talking to a friend earlier this week, and she was feeling condemnation, like she was just covered up in it, but she knows the Lord. And I said, Look, you can feel conviction in your life, and then just turn it over to the Lord, but don't let condemnation pour over you because he hasn't condemned you anymore. He set you where Jesus is in front of you, and you can run and jump in your dad's lap, and you can lean into him and you can be strong in this earth. You're never, we're never gonna be perfect in this earth, but we're gonna walk in with Jesus right there, and our father right here, and we can hold on and make it to this life. And so, why would we judge anybody else? And even Jesus, we don't just say he's not the judger.

Ann Rolling: 10:02

And he would be correct in his judgment. Denise in the heaven might not be correct in our judgment. That's it. But the eliminating that thought of no judgment. And I love that. And Jesus, actually, my hero, my follower, my inspirer, my lord, my savior, he would even be correct, maybe, but he knows the Father through him. Oh my gosh, how strong is that?

Denise Jackson: 10:26

It is, it's amazing, it's amazing.

Ann Rolling: 10:28

You know, I just look for tools. I look for tools in scripture because I don't know about you, but my morning of in scripture, my ink is still wet. Yeah, it's always wet.

Denise Jackson: 10:40

It is for me today. It's the living word. He says that. And it is. Like, do you think that the the some I started when I started reading the Bible? I thought it was the most boring book in the world. That was the truth. I'd start at the beginning and I was like, good Lord, who begot who begot, who begot, I'm not sure I even knew what begot was. And then when I asked the Lord to teach me how to love him with all my heart, he opened my eyes to read that book and it would just jump off the page at me. Like it was truth that I needed for that moment and that day. It was promise that I needed for that moment and that day. And that's for all of us that seek him. Uh if you seek him, you're gonna find him. If you seek him with all your heart, so go for him. That's what I mean. I feel like that's what we say. Now, look, you went through losing a very precious part of you, and somehow I was alone in it. I knew that so let's talk about that.

Ann Rolling: 11:36

You know, earlier in our marriage, just a few years into marriage, uh, our second child was born uh with a debilitating disease of 50 grandma's seizures a day. He started at three weeks, and when I went, and the children's and we were in Dallas at that moment, having graduated, second child, and the neurologist said he will never walk, stand. But a man of faith came along. Our faith was deepening, and we were watching our child with grandma's seizures, it's very emphatic, falling to the ground, and and he started at four months. And a faith community in my small town laid hands on him and prayed for a miracle. Most children with this uh debilitating disease die before the age of three. But that young man was healed, lives today, graduated college is an amazing testimony. That was one of our deepening experiences. Trusting the Lord with no shame, walking into his lap with no shame, watching this child stop seizuring, and now at 56, bearing a son, they said wouldn't live, wouldn't have children, wouldn't. But you know, don't take wooden if you're walking with the Lord, because he he has an assurance that fills you. Yeah. So later in life, when a phone call came. So so we were close to Christmas. Yeah. 21st of December, the winner solstice. I got a phone call, and the phone call said there's been an accident coming from San Marcus to Wimberley, two girls, one of which was killed, and one of which lived. We can't tell you which. I knew in my heart, because of that young daughter of ours, Emily, knew who she was. I that's the only insurance. I just I plead with every person I'm allowed to be in company with. And I say to them, do good, be a good parent, do all you can, but slide in that spiritual insurance is the only one that truly gives you the life you're looking for. It's not in things, it's not even in physical insurance, but spiritual insurance. That spiritual insurance, as I walked toward the phone after that phone call, was praying for courage. First of all, Lord, give me courage. Going to the phone call and calling the hospital. I knew the girls were taken to, asking for both, and knowing Emily had left us. But the Sunday before Denise, she read that Isaiah scripture. She stood in the pulpit and she said, as reading, I am especially anointed by the Lord to proclaim goodness and to free the brokenhearted and to free the captives. She read it so beautifully as a reader in the church that people commented unnecessarily to say, Wow, your 16-year-old daughter proclaimed that scripture like none other. The next Saturday, she was truly living it out, especially anointed by the Lord. She had arrived home. She had arrived, she knew who she was, and I was sure to where she is. So what did I do? What did Norm do? Here's what we did. We determined in separate locations immediately to wake up the world. That's what we want to do today. We wanted to do there years ago in '96. We were determined to wake up every person to the knowledge of whose you are and where you're going. So even in designing the theater that all fell together in the wards have.

Denise Jackson: 15:38

That was just something incredible like how the steps were ordered. We won't talk about that completely today, but we're gonna one day talk about how the Emily and Theater and Gardens came about. But what I want you to know is if you there's so many reasons to come to Wimberley. We love Wimberly, but for a visit, but you should come at Christmas or in April. Or in April. Uh so talk about why butterflies means so much to you, because that's a good story to add to this, right?

Ann Rolling: 16:07

I love the the epitaph of Emily's faith, our faith growing, our family's unit growing. I love all that. But don't get me wrong, it is a gut-wrenching missing, like none other. It is gut-wrenching. It is it is that that hole in your heart that that oh wait, that hole has homework. I am still living out of homeworks of my faith, of my daughter's voice in my head, to uh her famous words were always get over it. Get on with it? Yeah, okay. Now at A D, I'm like getting over there. Getting on with it.

Denise Jackson: 16:45

And you've been doing that. You've been doing that. It's it's a horrible thing. A horrible thing to have to lose a child. And yet, through Emily, your lives have grown beyond anything you could have imagined in the earth. God, God has used it. He didn't take Emily. I will never believe that. I'll believe that he was there for Emily and ready to snatch her in the right away.

Ann Rolling: 17:09

She knew who she was. Yes, she's for God. You've come for me. You know I'm especially anointed by the Lord. I kind of wonder what that transition moment. Yeah, but following that December 21st, uh, her birthday was that next July. And where do you go to celebrate a birthday of someone that has left you and is with the Lord? Well, I went to that unmarked grave yet in uh in our town, and this five-year-old came up to me and said, Miss Ann, I have a birthday present for Emily. I look at him like, Are you truly saying that? And he had found a chrysalis, and he had built a homemade twig cage, and it had just it had just come into a butterfly. It had transformed itself into a butterfly. And I'm looking at him, he's looking at me, not knowledgeable the impact that he had. The impass. It's it's horrible. Do you remember who it was? Oh, yes, it was Brian Chekhov.

Denise Jackson: 18:08

Oh my goodness. Yes. How do you think just being faithful and finding that's the thing? Seeking me out and finding out.

Ann Rolling: 18:15

Being encouraged to seek me out. Standing at a dirt patch in a cemetery, he released that one butterfly and it it did what the Lord had intended nature and mankind to do together. It danced with me, it lighted on me, it lighted near her very uh cemetery plot and the little boy, and it just stayed in our our we had just started the Emily, thinking building uh opening the the Shakespearean theater and and uh starting the Emily and theaters in process, it was to open the next year. But the beauty was butterflies, wait, that's the way you tell the story because everyone we meet is on a different journey. But the butterfly for me transcended that. It was saying, come along, invite me in, let me fill the heart, let me heal the heart, let me be the transform, the only thing in nature that totally transforms.

Denise Jackson: 19:19

So I've always thought, too, that uh like when you're the caterpillar, I feel like we are like caterpillars. All we can do is crawl around on the ground right now in this earth. But one day we'll go into that little chrysalis and we'll burst out. And you know, who I'm not saying we're gonna be butterflies, but it's gonna be like that-a transformation. Who could imagine the transformation from this body, which is just gonna fertilize the trees, I hope. And then the rest of me gets to go and fly. And Emily is there, and Ford, my brother, is there, and my mom now is there, and she oh, that was her desire. And it's a rejoicing in our spirit to know that they are with the father. It's still hard to be without them here, but when we know that we have a mission to complete here, that it's not finished, that we have good to do because he's called us to it, then we make it through it with joy, and we look forward to the day when we're all together again.

Ann Rolling: 20:16

Right, and and and not denying your human condition is important. It's important for women to seek women, it's important to be able to tell the story in your own words. Yeah, uh, Denise, you've been a huge part of that for me. You have uh you have shown up, we're peculiar people. All God's creatures are peculiar in some way or another. So that rubbing, you know, it's like diamonds need that rough rubbing to be totally ironic.

Denise Jackson: 20:45

Iron sharpens iron, and I feel like, you know, we talk about that from a male perspective, they too need to be sharpened with each other, but we have sharpened one another. Uh oh my gosh, you and MF Johnson. You guys were like such towers that have strengthened and sharpened my heart and my vision. And well, you're amazing. I just am so thankful for strong women. And one of the reasons that we even have these conversations, girls, is so that you can hear that. You know, we've walked through things. We've walked through things like you're walking through things. God didn't waste a thing, not one thing that we walked through that was hard or good. He continues to teach us. We're both doing our homework still. I love that, and I hadn't thought about that. But yeah, he keeps giving us stuff to learn. We don't know how he's gonna use that, but we trust him to continue to build us up. We want you to know that he is not a respecter of these two daughters over you. He loves his daughters, he loves you. He wants you to survive, to thrive in the earth, to be the light in the darkness, to have truth on your tongue and from your lips. He wants that for you, and we want that for you, and that's what we want to pray for this morning. But first, uh, do you have like one thing that you remember from when you were young that you would just encourage young women right now to not let that take hold of them, but to you know, I'm constantly reminded in my prayers each morning with Norm about don't live in the past.

Ann Rolling: 22:24

You can remember it and see God's work in it. And even in the future, because you know, it's now. If you there's a song of my favorite, Blessed Assurances. There have been assurances all my life, whether I felt them, knew them, and had a personal relationship. I I'm not above, I have down days and up days, but if I feel myself with less of me and more of him, I am transformed just like that butterfly. I'm not climbing in the world every minute. It's groceries, it's gas, it's it's frustrations of of homes, households.

Denise Jackson: 23:06

Yeah, it's frustrations. Or even in the community or feeling hurt, or yeah, and I've walked through some of those times with you, and you've walked through them with me. Um, those are the things that he will take for us. So I'd love to do that.

Ann Rolling: 23:18

And if we move on it, yes, you know, we had a 9-11 and we had all our first responders and Emily Ann to physically shake their hand and say thank you. Uh for our veterans, thank you. For the common, for the people that climbed the hill and shook the hands. You know, if if I'm down, if I'm if I'm sluggish, all I have to do is get out of my sitting position and try and try to meet another because that spark is those assurances the Lord is ready and willing to give. It's when I face away from him, I always there. Yeah, but wow, when you turn to him, when you say, I'm not doing well right now, and you turn toward, be it scripture or another, a sister in Christ, you're filled back up to the maximum. You know the difference in an optimist and a pessimist. The meeting ground of the Lord is hope and faith. No matter which end you might conceal. Heal yourself that day, yes, you're still hoping. Hopefully, be faithful. When you make that, you know that negative confession is not of you. Don't do it. Yeah, don't do it. You know, if you're gonna say, I think I'm catching a cold, just go get the clinics.

Denise Jackson: 24:37

Yes, just drink some water, have some vitamin C, do what you need to do, get yourself well. Just say, I want to I'm well, I'm well, I'm well, no negative. And that doesn't mean that you might not keep feeling a little sicker, but that your hope will rise and you will get well quicker with just hope filling your heart. So, okay, so we're gonna say a little prayer right now, Father, for all the women that are watching. We just pray that your hope would rise and that your enemies would be shattered in the lives of each of these women watching, listening today. Father, I thank you that you are teaching us your way and showing us your path and that you're giving us the courage, you're making us able to make that turn towards you, to make that turn towards your love that never ceases, that never ends. Father, I'm just so grateful for this conversation with Anne. I ask you to bless her and her family for generations as you promised to the third and fourth generation and to the thousandth generation. And I ask you to bless Emily Ann and continue to prosper that endeavor that you began. It all was in your hands. Father, I call out to your angels to watch over and keep this place in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, girls. Thanks for joining us. And Denise, we love you. Thank you. So happy hearing us.

Ann Rolling: 25:58

Face him, look into the Lord's eyes, he'll look back at you. Yay!