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.
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Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse
About Why Sin Hurts Us And How Radical Grace Heals Our Hearts
What if the cross actually worked—and shame is no longer your script? That audacious claim sits at the center of our talk with author and speaker Tracy Levinson as we unpack love, dating, sexuality, and the kind of grace that doesn’t just forgive but changes you from the inside out.
Tracy shares her path from atheism to a deep trust in the finished work of Jesus, explaining why she says she has “one sermon.” We explore how many Christians confuse purity with sexual behavior when purity is ultimately a person—Christ. That shift reframes sin as self‑harm rather than a scoreboard and moves us from fear of punishment to the tree of life, where love motivates wise choices. Along the way, we talk candidly about teenage pregnancy, boundaries in relationships, and what healing looks like when old wounds echo in new friendships.
We also press into worship and joy. Can praise be honest when you feel empty? Yes—when it’s in spirit and in truth, not just noise or duty. One host describes carrying a stubborn, contagious joy into a hard corporate culture and how that joy held only when rooted in God’s purpose. Tracy offers a nuanced take on the “new heart” promise, arguing that believers aren’t stuck with stony hearts; instead, our minds need renewal and our defenses need surrender. We discuss guarding your heart without closing it, loving people you disagree with, and recognizing the image of God in every person.
If you’ve wrestled with purity culture, wondered whether grace is real enough for your story, or needed language to set kind but firm boundaries, this conversation will meet you there. Listen now, share it with a friend who needs hope, and if it resonates, subscribe, rate, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.
Now, I have Tracy with me today. I want her to introduce herself and tell you about this book she's written, and we'll talk a little bit about that later too. She is a speaker, like she really speaks. She goes out in big crowds and speaks, not lightning on the window here. And so I'm so excited to have her on the show for you to see what God's done in her life and to realize that if you have dreams and visions in your life, God's put them there and He will, in His time, promote you. And He has for my friend Tracy. So, okay, so Tracy, introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_00:My name is Tracy Levinson. I am from Texas, but I have lived in Chicago. I've lived in Los Angeles. And now I live in the Texas Hill Country where it is beautiful and the stars are bright.
SPEAKER_01:And tell us about your book that you wrote because I love that you're passionate about this subject.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I do love college-age students and high schoolers. And I wrote a book a little while back called Unashamed: Candid Conversations about dating, love, nakedness, and faith. And it's really just a QA with real men, young men and young women about the topics of love and dating and sexuality and how does God intertwine with all of that and how to manage that.
SPEAKER_01:And I love that because I did not understand those concepts as a young woman, as a young teenager. I was a pregnant teenager, got married at 16 years old. And I feel like I was protected in some ways because the only person I slept with was my husband. He ended up being my husband, still is, thank God, uh, because of full ties, because it's so scary when you're sleeping with different people, and that that thing is put into your life. It's just like we need to know that. We need to be aware of those things that you teach about and how people look at things uh as not permanent until it's a God thing, you know.
SPEAKER_00:So talk about that a little bit. Well, I think I think part of it too is um Dece and I were talking earlier this morning about our faith journeys, and I was an atheist as a child, and I I didn't have a relationship with God, didn't grow up going to church, any of that. And I came to faith when my daughter was a baby, then I kind of came into the Christian culture and world and learned about, you know, how to walk with God. But I also realized like I didn't grow up in the church, so I didn't get the same messages you might have heard. And so I realized pretty quickly that so many of my Christian other women I knew or young people I knew who are Christian associated sexuality with purity. And I just I remember being struck by that because Christ is our purity. And so I just the the way that I see sin, I really just see it as you hurting yourself. Because sins aren't being paid for. That's exactly right. And there's no, it's like this sin isn't higher than this sin. I'm agreeing with that too.
SPEAKER_01:But not in the church, you get this in the Catholic Church, venal and mortal sins are talked about all the time, some lesser sins and some greater sins, but really God hates sin. You can't even look at sin. So there's not lesser or more.
SPEAKER_00:And but here's the thing about sin God hates sin, but he like he hated, he I think it's because of his love. Yeah. Is because so it's like it's like really the bigger thing to me is the fact that he is so loving that what happens is sin always hurts you. Like, think about it. If I go cheat on my husband, yeah, I'm gonna hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you're gonna hurt. I'm gonna hurt somebody's family, I'm gonna hurt or if I go get drunk tomorrow and um and I drive my car and I run over somebody's kid, right? Yeah, it's like it just sin hurts people. And so I really think this underneath the whole sin thing, it's like if we just work with God hates sin, then you kind of go back into the judgment and and closing yourself up.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. But Jesus teased us because he loved us so much that he sent his son so that he could be the payment for all of that. And that's done. It's done. It's done. And so I so we're but we don't blatantly go out and just do stuff just to do it, right? Because it hurts us.
SPEAKER_00:In the New Testament, it says that the Holy Spirit grieves when we sin. And it's like, what's that about? Yeah, like that's cool. Like instead of we we think if it's um let me do an analogy. Okay, so two trees in the garden. There's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yeah, right? And then there was the tree of life, yes, which we don't talk about as much in the garden. We focus on the tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was basically you do this, you're gonna get this consequence. You do, you know, you do good, you get good. You do bad, you get bad. And so I think sometimes when people think of God and they have a fear of condemnation, and then they don't have a revelation that all condemnation, all of all of sin was paid for. It's like actually paid for it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but then on the tree of life, it's it's love. And so it's like we operate from the tree of life now, and God does with us, God's relationship with us is not about him being mad anymore. It's not about it. We are literally breaking his heart. That's yeah, because sin, because he loves us so much, he doesn't want us to hurt ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I love that, and really I I think I've thought of that a little bit before, but never that big that that's why his heart is so broken, is because we're hurting ourselves. And it's like love. And it's also that we're being separated from him. But here's my question Can we be separated from him? Well, if we're not, if we haven't chosen to Jesus, if we're not in Christ.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:But if we're a believer and we sin, oh yeah, we're not separating. Okay, so I think we could have separations, places like the stony places in our heart. And that's us holding on to those places. The the choices and the offenses, the things we take into us, unless we ask, we have to like say, Lord, we don't want this anymore. He doesn't, he's not a rude father, he does not take from us what we're not ready to give. So, yeah, if we're sexually impure or we're doing things that are focused on the world, I mean, I feel like just focused on the world when I'm as focused on my business over God and making exceptions to how I acted to manage my life in this corporate environment. That sin, he did not say stop it. He just kept convicting me that you don't need to do this anymore. Do you want to give it up? Do you want to let go of that? And when I said, Okay, I'm ready to not do that, then he provided more than I can ask or think. And I think that's something that we forget is like he didn't force us to stop anything in our lives. Is that the freedom? Is that interesting? Um, but he doesn't want that for us because he wants good for us, he wants joy unspeakable, he wants strength when we're weird.
SPEAKER_00:I I see that joy in you as it just I know I know you and I see you. And um, it's real. Like I don't know people who are watching, you know, they don't some of them know you, some of them might not know you, but you are one of the most joyful people that I've ever met. Thank you. You really are.
SPEAKER_01:So in in my corporate world when I was working at Unisys, um, I went to work there, and you know, like two months they were all making bets. They told me about on how long I'd last. I was too joyful and I was too positive. And I was like, wow. And so they were making all these bets, and it was so funny because I never stopped having joy with them. I loved them. I had I started out just as a trainer there, but I ended up having this whole 1200 uh people reporting basically up through the channels to me. And I loved them so much it's like I had 1200 kids. And when I would come into work and they didn't hear me laughing, because I laugh loud. I'm loving pregnant, they would come and say, What's wrong? What's going on? But it was the joy of the Lord. It was like it that it's not something you can sustain. They were right. You could bet against me if I wasn't trusting God to renew me. But when He would renew me and remind me that I was there for more than just the corporate goals, but to make a difference from the lives of people that I was around. Wow, then my joy was full. Yeah, you have love for them, Angela. I love them so I still love them so much and all these places that we've worked.
SPEAKER_00:I want to go back to something you said earlier. It's interesting because and it's this was so funny. Like our the sermon in church this weekend was about people thinking differently and that we can have different ideas in the church because we're all just trying, nobody's figured it all out. We're all just trying to work it out. I I don't here's something, and this might be a belief difference. Oh, that's okay. I don't believe that I can be separated. I can feel separated because I'm being a butt.
SPEAKER_02:Like let's say we're not gonna disagree on this because this is the verse I wrote this morning. Yeah. Separate us from the love of God. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So I believe so, and I think these little nuances I think are important because I it's so funny because I only have one. I had a friend recently reached out to me and asked me if I would do a podcast. And he just was double checking with me. And he was like, Okay, you're really, you know, he said, you're really into the new covenant and the finished work of Jesus. And that's right, right? That's true. I go, oh yeah. I said, I actually don't have another sermon. I think I'm not, but I'm just saying, like, I don't mind any topic. Like, I don't mind because but because I only have one sermon. Like I literally only have one sermon, and my only one sermon is that. Because I was a be I was an atheist and I was not a believer, and I I mean, with where the Bible says Paul says I was the worst of sinners, I literally am like, no fair, you can't take that. Maybe that was me. Maybe I was a female version of that, literally. Like if Christ's death and resurrection, if Christ's work on the cross did not complete, completely, yeah, irrevocably, no matter what I do in the future or the past, yeah, then I did. I am, can I say screwed? Oh yeah, yeah. I am screwed. I mean so screwed. We can just be ourselves. That's yeah. I have a bad bad past, and I'm I'm not don't try to think about it and I don't focus on it because I am so persuaded that the cross worked. Yeah, I am so persuaded, like I got nothing. Like I'm not, you know. So my theology is that, and my thought is that if people could just, and only God can give you revelation of this, but if people could know what the cross really did, yeah, then it, and sure, they can do it, they can be a butt and they can gossip or whatever the theme is.
SPEAKER_01:And they're gonna sometimes, because we all sin and fall short daily, we're not gonna be perfect, but that's right, we have Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:And that's what the whole thing about praise. Let's talk about praise because you're the best praiser, and it's so genuine, and I don't see this in you, but I do think that sometimes we praise or read our Bibles even like a work. And I I like the verse that says, Everything that we do that is not of the spirit will be burned up. Now, some people will immediately go, Oh, I don't want to be the burned up person, I'll be in trouble. And it's like, no, all the trouble is just gone. All the trouble was on the cross. Like, yeah, you can get in trouble for it's already done. I just only have one, I only have one sermon. Yeah, it's the new covenant. There was a season in my life where I was very weary. And I remember during praise and worship at that in that season, I really just felt like sitting down, and it wasn't even like I wanted to say anything. I didn't have anything to say. I just wanted to sit before in the Lord's presence. And so everybody was up praising. And I remember in that season, and I kept the and I kind of felt weird, but I remember in my head hearing the scripture, um, he who worships me must worship me in spirit and in truth. Yeah, and the truth of my life in that moment was I didn't feel like singing a song, I didn't feel like saying the words, but I believed and I loved God, and I knew he loved me, and I just wanted to sit with him. Like we talked about the love that you feel in your heart and the and the and the joy that you feel. And so I think even in praise and worship, I just think anything we do that's a duty, a little remember I talked about the two trees in the garden? Yeah. Anything we do from it, we should do good things, and we should not do things that hurt us. But I think that we need to pay attention because the Holy Spirit will sometimes have us do things that don't look spiritual. They're not necessarily going to be things that are just sinful or gonna hurt people. But like it might be something like she's got the coolest hallway. Like her hallway is painted.
SPEAKER_02:She painted her hallway. She just felt like it's not great. It's just like a first effort in trying to paint anything. It's fun. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:But I love creativity, and it's like the first time we do something like that, it's like that that might not look spiritual. I remember one time the coolest thing.
SPEAKER_01:So I think it like like everything is spiritual, like everything is God because He created us, and we allow things to come out of us, whether it's the yucky stuff, like those stomachs in the heart, like uh one of the things I wrote that this morning about not being separated from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus, not death or life, not angels or demons, not things before, things uh uh in the future. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. But what I was thinking about was um now I've lost it. So we're gonna go on.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so let's talk about the stony heart. This is back to that thing. Yes, I don't believe and I respect what you're saying. I don't believe I can have a stony heart. I don't, I literally, because I I did that one time. I went, I told you I only have one time. But I went in the Old Testament and I looked through it and I was looking for um the passages that talk about that he'll give you a new heart. It's like a prophecy. It says it two or three times. I think it's three times, at least two. He'll take your heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh. And then in the New Testament, it talks about that we got a new heart. Yes. So here's what I think. I I think we might be agreeing with each other, but just different words. I literally am so persuaded that I have a new heart, that when I play when I do something that looks stony heartish, maybe I'm being a butt, or I was oh, I had it this weekend. I had someone be mean to me. And I felt very mean to me and very rude to me. And I was really frustrated. I just felt, mmm, yeah, like you know, that feeling you have. So instead of me going, oh my gosh, God, what's wrong with my heart? I'm persuaded that in uh in Christ that I've got a new heart. So because I feel that I have a new heart, I go, oh God, help me with these things I'm feeling. Um help me navigate this. And because that's it, and so if I act like a butt or I have thoughts that are kind of like a like icky that I would consider stony-ish, I literally know that I'm not the source of that because I'm a new creation. And so I I just kind of agree with God in faith that I am a new creation and I have all the love that He poured into my heart and I'm all of that, but I'm not acting like that. And I just like confess it, and it's almost like, God help me be who I am, because that's not who I am. So do you see what's different?
SPEAKER_01:Well, so let me because what I was thinking today was that uh there were some things that happened when I was younger that I chose to forgive and go on, but then I noticed just recently that in relationships I hold myself back from the relationships if I see anything similar to that happening. And I I almost and I realized that I still had that pain, I think, from that time somewhere in my heart. And for me, it was Lord, I don't want that anymore. If that's a stone, if that's a stone in my heart, then I want you to cut it out, circumcise that out of this heart that you gave me, because you have given me. I I don't think it's gonna keep me from seeing Jesus, uh, but I think he's taken me like over my life, he's taken me from glory to glory. Like he takes this part and he puts it on the shelf. I mean, he allows me to put it on the shelf because like I'm not focused on the whole time, but I just realized it was changing my complete openness to love the Lord my God with all my heart and to love my neighbor, who is everybody, my enemy, everybody as myself to see them the way that God sees them. And so I prayed for that, you know, just take that peace out of my heart. And I feel like he just ripped it out because he was like, that's again, I go back to I feel like he's so patient. Once we we are saved, we're heading towards him. But the day we are saved, we still have things that are going on in our mind. Maybe it's just our mind and our soul. I think it is not our heart, I think it's our mind. He's letting us come to the realization he's gentle. He doesn't say, like, today you became a new creation, and now everything that you've ever done has to change. Like we were talking about this friend that like talked about nothing but Jesus and really kind of turned us off in the beginning of our walk. Um, just talking about Jesus, because and there's nothing wrong with talking about Jesus, but I think that people need to talk about these real things, like how we see them and uh not discard them like you know. I've never been raped. I think about like Joyce Myers going through what she went through. And it did take her a long time to come out of the agony of that abuse in her life, and there was nothing wrong with that. God was taking her on a journey. She was still like, she talks about all the things she used to do, the cussing and uh smoking her cigarettes, which is not a big deal to me. Right. But um, but for her, she counted that a sin, but she couldn't stop that at first, even though she was a new creature.
SPEAKER_00:That were all like works in progress. That's it. And I I have a question. So for the the and this is a this is a genuine question. Yeah. I want to do that. Because I do see my question. It's like I'm like, I think I'm like you in that sounds bare, but like anybody who anybody who's listening, like who's ever been like a teacher, like when you because you have a big classroom, a bunch of kids, and it's like you just love all you love all these kids. It's like you love a lot of these, you just love. And I feel like I see that in you where you're a person who loves you literally approach every human being that that approaches you with just and I can see why even like doing this podcast, it's cool because like like you I she from feel she loves you.
SPEAKER_02:She does. I want you. This isn't fake.
SPEAKER_00:Like this isn't fake. This is not fake. And so my no, I'm emailed. And I'm kind of I joke around and I say this a lot. I I say to my dear friends, well, I'm when I'm processing something, and like if I'm having a struggle with like that's conflict or some or have a relationship that's like I'm trying to navigate that's not easy. I literally say all the time, I love everybody. And my friends will say that, you do, you love everybody. I literally love everybody. Because he's really given us that little and it's a him, it's him, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Because I didn't always love everybody.
SPEAKER_00:But check this out I love everybody, but I there's a passage in scripture that I'm still unpacking, but it's really important to me, and it's the one that says, above all else, and that part's important, yeah, guard your heart for just the wellspring of life. So I used to be a person that I loved everybody, but in a way where I wasn't guarding my heart.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I see what you're saying. Yeah, but there, but it is a it is an intention for me anymore, because like I I I feel like I can love someone like really, like, even well, I I mean, I can love someone that I see. Oh my gosh, that person is terrible, but they're gonna die not knowing Jesus if I don't pray for them. So I am gonna pray and you know, pray for people I don't even know that are in positions that can affect my life, even if I don't think they're where they need to be, because I know who God is, because I know, first of all, that he really loves them because his spirit lives in them, they just don't know it, but they haven't chosen to follow him. They're made in his image, they're made in his chosen, well, then his spirit lives in them because you know what the breath of life that's in them, when they breathe in and breathe out, they are breathing God, they have not chosen to let their sins become.
SPEAKER_00:But do you feel that they have received the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01:They have the breath of the Holy Spirit in them, but they have not chosen to be redeemed, they still have a choice. Okay, there's God in them because God I think God is in, like we say, we talk a lot about how God is in us and humans. Yeah, well, we don't talk about how he's in the trees. The trees, that's true, and he's in the animals, that's true, and he's in all creations. That's sweet. When he breathes, that's good. I love that song. And I have I don't know if there's a scripture specifically for it, but it's it says, when uh when you breathe, a hundred million creatures. That's amazing. We catch our breath, we would not be alive if it wasn't for God. There would be we would drop dead. As soon as God's breath left us completely, we would drop dead. But if we don't understand that without God, we cannot ever live fully. If we don't turn to this amazing sacrifice that Jesus gave us of his own life, of his own blood to cover us and give us this new heart, we Yeah, it's more than cover.
SPEAKER_00:It's cover, it's it's all the whole thing. Strike that's it's a new creation. It's a new creation.
