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 Traveling Mercies And Climbing Trees
What if prayer isn’t a to-do list but an act of love you step into right where you stand? We pick up a heartfelt question on petitionary prayer and follow Tracy’s journey from atheism to a living relationship with God, where asking felt illogical until one grocery-store moment changed everything. A spontaneous prayer over a stranger’s dream revealed a simple, transformative truth: prayer is love. That lens reshaped motivation, turning petitions from outcome anxiety into compassion in motion.
Across this conversation, we share stories that make faith tangible. A childhood spent singing to God from the top of a tree becomes a picture of quiet intimacy. A mentor’s wisdom—be willing to be willing—opens a path to ask, learn, and grow without pretending certainty. Scripture moves from distant pages to a present voice, guiding conviction without condemnation. We explore how to discern voices, how to pray Scripture with confidence, and why praying now beats promising later.
We don’t skip the hard parts. Fierce prayers for healing that didn’t arrive. Grief that demanded honest words with God. The kind of trust that learns to hold both hope and surrender without letting go of either. Along the way, we get practical: ask to pray in the moment, breathe and listen before speaking, aim petitions at the true need beneath the surface, and write down mercies so memory strengthens hope. Faith can be contagious—borrow it from a friend, ask God to fill your cup, and watch courage return.
If you’re wrestling with whether your prayers matter, or if you’ve stopped asking for the big things, this conversation invites you back. Subscribe for more grounded, story-rich talks on faith and practice, share this episode with someone who needs fresh courage, and leave a review with the one bold prayer you’re ready to pray again.
Okay, we're back with Rooted in Rising Growth from the Greenhouse, part two with Tracy Levinson. And she just asked me a question at the end of the last podcast. We're going to start from there. So if you want to ask that question again, Tracy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the context is that I was an atheist until I was 30-something. Then I came to faith in Jesus. Um, then got really interested in the scriptures. I've never read them. I didn't even hadn't even heard very many verses. Like all of it was new information for me. And one of the things for me always from the beginning has been a mystery in the area of prayer. So I'm about to ask you a question, but I'm going to give you some context. So I've started praying in the beginning of my faith journey. Now I'm 60. But I kept praying this week, a couple of weeks from now, I'm going to be 60. And I kept praying God to teach me about prayer. And one of the problems is that I'm sort of a logical person. Like, and so, which that's ridiculous to think that everything is logical. And I was so mesmerized by the fact that God was real. And he's so, and I do, I think he's smart and I think he knows better than me. And and so it was almost like, why if I asked for something, how do I know that that's what's supposed to happen? This is, I'm just telling you the thoughts in my head. And it was like, well, why would it make a difference? And like I like when my kids were in college, let me give you a sample. Um, you know, my kids were in college, and then literally it was they both graduated, and I was sitting around with a bunch of moms who had had kids in college, and literally they said, Every single time my kids got in the car, I pray for traveling mercies. And then I literally sat there and I was like, Oh Christ, I never prayed once for my kids of traveling. I didn't know about traveling mercies. I didn't know that was a thing. And so it's just been so fascinating. And it and it's funny because I've live again, I know what the scriptures say about it, but I it's almost like I'm the kind of person where if it makes sense to me, it's I'm it's more motivating. So I've been asking God, help me. So something cool happened to me. And it was in our little town, we live in the hill country. I welcome the grocery store. The man behind the counter helped me pick out my little meat and for my little groceries and have struck up a sweet conversation with him. And I and I don't know how it happened, but at some point by the end of the conversation, I said, Is this your grocery store? And he said, Well, someday I'd like to own my own grocery store. And I said, Oh, and without, you know, without thinking about it, and I said, Well, then let's pray for that. And so, and he was like, Yes. So we prayed. So I walk out of the door, and in the again, I don't hear God audibly, but in the way that I feel that God, because you know, he says, My sheep hear my voice. So we can in whatever way it's and it's a still quiet voice, and we have to listen. Yeah, and sometimes it can be through nature and it's gonna look different when other people are gonna say God speaks them this way or that way. But for me, in the way that I feel that I hear the Lord, I walk out of that grocery store, and again, I've been praying for 20-something years that God would teach me about prayer, and he has done little things along the way that have helped me grow in it, but this nothing struck me more than this, and it was because I I know that I love we I love people. Like I love people, and I know the love of God, scripture says, has been poured into my heart. Yeah, and so I'm never surprised that I literally, in some ways, love every single person. And because, and I didn't, God did that. He poured his love into all of our hearts, and we have access to love no matter what, no matter how you're feeling, you always have access to love. But this is what God said to me. I heard God say in my spirit, Tracy, prayer is love. And I, it just I was like, oh, and again, it's more than just love, but it's love. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so all of a sudden, God did something in my in Tracy's motivation area, instead of like, oh, he says to pray, I should pray. You know, I need to pray. My friends asked me to pray, and I'm like, oh love, you know, why? But all of a sudden, prayer is it's not just about getting God to do something. And it actually, when I say prayer, I talk to God every second. That's it's petition that I struggled with. It wasn't talking to God. I'm sorry, you cleared from that. That's good. That's good. It was uh petition, it was specifically petitioning that I've been like, Wow, I how do I know what's best? How do I, you know, why not? Why would that make them you know? How come if this woman prayed that her kids wouldn't die in the car accident? But my kids, if I prayed, then maybe that would fix it. It was the logic of that. Okay, so there's like so many things you're saying. I know. I'm about to relation. I'm about to, she's a horse in the game. I'm gonna try and relation. I'm listening to the Lord. I'm almost done. So I will tell you that I want to cry, but that has changed my prayer life. Now, and again, I still think I'm a babe when it comes to petitioning. I'm a babe in the woods. But now that I know, because the love, nothing matters more than faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. So now that I know that love so now with people, I'm motivated petitioning, but I'm still struggle in the area of because you have seen a lot of miracles and you've prayed a lot. And I probably have I seen a lot of miracles, not so sure. Probably you have.
SPEAKER_00:I I feel oh maybe or some of our heads. We I feel like we we miss because that's I'll tell I'll say to y'all, um, tell me when God was mighty in your life where nothing else could happen. Well, I don't know why I have been able to see that. But when I start talking to people about it, they start seeing it too. They start looking back and they start seeing, oh, well, you're right, it couldn't happen there. I I don't know why I saw that as a young person. But but I did, and I wrote it down. Wait a second. And I just wrote it down. Okay, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, this is so cool. You just said, I don't know why I saw that as a young person. Stop. Tell them the story about the tree.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, just say that story. So now I'm getting this folks. So when I was three, uh, we lived in a two-story house, and my mom had three children. Uh me, 11 months later, my sister, 11 months later, my brother. So, in 22 months, she had three children. She also worked full-time to put my dad through dental school. My dad was in middle school. We went to daycare during the day. When we got home, I could do whatever I wanted because she could not keep up with she was dealing with home and cooking and babies. And so I would climb that tree all the way to the top at three years old. And um, I remember being in that tree and loving that tree. But in that tree, I would sing songs to God. The way that I know that is that my neighbors went and told my mom, your uh Dinny is climbing the tree all the way to the top. But I guess you don't have to worry about her because she's singing songs to the claim. Guess what she's still doing? I'm still singing. She's still singing songs. Okay, so let's let's go back. So I'm just telling you that's uh getting higher and singing. And I still climb trees, you know that. I still I have a tree out there I climb. It matters to get away from the chaos that we're around, you know. But prayer, praise and prayer are really important to me, and they're about relationships. So Jesus said, I give you a new commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. And when I was 19, I had been living a pretty dangerous life up to that time. I mean, you know, I I recognized God. Yeah. And there were moments that you were making. You were lying.
SPEAKER_01:You were making foolish decisions that were gonna not be helpful.
SPEAKER_00:They were already hurting me like a lot, you know, in my relationship with trying to build a relationship with my husband, uh, in my way I was trying to raise my child, children at that point. Uh, I was at a Bible study at my mom's house. Well, your brain wasn't even fully developed. Yeah, it wasn't. Yeah. Like it wasn't. And I was making dumb decisions. And um, I went to this Bible study with these older women who were probably at the time younger than I am now. So annoying. It is not annoying to think of that, but it's not really because I'm so thankful I'm 67 years old. Oh my gosh, I'm alive and I'm full of energy, and God is doing more in my later days than in my former days, which he promised. Yeah, and um, so I'm not, I love that. But when they were talking about this verse that uh love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, and I was just gritting my teeth and just angsting over there and waiting until it was all over. And then I just marched up to them and said, Really? Like, how can you love the Lord your God with all your heart? I can't see him, I'm not hearing him, I'm not, I don't know what's going on. And I, you know, I just don't understand. If you can't really have a relationship with God, how can you love him with all your heart? And Jenny said, This is what it is. It's that you have to ask. You have to ask him for things. You have to turn and say, I recognize that I'm somebody told me. Well, I don't know that, but it was like at that moment at that moment I had to be humble because like uh Rhonda Patterson, our prayer uh pastor, told me, she was quoting from a book. You have to be willing to be willing. And I've loved that. You think about that? You have to be willing to be willing to let God do something. You aren't really necessarily even ready to do it, but you're willing to try it. That's basically what it means. I'll try it, we'll see if it'll work. And that's what she said. She said, You ask God to teach you to love him and wait and see what he does.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And he did. So I I love the Old Testament and the New Testament. Yeah, I love them. And so I'm but I didn't then. They were boring books. I would read them and it was like, really, this is so boring. What is this genealogy thing? Now I know that's like a major, wonderful revelation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01:I love the Old Testament just as much as the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00:But at that time, I started reading it again and not in order. I started just opening up my Bible, and God just showed me these passages where we had broken his heart. And I got so offended for God. Oh. I was so mad at all those Israelites who turned their back on God over and over. And then he said, That's exactly. He like showed me a mirror. But in that process of that year, thank God, it was a it was a really amazing year of him just opening doors for things and showing me his love and teaching me how to love him by knowing him.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I wanted to clarify something and I want to ask the question. So um one is I love the Old Testament too, because it all you know it all of it. It points to Jesus Christ. Um, so I I give it, I respect it in that way. I do think we have to read it with the lens of understanding the finished work of Jesus. I think you can find yourself in bondage if you take Old Testament papers.
SPEAKER_00:If we let condemnation come in in any way, then this is a thing. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But it and it's not condemnation. When God points something out like that, it's like place in my heart, he's just saying, Do you want to get rid of that or do you want to carry that until you meet me? You don't have to carry it, you know. And if you do carry it, then I'm gonna get rid of it. But he wants you to have faith.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he wants you to have faith that he already took care of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but he also wants me to know that I think he's active in our lives, Tracy. I I don't think he just gave us a new heart and then we go on. Oh, he's like walking in the garden with us. Shall we keep on sinning so grace may increase? Yeah, I know. No, no, I mean I I agree. And it's not that like he took sin out of my life. Like Lee stopped smoking after 50 years of trying everything the world had, and he stopped smoking just out of like it just happened. He just one day put him down. It bothered him a little bit for the next few days, and then it was just gone. And that was gone because three years and six months later, he had prostate cancer, and they would not have been willing to take the prostate that was about to explode with cancer out of his body if he had not stopped smoking three years before. I because it would have been too dangerous, it would have been too dangerous because he wouldn't have had blood vessels to rebuild, and you know, like there's nothing accidental, but he's always willing when we see something, it's us turning and saying, I don't want that, just like you described earlier. I don't want that anymore. You agree with him? I agree. Which he says where two or more agree is touching about what we say. So now my relationship with my father, which doesn't have to be the same as your relationship or somebody else's, like we can disagree because it doesn't even matter. Like we're gonna see him face to face. Right. But my relationship with him is talking to him. I mean, he's just always talking through my heart and my mind through the day. That doesn't mean I don't like I get mad at somebody sometimes. Right. And sometimes I let it come out of my mouth. But mostly what comes out of my mouth now is the word that he's put in that's my two-edged sword that cuts asunder the work of the enemy. And I recognize the enemy too. I recognize that voice now. Yeah, and when I start feeling like, oh, everything's horrible, my husband's horrible, this is horrible. I know who that voice is, and I speak to him and tell him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you test all things and you hold fast to that, which is good. That's right.
SPEAKER_00:To the word of God. Yeah. And when we do that, so that relationship, so going back to your petitions, yes, um, what's that like for you? Like so, in the last few years, God spoke to my heart and said, Don't say you'll pray, because sometimes you forget to pray for somebody. Um, if they need prayer, just stop what you're doing and listen to what I'm saying and speak that over them. Listen to what God is speaking into your heart. Be like I just start by breathing, because when I breathe in, Yahweh, the breath of God in me, I'm accessing, I'm saying, here I am. I don't want to be the one that's you be the vessel. Uh if somebody says they need something, I'll always say, whether I don't know anything about them. Do you need prayer right now? Because I'm praying for you. And they always, I mean, I've never had anybody say no. And then God just takes over, and it's his word that I believe is moving in their lives. And it's not something that will be contradicted because it's his truth. It's faith, though. I see.
SPEAKER_01:I have a lot of faith. No, but I'm saying you have faith. This is what's cool. This is what I'm noticing. Um, I'm trying to glean. But I'm gleaning too. I'm trying to glean. But it's like you have faith in him being at work and whatever their need is. That's it. I hear yeah, that's what I'm hearing. Yeah. Okay, well, I I really want to like swallow that. Here, let me have a cup of okay. Here we go.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I want because I this is what we both are really like. I'm loving this problem. But faith is a gift. Faith is a gift. It is, and it's and so you can pray. I love that guy in the Bible that was like, uh, help me with my unbelief. And so I need to start praying. This is great. I've been looking, this is really therapy for me. This is what I'm really here. But it's like, I've been looking for the next clue about prayer, petition. And so I feel like my next clue is I need a cup of faith, and I and if I pray for it, God will give it to me. But in in petition, He'll fill you up. He'll fill you up. I just need to ask. Like you said, earlier.
SPEAKER_00:Ask that it'll be given to you. I'll see that now. Okay. Okay. Uh well, hold on. I'm gonna pray. Because I want to finish up with two things. First of all, going back to that year of learning to love God was so critical in my life. Uh, because something because my brother-in-law, brother, uh, my 22-month younger brother, best friend guy that we did everything together. He was the only one in my family that really accepted and loved my husband. They became best friends, and he was killed in a car accident. He lived for a week, uh, but his brainstem was severed. He never woke up. Uh, but this is the thing. I had such faith that God would restore his brainstem. He knit him together to begin with in his mother's womb. He knew him before he was born, and I had such faith for that. And when Ford died, and he did die, um, I was so angry with God for letting me down. And that love of God kept me holding on for answers. But man, I told him what I thought. When you have relationship with somebody, Tracy and I say what we mean to one another. We have relationship with each other. God is God, and he's bigger than all of us, and he's mighty, and he's worthy of our praise, and he's worthy of honor. But he also wants to know what his little girl thinks. And when I was angry with him, he just knew anyway. He knew anyway, but he let me say those things. And then he said, Can you trust me? Even when what you believe is what my will is, doesn't happen. And that really set me free. It doesn't make it easier. I recently lost a friend that I'd prayed for that I really believed that he would conquer. Stupid cancer, I hate cancer, but he didn't. But I know that he's healed. He is healed, and he's in the presence of the Lord, and he is full of joy. And that man, through this battle, impacted my life greatly. God used him to do more works in my life. So I'm just letting you know the whole picture of my faith is not every single time I pray for a miracle, a miracle happens. I am just being, I'm I'm trusting that I am supposed to pray if he opens an opportunity for me. Like, you know, the other day, you and I. Yes. Uh, you came up to give me a hug, and I said, Do you need prayer? And then that was something actually. Yes. And so we prayed, and I believe God's doing works. It's just maybe no, I need to tell you what happened during that prayer.
SPEAKER_01:And then I want you to pray for all of us, yes, we'll give us a cup. Yes, we will need a cup of faith. Yeah. What happened was that there had been someone in my life that doesn't um that professes, you know, last I heard, professed to be an atheist. Somebody she cares about a lot. A lot. I, it's been so many years, and I've been so, and it's it's a it's a situation where I've been very discouraged. And what happened was, this is so interesting, me asking you for a cup of faith. Because what happened when you prayed for me is I walked away going, because I'd stopped praying for that person's salvation. I'm just praying little things like maybe that person will be kind to me, or maybe that person will have their marriage will get restored, or whatever the thing I was praying about about that person. But then she went for the she saw underneath all that and she was like, Oh, we need to pray for this person's salvation. I was like, Oh, oh, and I felt like empowered and like I was like, Oh, enemy. You know, there's a verse, somewhere verse in scripture. I don't know where it is, but it says, um, something about the enemy had me down, but I'm about to get up. It's like it's like the person who hasn't even gotten up yet, but it's like, I'm about to get watch how they didn't have to be. Exactly. I'm about to get up.
SPEAKER_00:This is why we have to pray together and encourage one another because we women, we are mighty in this land. We were put here for purpose. And when we pray uh God's word together and listen to him, because listen, that was not me. I was discouraged. I didn't even know that you were gonna need prayer, and I had no idea about the circumstances. That was God.
SPEAKER_01:It was because I was discouraged, but it was it was like as if she had it was as if she had a faith petition disease, and I caught it. I literally felt like it. I literally felt like I caught I caught it. Isn't that amazing? And so I walked reporting. I'm walking down the aisle of our little church, I'm walking down the aisle and I was like, oh, the enemy's mad about this because I'm about to start praying for this person in ways that I I I'm gonna I'm strengthened. It was like I was strengthened. So would you pray for all of us, including me?
SPEAKER_00:That's how we end, and I didn't end the last one. I'm gonna have to add a prayer at the end.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm just I'm just needing that we would have a cup of increased faith in the future.
SPEAKER_00:I'm asking, I'm wanting. So, Father, we just thank you for these women that are gathered for this podcast today. We know that that though we're far apart, we are connected, and that you are a God that hears us. And so we just ask for your wisdom and your truth in this prayer of just asking us to be filled up, fill us up with faith. And we may have faith, but we need more faith. And you know that you've said that to us that we we yes, thank you for my faith, and then give me more, Lord. That's the prayer you have. So we pray that for us. Fill us up and Father, I I thank you. That Tracy, you reminded me that when we ask and ask and ask, and we seek and seek and seek and knock and knock and knock, the door is going to be opened. What we ask for from you, those desires you've planted in our heart, that you're going to respond to them and you are gonna fill us up with faith. And we need that right now. We need your faith to pour out of us in strength and have those kings of armies flee before us. They flee in Jesus' name. And I love you guys. I'm so happy we're together today. I know that when every time we come together, it's for your good, my good, and those that you think of. So don't ignore that prompting from the Holy Spirit.
