Tedder's Blog, page 4

God Wastes Nothing

Childhood trauma is not something God wanted for you. People’s sin and brokenness caused it. But a loving God wastes nothing—not even the things He hates. If you let Him, He will take the shards and turn them into tools. Survival skills forged in those early fires—reading people, thinking ahead, adjusting on the fly—become weapons […]

Jewels, Gems & Gunpowder

I would love to hear from you! A Jewel: I’m reading through the book of Isaiah right now. It’s a bit of a hard read but I understand fully what Isaiah was saying in his time. He was a “piercing poet, who understood the two-sided nature of God’s character; mercy and judgment, grace and discipline, […]

Heroin Lost. God Won.

I shouldn’t be here. Not statistically. Not logically. Not by any earthly measure.

Childhood abuse took the foundation out from under me before I even knew what one was. The people who should have protected me handed me over to darkness. I learned early that the world could be cruel, that pain could be normal, that trust was a luxury.

Then came heroin. It promised numbness. It delivered chains. I traded years of my life for moments without pain, and nearly lost the whole thing. Addiction doesn’t care that you have potential. It doesn’t care about your family or your dreams. It only cares about the next fix.

And yet—God.

Not the vague, self-help version of God. The living God who breaks shackles and raises the dead.

When I had nothing left to offer, He met me there. When I was filthy, ashamed, and unreachable, He reached anyway. I didn’t “find my faith” like some lost wallet. I was hunted down by grace and dragged out of hell by Someone stronger than the thing holding me.

The abuse didn’t get the last word.

The needle didn’t get the last word.

Jesus did.

Now I live free—not because I’m strong, but because He is. My scars are still here, but they’re no longer open wounds. They’re proof.

If you’re in that pit: the rope is already there. Grab it.

B

Compost the Pain

I don’t think the point was ever to escape suffering.
I think it was to survive it.
To use it as a forge.
To be turned into something strong enough to make.

Pain is a brutal tutor. It teaches without mercy.
It steals your illusions and leaves you staring at what’s real:
your own hands.
Your own mind.
What you choose to do with both.

Some people collapse. Some people cope.
But some of us build.

We take the wreckage and rework it.
We write the book. We raise the child.
We make the art, sing the song, tell the truth.
We don’t transcend pain by ignoring it.
We transcend it by dragging it behind us like a carcass until it becomes compost.

Nothing I’ve made that mattered came from comfort.
All the good things grew in the dirt.

B

Genealogies

Reading the bible can be challenging enough, right? What about all the lists of names? The Bible contains multiple genealogical records. Why and what does it mean to us?

The genealogies help substantiate the Bible’s historical accuracy. The genealogies also confirm prophecy. Every name mentioned in the genealogies holds importance. Each individual represents a part of God’s unfolding plan.

They reflect the faithfulness of a God who sees generations and has a purpose for every life.

#thehuntress

What is your purpose? How do you get past your pain to even dream again? Remember this – God cares. He sees you and your circumstances. He has a plan for your life. Next time you get in a bind or find yourself wresting with what to do next, stop and ask God. He’s waiting to hear from you. When you make that call to Him, don’t hang up on him when he begins to answer you! Wait and listen. He longs to reply.

CHILDHOOD ENDS…

THEIR GRIP DOESN’T.

The abuse didn’t end when I grew up. It evolved.

It didn’t pack up and leave when I turned 18. It changed tactics.

The predators learned early that physical access has an expiration date. Emotional access? Psychological access? That’s where the real damage is done. The grooming scripts don’t stop because the victim gets older—they just adapt. The shame stays. The silence stays. The distorted version of trust stays.

That’s why grooming is not just something that happens to children. It’s a system designed to outlive childhood. To follow victims into adulthood. To gaslight them into believing it was “their fault” or “not that bad.” To keep them quiet while the abuser moves on to the next target.

This is a system. Systems don’t collapse on their own. They get torn down.

And we’re just getting started.

B

Prayer In the Dark

In the quiet hum of childhood, I learned to live among the shattered edges of chaos—where dinner plates cracked as easily as voices, where love bruised more often than it healed. We were all ghosts in that house, haunting each other, speaking in the broken language of survival. Prayer was something I stole glimpses of, like an old hymn from a half-forgotten dream. It was not taught to me but whispered in the gaps between screams, in the moments when I would press my hands together—not out of devotion, but desperation.

What is prayer, but the search for silence in the storm? A hope that rises like a thin, trembling line from the gut to the sky. As a child, I didn’t know what I was reaching for, only that I needed something outside of this—this wreckage we called home. Maybe I prayed to be seen, or maybe to disappear, to be anything but the girl who knew too much of rage and too little of tenderness.

But prayer isn’t always answered in the way we expect, is it? I wasn’t plucked from the turmoil; no hand came down to pull me from the fire. Instead, prayer became the fire itself—burning away the fear, the doubt, the jagged memories. It became the only quiet place inside me, a place where I could lay down the weight of it all, if only for a breath.

In the darkness of those nights, when the world outside was loud and cruel, I learned that peace is not something you are given—it’s something you carve out, claw by claw, from the inside. And maybe that’s what prayer is. Not a request, not a plea, but a declaration: I will not be undone by this. I will find my way through the dark.

So, I pray. Even now, after all these years, I pray—not for salvation, not for rescue, but for strength. I’m learning how to do it better each day. How to get closer to myself and to God. To keep going, to keep breathing, to keep believing that somewhere beneath the rubble of a broken past, there is something whole waiting to be found.

B

Taste of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a terrain I never thought I’d cross—a landscape dense with memories I’ve been too afraid to sift through. But here I am, not forgiving for their sake, but for my own. Because forgiveness isn’t about absolving them; it’s about unclenching the fists I didn’t know I’d been holding since childhood.

I lost myself somewhere in those early years, in the chaos of hands that hurt instead of held, in voices that silenced instead of soothed. I didn’t realize that the person I was supposed to become had been buried under their actions, their choices. It took years to untangle their roots from the soil of my being, to understand that the anger I carried wasn’t entirely mine, that the shame they planted in me was never my burden to bear.

Forgiveness is not a pretty word. It’s raw and heavy, requiring me to revisit what I swore I’d forget. It’s less a sweeping absolution and more a steady chiseling away of the pain they left behind. With every small forgiveness—of myself, of others, of the world—I find pieces of me returning.

I forgive not to let them go but to reclaim myself. To say, you don’t get to live here anymore. This space is mine. This body, this mind, this future—they are mine.

So, I forgive with boundaries. I forgive without reunion. I forgive without losing myself to the old wounds again.

In this act, I find the newness: a version of me that is untethered from them, a person who is allowed to bloom without their shadow.

The past may never fully loosen its grip, but I am learning to live beyond it. To live as though I deserve light, peace, and the love I was always meant to feel—for myself, from myself. And in that forgiveness, I finally see myself clearly.

B

Bits ‘n B

Each week we will answer an anonymous message received at BitsnB1218@gmail.com or through DM. There are 60 million survivors of childhood sexual crimes. One in nine don’t report. The real number of victims is staggering but no one wants to talk about it. We will. If you need anonymous advice from Jesus’ girls coming through this tragedy, please send an email.

We received this email:

I’m very new to this and not sure how this works and I’m only sending this email because I need my truth to be heard by someone.

You recently had an interview with (name withheld) who is actually my mother. My mother has 4 kids and she stole our innocence from all of us.

I am not sending this email to bash her or ruin anything for her in anyway I am just so tired of her living in a world full of lies and ignoring the truth. She physically and verbally abused me and my siblings from the time I was 7 till I was 15. From the time I was 14 I was in and out of the street with no guidance or parents. My mother never cared where I was for the night all she cared about was whatever boyfriend she had in her house.

I cannot continue to let her go on platforms and social media and try to play the victim when all she did was nothing but abuse and hurt us. Even though me and her aren’t in great terms I pray god can heal her and help her acknowledge what she did to us.

Again I am in no way trying to ruin her life or relationships I just want my truth to be heard as well.

Feel free to contact me here anytime. Keep doing God’s work and stay blessed.”

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your trust. I agree that your side of the story needs to be heard. A childhood friend used to say, “No matter how flat you fry a pancake, there are always two sides.”

A parent who withholds the kinds of truth your story outlines is a liar. Lying by omission is still lying. Denying past situations where accountability is due are what abusers hold onto. Your words are fire against your mother’s obligations to you.

I want to tell you the things that you need to hear. I am sorry that your childhood didn’t hold safety for you. I’m sorry that you felt alone against the world and wholly disappointed. I am sorry that the people who gave you life neglected their roles as parents to you. I am truly sorry that the accountability you seek from them — you cannot find.

You deserved more than you got. Your words today keep you free, keep you safe, and keep you on a path of healing. Don’t change your story because that’s what other people want you to do.

I am proud of your determination to move on without anger. Your ability to seek the goal of reality is an admirable one. Continue on that path.

As an angel told me once, “UCU.” By allowing God to focus on you (you see you) you can take your eyes off the offenders — you have no control or place there anyway.

Those that cling to anything outside of God’s love, which fully endorses the truth, are walking in a false religion. False religion is worthless. The prophet Jeremiah said,

8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?

But I have been watching! declares the Lord.

jeremiah 7 (niv)

Remeber, love, that God is watching all things, he knows all things, and he cares deeply for you. Parents lie all the time. It makes me sad. However, it cannot change our story unless we allow it to.

Keep staying on the right side of God.

All love!

A Casual Affair

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Many address childhood trauma as if it were the same as not having a prom date for your high school gala. This couldn’t be farther from the truth and adds insult to injury.

There was a prophet in the Old Testament named Jeremiah. I love his words about God’s people who were being set up and used by the greedy — the message is really encouraging. He tells them,

“[You] dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

Jeremiah 6:14

One thing I know to be true about God. He sees the whole story. He does not come to you with words that condemn like — pull yourself together and just get over it! You should be doing better than this!

I have truly never heard the Lord speak anything but kindness to me. When I ran on a tangent away from good, it was His love that drew me.

Period!

I didn’t need more judgment — I needed some discipline to pick up good tools through words of encouragement. My inner being was imprinted with seething pain that was blinding.

Next time you want to run from the pain — run to a God that loves you. Listen to His words. They are filled with love.