Teri Bledsoe OnPurposeGoods Founder Women Doing Well Generosity Finish Line Podcast
Finish Line Podcast Episode 186

Teri Bledsoe, Board Chair of Women Doing Well, on Joyful Giving Through Suffering

You want generosity to be a source of joy and deeper trust in God, but seasons of grief, uncertainty, or family hardship can make that joy feel difficult to access.

How do you hold sorrow and generosity together, allowing God to meet you in both without requiring the pain to disappear before you can experience His goodness?


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Meet your guide

Teri Bledsoe is an entrepreneur, mother, and Board Chair of Women Doing Well, a ministry helping women discover their purpose, passions, and generosity. Her own giving journey began long before significant wealth, shaped by a grandmother who gave freely from very little and by early experiences that taught Teri to see generosity as a response to God’s personal care.

After her husband Chris sold Banker’s Dashboard, their family suddenly faced both greater financial capacity and profound hardship. Their son Christopher struggled with addiction and later died from a fentanyl-laced overdose, while other children faced serious mental health challenges. Teri shares how generosity, community, and serving alongside her husband became places where joy and sorrow could exist together. She also explains how The Gathering and Women Doing Well helped their family move from simply giving money to experiencing generosity as relationship, invitation, and shared mission with God.

By the end, you may see generosity not as an escape from suffering, but as one way God can deepen joy, intimacy, and trust even within it.

What you’ll gain

  • How generosity can coexist with grief, loss, and suffering
  • Why giving is ultimately a response to God’s invitation
  • How defining enough can protect freedom after sudden wealth
  • Why generosity can deepen unity between husbands and wives
  • How giving communities can reshape your generosity over time
  • What it means to intentionally mine for joy through giving

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Quotes to Remember

  • “Generosity is a response of gratitude to who He is and what He shows us of His character and His love and His grace.”
  • “Generosity isn’t an outcome-based exercise in the Kingdom. It’s an intimacy and relational exercise with the King.”
  • “God of the universe was talking to me and saying, ‘I see you, and I’m going to move heaven and earth so you don’t miss an opportunity to respond to my goodness.’”
  • “You cannot outgive God.”
  • “He is not a taker. He’s a giver.”
  • “Those tracks of joy and sorrow were just running straight parallel.”
  • “The joy of giving and being on mission with the Lord was the only counterbalance to the suffering.”
  • “There’s a special grace in suffering where He shows you that He is enough.”
  • “I won’t let go until you show me your joy.”
  • “When you give, what you specifically gain is the joy of the Lord.”
  • “Generosity is the way He unlocks that joy.”
  • “The greatest joy of giving has been what God has done between Chris and me.”
  • “When I see him get burdened for a Kingdom cause, I fall in love all over again.”
  • “Have 100% confidence in God, and He’ll take care of whatever giving mistakes you might make.”
  • “He is enough. He is whatever you need.”

Links from the Show

Bible References from the Show

Malachi 3:10 | Test Me in This

“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

Psalm 27:8 | Seek His Face

“You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’”

John 10:10 | Life to the Full

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Acts 20:35 | More Blessed to Give

“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

John 15:11 | Joy Made Full

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

John 3:16 | God So Loved He Gave

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

James 1:17 | Every Good Gift

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Genesis 32:26 | Wrestling with God

“Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”

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Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
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Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
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