Tag: Grace Bible Church MIddleteon

21 Sept 2025 Strength in Weakness

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, history, Leading Life by Example, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Writing and blogging

Hello to you. I’m just home from church – today marks our 9th year anniversary as a church. The church has grown so much from even when I started coming. I sat with my friend Jeannie and her brother-in-law Roy who was having trouble getting around today. Pastor Keith Waggoner from the Nampa campus we came from gave a great sermon. Today’s message really resonated with me:

2 Corinthians 12:7-10New International Version

7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations.Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I have been praying for God to heal me from what ails me for several years now and he has not moved. I believe that what is happening to me is similar to what Paul was talking about. If I was in perfect health I might not turn to God like I do. I might become conceited. God has walked with me through a lot – being bipolar, balance issues and chronic back pain. When I was in AA many years ago, he delivered me from alcoholism, chronic skin picking, smoking and bulemia. I have been through a lot in this life and God has been there every step of the way. Just because he hasn’t healed me completely doesn’t mean he’s absent. He has a plan!

Next Sunday I am being baptized. They have asked me to give a testimonial so I will work on that this week! God is moving in my life!

4 Sept 2025 Unchanging and Enough Time

by saymber, posted in animals, Bipolar life, Health, In the News, Leading Life by Example, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Television, Veteran Affairs

Hello to you. I hope this finds you well today. My thoughts this evening turn to mortality. To legacy. To being enough in the time I’ve had thus far. I couldn’t sleep the other night and found this from Jonathan Roumie. What I got out of it is it’s not how long we live but how deeply we love in the time we are given:

https://youtu.be/hStDYAxjjU0?si=lEchlnmBWJ1gK_3s – Jonathan Roumie and Jesus’s answer as to why he only lived to age 33

Jonathan has a lot of videos up like this on YouTube and I’m gradually getting through them.

Today was my Thursday prayer group and I was finally able to talk to Pastor Jason about a calling I’ve been having about an assisted living home we have here in town called The Cottages. Ever since we went there for Mothers Day in May I’ve been thinking about the place. The thing that has been holding me back is me – specifically my body. Things going on with my body make it hard for me to want to commit to anything. Explaining this to Jason and Lois today brought me to tears. I am willing to serve God but my body mobility and pain keep holding me back. Both Jason and Lois were supportive of me approaching the place to see if there is a need I can fill. Lois suggested keeping it small – just going once a week to say hello- learn the residents names. My plan is to call them on Monday and see what God has in mind for me. Please pray for me – for healing and heeding Gods call. Thank you! 🙏

Link will always look like a puppy to me – unchanging. The only thing that he’s showing of his age is the changing mobility in his back legs. He’s my baby boy!

28 March 2021 Lean into God

by saymber, posted in Exploring numeric value of words in English language, Spirituality and Religion, trust, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello to you, how are you today. I’m writing a little late on this beautiful Sunday. Today started out with a drive to my cousins for coffee and breakfast! I surprised myself by just using the GPS on my phone. Driving to her place is the furthest I have driven so far here in Idaho! I have been telling myself lately that I want to live my life versus just exist.

Yesterday I went to church with my Aunt and got a chance to talk to a pastor about some questions I have had about Jesus. I told him I am on a quest of sorts. I said the stumbling block for me becoming a Christian is believing that Jesus is the only way to get into heaven. What about all the other walks of faith that exist on this planet? He said, sweeping some Dan Brown mythology aside (The Council of Nicea, making a man a God), what they don’t address is payment for sin. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins and that isn’t something other walks of faith address. I tried to take in what he was saying as like when I was talking about equivalent exchange. You can’t get something for nothing and I guess that goes for salvation too! My quest continues.

When I set my mind to something, when I lean into God, things start to happen for me. I want a closer relationship with God and gradually I am getting that.

“Lean into God ” in the English Ordinal system equals 116 (two parts of one with all vices in check but one)