Second Stage Ministries

What do you do when you have given everything you can and they still spit in your face? Show you not one ounce of gratitude. You have given time, energy and emotion. They give nothing in return or it feels forced. Then they just leave. All of the time, energy and emotion just kicked to the curb and you just are left feeling spent. As I wrote those words above, I had just come to realization that my marriage of 8 years was indeed over. The person that I had spent the last 8 years with was now moving on and flaunting her new found life, possibly new relationship and posting things about what a good guy looks like - like I had never existed or I was just a guy that she spent 8 years with once. It really had me down and out for that evening. It has me feeling like a failure. (It is worth noting here, that we may not understand the situations we are going through while we are going through them. But God is waking through them with you and one day your journey through the valley w

This is a very special post. This is the 100th on this blog. With that said, I wanted to take a look at something in this post that was revealed to me a couple of months ago. How we see people is very important. But how we see certain people might cause drama in our lives. Jesus experienced such trouble with the people that He chose to interact with. One such instance can be seen in Luke 19: “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.” - Luke 19:1-2 NIV This is worth explaining: Tax collectors were notorious for being criminals. Just as verse 2 states, tax collectors would often charge people higher than needed and then take the extra money and pocket it. For example, if the tax was 2%, tax collectors would charge 5% and tax the 2% where needed to go and they would pocket the 3%. So with that said it makes the next part of the story more understandable: “He wanted to see

For this week’s post, I asked a friend if she wanted to lend a hand for the final post of the “Clear” series. So, below is a post written by her and I hope it helps you this week. _________________ Choose Wisely by Heather Gent It's okay I felt His Spirit say.  After what I had just done, it seemed incomprehensible that His message to me would be one of consolation. I had just done the unthinkable, after all.  In a single moment I made the very mistake I had unknowingly been planning to make all along. The waves of forbidden desire finally emerged from my mind's shadow and came crashing into the shoreline of my moral compass, or as Freud would call it, my superego.  The gratification and pleasure I derived from it all slowly faded into a black hole of guilt and shame, despair and confusion. How could I have let this happen? I silently and anxiously questioned as I fought back the tears that tried to fall. I was horrified to have come face to face with the sinfuln

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid” (Psalm 23:4, NLT). On the morning of May 11, 2012, I met my son for the first time. He was the cutest little 8 pound bundle. He had chubby little cheeks and was full of joy. Everything with mom and baby checked out ok and we left the hospital. But the mountaintop would soon start it’s decent into a valley and a big moment of courage and faith. Two weeks later we would find ourselves rushing our baby boy to the hospital after I found blood in his diaper. We spent the afternoon at a local hospital and then he was transferred across town to another hospital who could better serve him and us. It was found out that he had a small flap of skin in the urethra that would open and close sometimes fully blocking the urethra. This was causing the urine he was trying to pass to be backed up in his bladder and kidneys - causing major damage almost to the point of kidney failure. Upon the discovery of th