Second Stage Ministries

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 s...

“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...

I was listening to a song the other day. I found this song by total accident. As I was listening, a line in the chorus led me to another place and that is where we are going with this short series of posts. Here are the lyrics:   “I can see clearly now The rain has gone I accept all the things that I cannot change Gone are the dark clouds The dawn has come It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day” [1] First of all, as some might be able to tell this is sort of a cover/original song and if you give the song a listen later you would know what I mean. But just the chorus has some powerful truth to it. When I heard the line “I accept all the things that I cannot change”, I was immediately drawn to the Serenity Prayer. If you don’t know the Serenity Prayer here are the words: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” [2] See why the song led me to that pra...