Make your world bigger (Moving forward from depression)

The pain of feeling the lowest I have ever felt in my life was sharp and heavy. My heart was in pain, my mind was in pain even my body was in pain. The heaviness was oppressive and depressive all at the same time. My world seemed like a prison. A prison with walls that slowly but relentlessly close in. I couldn’t for the life of me see the good in much. I felt at times like I wasn't sure I could take much more.

I wasn't enjoying my ministry.

I wasn't enjoying life.

I spent most of my time wishing I could just walk away from everything.

Every insignificant thing seemed massive.

Every negative comment sent me to a dark, lonely place, a place where I hate to go.

I now know where this started and set in.

Without going into details that would probably make you feel sick, the control and pure stupidness of different people, people who really should have known better, yet people who let power go to their heads, had inflicted serious damage to my spirit and my soul which in turn took its toll on my body. I had almost allowed them to do it by giving them too much power by going down the submissive route which is a dangerous thing to do if you are in the presence of people who do not understand the spiritual concept of submission. Spiritual submission is massively different to submission abuse.

I hit rock bottom after the last blow inflicted by sad, dangerous, misguided people.

This particular time the wound was deep and opened up a lot of other wounds I had collected in my officership.

Depression saw its chance.

It crept up on me and seeped through those wounds and settled in to my life.

Before I  became a Salvation Army officer I still had a sense of fun, of life and a sense of worth.

As great as my ministry seems to many people, I give all the glory  to God because he has had to work through my massive weaknesses.

But underneath the inevitable acting and the false self appearances that brings, I have been dying inside and I longed to be free.

Depression.

How do you get free from depression?

I’m not going to attempt to answer that right now for sure.

But.

I’ve learned some stuff.

It took a long time for me to admit that depression had set in. I just didn't want it. I convinced myself that it definitely couldn’t happen to me.

But one day.

One dark day.

I just walked into the doctors and asked for help.

I had already started counselling.

God was there.

Even though at times I wondered if he was even real.

He is amongst all of the help and healing.

And.

I am beginning to heal now.

If you read my last blog post titled “I’m back” then you will see I have at least stepped on the road to recovery.

It feels like I have been to hell and I’m on the road back to heaven.

A hell inflicted by people who in some cases were revered leaders.

If you’re still reading this and haven’t lost the will to live then I will tell you the reason that I write this short version of a big deal for me. I write it because I guess there are others who even now are reading between the lines of what I have written and your own situations are surfacing right now.

Especially depression.

I am no expert on getting free of depression but know that I have learned a few things that help with recovery and felt for some reason I need to share them today.

1. Prayer is massively important. even when you feel you are speaking to thin air and getting nothing back. Get into the lifestyle of doing it anyway. Trust God he will bring you through.
2. A verse of scripture a day helps.
3. Admit you are struggling.
4. Do not battle it. Go to the GP.
5. If counselling is possible go for it. A good counsellor can help you get stuff tucked away deep inside you out. There will be forgiveness issues and letting go issues that you could do with being sure about. Counsellors or Spiritual mentors etc are a great help in this.
6. If there is someone who is causing you distress, deal with it. If it is your boss don’t leave it, tackle them. if you feel you can’t speak to your boss, consider speaking to their boss.
7. Speak to a friend you trust. share how you are feeling.
8. Don’t be frightened to take time off sick if needed.
9. Don’t be afraid to take medication if prescribed.

My biggest problem was having years of not doing anything but get worse.

Just making a decision to deal with it by walking into the GP gave me a reassuring lift.

Keeping my prayer life strong even when it felt dry kept hope of healing alive.

I have briefly shared this and it is hard to do believe me. I am not the type of person who would like to read this blog post or share like this. I would rather keep it private. But I felt God wanted me to do this if only to help someone in deep need today.

So.

My final word on this is.

Don't leave it any longer.

Seek help.

There is a road to recovery.

There is time to discover you again.

There is hope.

If anyone wants to share with me there experience please email me on gaz.lacey@gmail.com and I will pray for you.

Finally

A word from God.

Make your world bigger. The world that surrounds your problem or issue is surprisingly small although you see it as insurmountable. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most high dwells (Psalm 46:6). Listen sons and daughters I  Know about your past, present and future, head for the river that will lead you to the holy city. make your world bigger. Do not reside in the small world of your present circumstances. Seek the wider air of my omnipotence. There is a bigger world waiting for you. wide your ground, seek new things. the discoveries are there but you must find the river. I point the way. look to Jesus. Sons and daughters I know you are tired of the small world. seek the holy place. The City of God.

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

Blessings.

Sanctuary update 7

Quite few of you guys have asked me to do an update on Sanctuary in Ealing.

So here goes.

We have been operational for nearly a year now. As you can imagine it is an enormous task to set something new up from scratch, get it off the ground and eventually make it solid while at the same time guard against maintenance mode and keep it fluid. Dawn and I are the people who have a record of getting projects up and running while attempting to build in some solid foundations that future generations can build on. then someone else will come in and build on those foundations. That is what we have been busy doing this year. The prayer rhythm is solid. The hospitality has developed at a fantastic rate, with many needy people being drawn to the sanctuary including the homeless, the sick, the addicted and the alcoholic. Our practical assistance records are hard to keep up with and range from food to sleeping bags. We have compartmentalised and sharpened our need based hospitality down to afternoons where soup and other food is available to those who need it. We are so grateful that God has sent many volunteers to the Sanctuary who give their time and effort to serving the broken and the lost and they have contributed to making the soup and other food and serving the needy. But we are about to take that to another level we have signed a deal that little cash outlay with the chef at Sunbury Court who will cook the soup and we are setting up a collection and refrigeration service to constantly supply quality soup to the people. We serve an ever increasing Polish community of which some are desperately in need of help, as well as a multi national community that makes up the Ealing wider community. We have some guys working with us who have been released from prison and we are mobilising them to try to build up some self respect and confidence in themselves. We serve the wider praying community providing space for them to pray and make use of the prayer centre as well as hosting both local and national prayer events. I have recently launched and am developing a weekly prayer/pastoral surgery where people make appointments and come to pour out troubles, just chat, or be prayed with. Sanctuary kids is growing nicely and the team we have developed to look after that do an amazing job cooking tea on a Friday and then doing Christian based activities with the kids. Thursdays at the sanctuary are always very busy, we have developed a community meal at lunchtime which now attracts a capacity weekly patronage. The team who do thursdays work so hard to show love and respect to mainly elderly set of people. Thursday evening is a developing discipleship evening. Currently we are looking at what monasticism has to teach the church of today. This is mostly video/discussion based approach. We brought back from the old SA Corps here the mothers and tots session we do this on a Monday, We brought a different approach led by an amazing girl called sue (Who also does the Kids stuff) We are constantly up to capacity on this. Every day is a vibrant day we open every day of the week now apart from Sundays. The charity shop is doing very well and we are currently discussing ways in which we can improve this.

We have seen some great missional successes and victories.

For example a guy called Sam released from an 8 year stretch in prison, then straight back in to the deathly grip of drugs and alcohol. He came to the Sanctuary in a completely sorry state, heading for oblivion basically. Ive watched as the team have lavished patience and love and showed respect to this young guy who had no self respect, he had lost his family, he was blighted by alcoholism and drug addiction, and he had absolutely no chance of a job. Fast forward to today. After being disorientated by the love of Jesus through a Christian community, he has been clean for a number of months and was so excited to tell us he has just been taken on by a drug and alcohol outreach agency to help other addicts. That has taken people showing love, Dawn and I speaking with him telling him about Jesus, praying with him, and the people who work at the Sanctuary especially Nicky who has really taken care of Sam. he is now heading in a very different direction. He has an awful long way to go but the turn around has been only that kind of miracle that Jesus can provide.

There are a thousand stories like that, that I guess every team member could share with you.

We have a long way to go to bring about the solidity of the project in West London.

And there will be others after us who take this project forwards.

But.

Ealing Salvation Army Corps has turned a massive corner.

It was heading absolutely, and make no mistake about this, nowhere.

It is now beginning to make an impact in kingdom terms.

Many exciting days lay ahead.

And I want to add a bit of a prophetic word to this today.

Its all about being totally open to the whatsoever and the whosoever.

In other words dealing missionally and lovingly with whoever comes in our path and whatever situation occurs.

It's about what God says in Isaiah 56, "My Salvation is for everyone." The key is total inclusion.

Every morning I walk to work about three miles there three back. On my way I pass a row of low rent shops that have seen better days. In amongst them is a coffee shop. Outside they place an A frame sign every day. On the sign they write something like this, "If you are wearing a blue jacket and your name begins with the letter S come in and claim your free coffee." The sign transported my mind back to about four years back Christmas in a Northern UK City. I had been asked to speak in the cathedral at Christmas service. Richard , a local homeless guy had asked could he come and hear me speak, I said yeah and I'll take you for coffee and some chips afterwards. There was around 2500 people at the service and it was obvious I was going to have difficulty locating Richard. I couldn't see him so presumed he had forgotten or something. The next day I saw him in a doorway in the city. I asked him where he had been.

 He told me a churchy horror story that sadly I here way too often. he told me he had got to the door of the cathedral and explained to a person that he had come to hear his mate speak. This person said sorry we can't let people like you in here tonight.

That is people picking and choosing who salvation is for.

That is a scandal of christianity.

What did that say about Jesus to a man in great need.

I guess if he was wearing a blue Jacket and his name started with S he may have got a free coffee.

In other words he needed to be a certain type of person to be allowed int a church.

Let me say this.

Our hope is built on nothing less than jesus and his righteousness.

And.

Jesus does not close his arms to anyone.

Yeah.

Anyone.

And I think that open arm strategy is building the sanctuary here in Ealing. Not some great church planting strategy drawn up a missional development plan that really no one is remotely bothered about.

The spirit of God says today.

Open your arms.

Because they are my arms.

Open your eyes because they are my eyes.

Open your heart because it is my heart.

Sam has been grabbed by those open arms.

And he is being saved from total destruction.

So.

I pray the church will open it's arms to this world.

It just might be saved.

Living in the Opposite

Crisp, sunny and cold.

That was the weather report as I stepped out of the tube station onto the pavement.

I looked left and yes, it was still there.

Fixed to the side of Hounslow West Tube Station with blackened Victorian London brick.

Probably the dingiest cafe you could ever experience.

It's a place I have become acclimatized to over recent weeks.

The floor is a worn down linoleum sheet. Filthy, with holes ever widening. The walls are painted a dirty cream which I suspect were once brilliant white, probably darkened by a million fried English breakfasts. The tables and chairs are rickety and unstable adorned with plastic checked table cloths which at least can be wiped clean. This cafe sits right next door to Hounslow West tube station London.

And.

I love it.

Its got an atmosphere you just don't get in the posh coffee shop culture.

I got my coffee, black, straight and steaming hot in an off white mug with a picture of a mouse on it.

Nice.

It cost me £1.00.

Even nicer!

I was waiting for two guys who I have been working with on a project with the Salvation Army to investigate the possibility of planting a fresh SA in the area. These two guys are fantastic to work with. Both work for the Salvation Army but are not Salvationists. They both have fantastic gifts in looking at problems at working hard to solve them.

Chris walked into the cafe to meet me.

I could see his brain having a thought download. Probably with something like, "What on earth is he doing in here!"

We met Olly outside the Tube Station main doors.

Then we headed up to an area we have been looking at called the Beavers Farm estate.

Beavers is a vast 60s housing project built to  relieve overcrowding in post war London.

It has it's problems.

I'm not actually going to plant this new venture if it goes ahead, I've just been invited on to the steering group to add some more experience to the already great team of people. My role in the investigation and research stage is to carry out spiritual reconnaissance in the area. In other words I spend time on the streets using my prophetic gifting to try to sense and see what God is sensing and seeing directly on the street. I look for signs of the enemies work such as witchcraft, drug abuse, sexual activity, things like that. Its easy for me to spot these things after years of prayer training and street prayer, and travelling teaching people how to do it. I love it, its a bit like being a crime scene investigator collecting evidence to convict a criminal. Exciting stuff. The purpose of this is to try to find out from God what he actually wants in an are. So many people plant stuff without spiritual reconnaissance and wonder why the venture does not flourish.

So what I do is do a series of street trawls then right a report with a prophets eye view of what God is saying so that others can test it and add it to the hard research that is also so essential.

So.

Yesterday.

With Chris and Olly we walked the streets of the Beavers in London and my job was to share what I feel God is saying. Olly works for research and Development at the SAs Headquarters and Chris is the Community Director of the Central South Division. We had a really fruitful time.

One of the many things God has showed me in my observations was that there were certain Spirits camped out in these streets. Things like isolation, resignation, bitterness, mistrust, anti authority, poverty, and quite a few others.

Yesterday as I walked and talked with Chris and Olly God was speaking to me directly about these spirits. I've already added to my prophetic report that God requires any attempt to plant a project in this area to be approached with the opposite to all these spirits, for instance, to come against the spirit of resignation we need to carry the spirit of hope, for isolation, friendship, etc etc.

Yesterday I really felt a jolt of God. I sensed just how important in our lives living out christian values that we take this opposite spirit stuff really seriously.

When people are gesticulating out of car windows at us because we have annoyed them with our driving, try saying bless you instead of retorting with our own gesticulations! Come on, you know what I mean! That kind of thing in every day life.

But.

More importantly.

Where there is no life bring life
Where there is no hope bring hope
Where this is poverty bring a giving spirit
Where there is hate bring love
Where there is bitterness bring sweetness
Where there is anger bring calmness
Where there is danger bring safety.

And.

I guarantee I could go on and on and on and on with this list.

Which!

Brings me to a little spiritual exercise for us today.

A little spiritual reconnaissance in the territory that makes up the inside of us.

Where could we make some adjustments in terms of coming in the opposite spirit?

The world desperately needs the Spirit of God which is opposed to all things evil;.

It has to be us with that opposing Spirit living within us, the Holy Spirit, that this wave of the opposite spirit starts with.

I am convinced this is world changing stuff.

Take a look look inside today.

I'm back!!

Guys

I've been resting from writing for a while.

But this blog post marks a return to the blog posts!

With a new approach.

Watch out for a new post every Thursday.

Without going to deep and two extensive which will probably bore the pants off you, I’ve been through a titanic struggle this last year! I’ve experienced all the side effects of the intensity of spiritual battle including depression, melancholy and listlessness! A nasty bunch of things!

So I've had intense prayer, counselling and treatment from the doctor.

I nearly resigned from officership!

I just wanted to get home to the greatest city in the world which is my home Liverpool!

I cancelled speaking engagements, stopped writing, and stopped communicating!

Life has been rubbish.

But.

Today?

I’m back!

Feeling sharp.

Grasping a new perspective.

And.

Recovering a ministry that felt like it was disappearing down the pan.

In the dark times.

Something mad happened.

Dawn and I went and got a puppy!

He is tiny and his name is Jake.

He’s literally helped me!

I’m not sure how theological a dog being sent by God is, but he has really helped me to get strong!

My counselor has helped me too!

I used to pour scorn on counselling thinking it doesn't really help as only Jesus has the answers.

But.

I will never deny the intensity of enablement that talking things through with a professional counselor has opened up my heart and mind to see where there is damage in my life.

It’s helped me to get my life out on the table and have a long look at it!

It didn't look all that nice at times.

I’ll not bore you with all of that!

Although it is pretty juicy!

Believe me!

That stuff would make for a pretty riveting read!

But.

For the sake of my reputation and dignity I’ll stick with the bottom line to give you a picture of where I've been hurt.

Basically?

I've lost myself.

I've tried to be anyone but the Gary I am meant to be.

Also.

I had some mental and spiritual damage as a child that made me pretty fearful.

But another part of me has grown up into an adult.

But the damaged child in me rears his head often. The outcome of which means he reacts out of fear.

But.

The responsible adult Gary has not been looking after the damaged child in me.

This is where Jake the puppy comes in!

I've really fell in love with him!

And in caring for him, walking him, cleaning up after him, sitting with him sleeping on my knee, playing with him, I've somehow learned to apply the same care to the damaged child within me.

And.

Something really clicked within my heart.

The responsible adult has got stronger!

I’m feeling alive again!

I feel like I’m rediscovering the true nature of Gary.

More than that.

I've rediscovered the true nature of God.

Who I understand truly loves me, even if others don’t. even if enemies rally against me.

Jesus loves me.

So I look forward to writing again!

I look forward to a new direction in life right now.

I look forward to being a part of God’s mission to this world.

So keep tuning in to my blog!

Thank you for all your prayers and kind words during this immensely difficult time.

You are amazing.

Gaz