Christmas Reflections from Easterhouse to Everywhere God Has Sent Me

There are moments in life you only understand years later.

Back in 1998, sitting in the passenger seat of a Teen Challenge ministry van, I spotted a copy of The Daily Record in a South Wales petrol station. The front-page headline showed the face of a girl from my own world — another young life lost, one of several similar murders in Glasgow at the time.

I knew her. Not well, but well enough. She was part of the wider circle of addicts I’d run with in Easterhouse.
Seeing her picture there — another name swallowed by addiction’s violence — something in me broke open. The grief wasn’t distant. It had a postcode, a memory, a history we shared.

And suddenly, one truth landed with force:
I knew the Answer.
Not an answer — the Answer.

Jesus Christ — the hope we shared through music and testimony each weekend — was the only real antidote to the despair that had taken so many from my generation. I didn’t have theological language. I wasn’t imagining ministry or leadership or academic futures. I just knew that people were dying, and Christ had saved me.

That moment birthed a poem — ROLE.

Rough, urgent, unpolished.

But now I see it for what it was: a prayer in broken rhyme, written by a 28-year-old former addict whose world had been reduced to pain, loss, and a fragile belief that God might still use him.

Use me, O Lord, to help save their souls.
This, Father God, I ask for my role.

I didn’t know then how completely God would take me at my word.

What I Couldn’t See in 1998

Looking back from Christmas 2025, I can see the arc of an answered prayer — but in 1998, I saw none of it.

I wasn’t imagining: ministry leadership, community work, recovery pathways, policy engagement, a church plant, or international partnerships.

And I certainly wasn’t imagining education. I’d left school at 15. No exams. No qualifications.

No sense that my mind had any future at all.

And yet — after Christ rescued me at 27 and set me on a new foundation — He slowly rebuilt what heroin and hopelessness had stolen:

BA (Hons) MLitt and now, studying for a PhD at the University of Glasgow.

Grace didn’t just save my life. Grace resurrected my mind.

The Long Road of an Answered Prayer

When I prayed “Use me, Lord,” I imagined something modest: perhaps sharing my testimony, perhaps helping a lad into rehab.

But God had a larger rescue in mind — not only for me, but through me. He led me into places I never expected.

The Haven in Kilmacolm, where I spent my first night — a lifelong spiritual home from home. Teen Challenge UK men’s centre then in Wales, where discipleship and mission reshaped my life. Teen Challenge USA, especially Brooklyn, where David Wilkerson’s original heartbeat still shapes the streets. Dublin, which formed my pastoral instincts. Ballymena, which grew leadership and stability. Returning to Scotland in July 2009, which reset the compass. Easterhouse Community Church, beginning in 2011 — not because I felt capable, but because I said yes.

Beneath it all ran a second calling: God was teaching me to think again. To study. To write. To reflect theologically on lived experience. To speak into systems that often forget how to listen.

From a boy who left school at 15 to a man now pursuing doctoral research, the journey itself is a testimony that: Hope not only saves — it educates, expands and empowers.

And throughout it all — Tracy and the girls have walked beside me. Not behind. Beside. Hope Fulfilled — And Hope Still Needed

I’ve buried more friends than I ever wanted to.

Some funerals I led. Others I simply survived.

The ache remains — and I’ve come to see it as holy. The ache keeps the calling honest. It keeps it human.

It keeps it Christ-shaped.

The 1998 poem prayed,

“Help me rescue my friends.”

And God answered that prayer in ways I could not have imagined: through ECC, through Street Connect, through statutory and third-sector engagement, through recovery pathways and partnerships, through writing and theology, through shaping policy with lived-experience integrity, and now through the PhD, integrating story, Scripture and recovery into a voice for the church and community.

Hope has been fulfilled — but never finished.

Reading That Old Poem Again

When I read ROLE today, I don’t hear naivety. I hear longing. Clarity before vocabulary. Calling before framework.

A cry before a career.

Twenty-seven years later, I pray with deeper understanding:

Use me, Lord.

Use us, Lord.

Let hope abound where hope has been stolen.

A Prayer for CHRISTmas 2025

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13 (NKJV)

May the God who rescued me at 27, who gave me a heartcry at 28, who rebuilt my life across continents, communities and classrooms, who carried me through ministry, recovery work, policy spaces and academic halls —

fill you with a hope that overflows into others.

Hope that rescues.
Hope that rebuilds the mind.
Hope that changes communities.
Hope that Advent announces afresh, year after year.
Hope fuelled then.
Hope fulfilled now.
Hope still needed — and still given.

Blessings,
Stuart

If you enjoyed this post…

If you enjoyed reading this post, you might also appreciate some of the other pieces that explore hope, recovery, and the long road of faith. Have a look at:

• Real Recovery – A One-Page Brief
• Talking Points – What Churches Can Say About Recovery Policy
• The Braehead Ring – The Day I Nearly Saved the World
• Window Seat – Life Story (category page)