as you are aware, i went to France last weekend to spend a couple days with my brother and his belle wife. it was a lovely couple days. an immense treat to be with them - being away from family makes being able to be with them all the more precious. especially as Jae and Marielle are moving to Mongolia in May.
good food, good friends, good wine, good walks, good weather - both M and i got a nice wee sunburn.
but one of the main things i notice when i'm away from northern ireland is how spiritually light i feel. some might argue that france isn't any better, but i don't get the heaviness in france.
several years ago, Andrew and I went to Scotland for the day and i was shocked at how the atmosphere changed when we got off the ferry and i couldn't figure out what the difference was. then i realised that there weren't any flags or painted kurb-stones.
being in france was already going to be good. last week was tough. it's hard to not compare it to other's and say i've nothing to worry about, but i was really stressed and the weekend away couldn't have come at a better time for me. to get there and feel like a spiritual weight was been taken away was a relief. it gave a bit of respite that was able to continue then when i returned. the heaviness doesn't just settle like a cloak when i return, but there is a definite difference.
it's like getting a glimpse of the clear sky through the clouds. perhaps applicable seeing as we get more clouds than blue here.
does anyone else get this from where they are or in NI? or is it a foreign thing?
6 comments:
Your opinion of Paris might have been different if you hadn't been middle-class and white... vive la difference -not! Everywhere has its problems, but when you go abroad they're not your problems, they're someone else's, or so it can seem.
lol. i wasn't talking about paris at all, it was the spiritual cloud over NI that was the topic. not problems in general.
I think the lifting of spiritual weight is called "being on holiday" Most people get it, no matter where they're from!!
would you mind ID-ing yourself?
eilís - I have felt that NI has been oppressed spiritually for years and very often can be felt in a tangible form to those who are open to the Holy Spirit.
Personally I believe it is connected to the 'wells' and God wanting those wells reopened.
The power and prayers of this land has mighty power and opposes the plans of the enemy. The enemy is doing everything he can to stop God's people rising up!
Recently, there has been many prophetic words over this tiny wee country and we WILL rise up and the enemy will not hold us any more.
We are children of the King and His name will be lifted.
This is just my opinion but I truly believe this is a time and season when we will see real miracles in places of oppression.
Hey Eilis-
The first time I visited Northern Ireland in 2003 I felt the heaviness as we drove down from the north coast and felt compelled to pray for folks there, I think it is very real and when I lived there I thought people sure went on a lot of holidays (ever notice how many people empty out around July 12th) until I went on holidays to anywhere, including Paris but even the Republic and Scotland (where the weather is similar, so you can't attribute it to that!) and I did notice a lightness that is tangibly different...I think there is a tension in NI it is very difficult to describe, and yet there is an underlying hope as well if you ask God to let you feel it you'll be surprised the many emotions that are wrapped up in N. Ireland on any given day, memory, sadness, opportunity, renewal, not unlike the many different kinds of light you see there that Dom was always talking about...
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