Lucky you coles
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic
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SubscribeFollowing her first, and hugely popular, guest blog post on Gransnet, Hattie Edmonds is back with more otherworldly experiences, angelic or otherwise. Add yours to the thread below.
If angels are real, what else have we got wrong?
Posted on: Wed 01-Apr-15 19:10:08
(122 comments )
'Angels? Reality or a load of old tosh?' was the original title for the Gransnet blog post about the possible existence of angels, and when I wrote it, I didn't expect for a millisecond that it would get such a massive response. The thread has been running for over five months now and still the extraordinary stories are winging their way in.
So, recently I sent an email around my friends to see if they'd had any similarly inexplicable experiences. Within forty eight hours my inbox was jammed, but for obvious reasons of space I've had to select just two from the dozens of replies.
First is Sophie, who was incredibly close to her mother and was finding it very difficult to cope after her death. When some friends invited her and her family for a week's holiday in a place called Silver Island in Northwest Canada, she was unsure of whether to go so soon after the funeral, but eventually she accepted.
One morning, she woke feeling particularly sad and set out to row across the lake to Silver Island. On the way there, she was suddenly filled with a sense of peace, feeling that her mother was "somehow very close". Arriving back at the house and still feeling that her mother was very much with her, she went into the kitchen and there on the breakfast table was a copy of the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. She picked it up and it fell open at a photo of her mother along with a full-page obituary.
To this day, Sophie has no idea why an obituary of her mother, Simone Mirman, should appear in the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. Granted, she had been a very talented milliner who had lived in France and once made hats for the royal family, but was that enough to merit an entire page along with a photo?
But if we dare for a moment to believe that angels really do exist, what else about life - and death - might we need to rethink?
"I’m a very rational person," said Sophie, "but I know it was a message from my mother… her way of saying goodbye."
And then there's Diana, a mate from my yoga class, who described an incident from seven years ago, when she was driving with her then-husband along the motorway at night. He’d had a bit to drink and had asked her to stop so he could have a pee. She told him it was too dangerous, but he insisted so she eventually gave in and pulled over onto the hard shoulder, whereupon he jumped out of the car, weaving across the motorway towards the other side.
Diane raced after him and was halfway there, still in the middle of the second motorway lane when she saw a pair of lorry headlights hurtling straight towards her. It was then that she blacked out. When she 'woke up', she was standing in her garden back in London. Family and friends were gathered both outside the house and inside, although nobody was saying hello to her. So she pushed her way into the house, to the sitting room, in the centre of which was a coffin. She walked over and peered inside.
Staring down at the body laid out, she saw it was the exact double of her. At this point, the eyes of the 'other' Diane snapped open and she saw the whole story of her life playing out in front of her, like a film. She felt herself being born (a very visceral experience, apparently), saw herself as a child walking to school with her best friend, as a teenager, then as a twenty-something in her first job, right up the present day. When the film ended, she heard herself say "I am going to be thirty six in ten days time, what have I got to show for my years?"
Then suddenly, the 'real' Diane was awake again and standing on the motorway. But this time she wasn't in the middle anymore. "It was as if someone had physically moved me seven or eight meters, back onto the hard shoulder. Yet the lorry’s headlights were in exactly same position as they had been before. Seconds later it thundered by, missing me by meters.
"I still can’t work out how I could have moved that distance in what could only have been a split second," she says, "all I know is that the experience made me completely change my life."
Several years ago, I would have thought such stories were simply the result of over-active imaginations. But now, at the magical age of 51, I’ve started to feel differently. With the anecdotal evidence growing, it’s not quite so easy to brush aside anymore. But if we dare for a moment to believe that angels really do exist, what else about life - and death - might we need to rethink?
Hattie Edmonds' first novel Cinema Lumiere is out now and available from Amazon.
By Hattie Edmonds
Twitter: @HattieHEdmonds
Lucky you coles
I have had a deja vu twice and had true dreams. I wouldn't have thought it possible until I had these experiences myself.
My father and my 4 month old son died the same day, I believe my father died to take care of my little son.
ruthie 150 I am sorry for your loss and hope that thought brings you much comfort
worzi I am afraid déjà vu and " true" dreams hardly count as paranormal experiences. The former are very common, and how many times have you had dreams which did not come true?
Hi Nellie, rosesarered, elegran and all you others who doubt the existence of angels - you are calling God and Jesus liars!
Satan loves you for doing it - he has won your souls!
Or if Angels are wrong, what else have we got right?
With all due respect, Rosewhite, tosh.
I agree entirely, Grannyknot :-)
Too many people have died in the name of religion. Who's making up stories, feetlebaum?
It's a belief, Alea, not a thought. It could be a coincidence but I don't believe in coincidence, I believe everything happens for a reason.
Oh dear, kindly meant Ruthie
But out of interest
I think this is true
I believe this is true
I know this is true
To me, the third version is where there is a change. But let's not argue about semantics.
I find that difficult to accept Ruthie on today of all days.
Without due respect Rosewhite...... Tosh!
Rosesarered. Completely agree. What a weird post from Rosewhite
all of you who claim angels don't exist are really following Satan in calling God a liar.
How many times did angels appear with Jesus and the Old Testament people?
Claim angels are tosh and you say Jesus is tosh! Good luck when He returns in a few years - after the present pope either is murdered or abdicates to allow The Antichrist to step forward and praise all you who help him claiming God and Jesus does not exist.
God slaughtered many thousands of Israelites who chose to worship Baal apart from all the non-Israelites who also worshipped Baal.
Then God wiped out probably hundreds of millions - perhaps even billions when He brought The Flood.
Get out your copies of Bedknobs and Broomsticks or look at it on Youtube for the scene in the library and ask yourself why 'that nice Mr Disney' put a statue of Baal with special lighting in the scene and why he had scenes of children chanting to Ashtorath.
We need Jesus to return quickly to slaughter billions more ot make Earth nice again.
Quote from Hattie Edmonds: But if we dare for a moment to believe that angels really do exist, what else about life - and death - might we need to rethink?
You need to rethink why you believe you are evolved from monkeys-fish-pondslime and realise you are God's ultimate Creation Can you think that thought?
Are you about 12 years old Rosewhite?
I have just spotted the date of this blog-1April 2015.
Are we continuing to be April Fools?
rosewhite Nobody believes that humans are evolved from monkeys, just that apes and humans share a common ancestor. That is quite different. If you're going to argue, it's always a good idea to get your facts right.
Alea April fools indeed. Just look at the heading. Of course we have all sorts of things wrong (and all sorts of things right) regardless of the existence of angels or archangels, cherubim, seraphim and all the hierarchy of heaven.
It is an interesting paradox that a poster who claims to be speaking for a religion of love has so much hatred and gleeful invective. If I believed rosewhite really meant it, I would reply that a God with so much power would have plenty to use it on without concerning him/herself about whether an individual interpreted co-incidences as divinely inspired.
But as I don't think this is a genuine serious post, I won't bother.
Are you enjoying this rosewhite?
There are a lot of skeptics out there I see. To be honest, only when you have personally experienced something akin to what others on here have been saying, will you perhaps begin to accept that life is not all black and white.
I have, over the years, come to accept that there are angels out there who are willing to help us in many unusual ways.
I think there are a lot of good people out there and sometimes when you really could do with some help, one of those good people come along, maybe for a moment and really alter the way you are handling a situation. So I hope that at times I have been that person to someone, because I know a few instances when I was helped. Don't know whether that makes sense to you, but that is how I think and keep an open heart.
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