Enya - New Age or Christian Music?

How would you classify Enya's music New Age or Christian? Most people in the music industry would classify her music as New Age. Enya herself says that this is because most people don't understand her background and therefore do not understand what it is that inspires her music. She was born and still lives in Ireland, she was raised Catholic and has spent a large part of her life in the Catholic church. She says that she often would be the only person in her church and says it was quite therapeutic to be alone and pray. She goes on to say that instead of abandoning Catholicism which was not working for her, she had to find a way to make it work for her. This she explains is how she makes Catholicism work for her "I consider myself to be a spiritual person, not necessarily a religious one, although I have to say that one of the highlights of my career was when I performed at the Vatican for the Pope and had an audience with him. My core beliefs would revolve around the idea that we should live to the best of our abilities -- we should live and let live."

I have never met Enya and much of the above information was taken from www.Wikipedia.com. So obviously, I cannot say if her music is Christian but I would say that to me it is more New Age. What I can say, and this is the reason I am writing about Enya in the first place, is that God has used Enya to work in the life of one of my children. My wife and I have been talking about the possibility that God may be calling us to full time service with a certain mission agency (more about this once it is more concrete) and we have been including our children in the discussions. One of them from the first mention of this has told us that she will not talk about it and that she will not go with us if we go. She has been adamant that we are not to talk about it in her presence. I was amazed at the anger that showed in her face anger that was obviously coming from her heart. She was not just upset, she would get angry and would not talk to me. I was worried about this as this not healthy behavior and I didn't know what to say to her. So I turned her and her concerns over to God and let Him know that I couldn't change her heart and that He would have to do it. I tried not to talk about the trip in front of her from that point on.  This proved to be next to impossible and sure enough she would get angry with me every time I spoke about it in her presence.

Tonight however I was sitting here in my La-Z-Boy (my favorite place to sit of an evening) when she came in the living room crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she misses Africa. I asked her what made her think of Africa and she said she was listening to her iPod when Storms of Africa by Enya was playing and she just started missing everything about Africa. I told her that maybe God was trying to show her that she should have a different attitude about what He is doing in our lives right now. She agreed and said that she had already thought about that. We had a really great talk and I told her that God could choose to send us back to Africa but that where ever we end up that it will be the best place for our family.

God used Enya (New Age Music) to soften her heart, proof that He can use anything in our lives to bring us closer to Him.

Please pray for our family as we have been on a roller coaster ride for the past 18 months. God is opening doors and we are stepping through them one at a time. It has not always been easy as every door we step through seems to come with a new trial. Please pray that we don't look for ways around the trials but allow God to teach us what ever lesson He wants us to learn through these trials.

Photoman