This is My Story

My name is Angela Forbes and I live just outside of Ashburn, Va. I suppose I can say that for most of my life I have been a seeker of “Truth”. Truth about God, about life, about health and wealth and everything in between.

I grew up in a small town in Maryland and, like many, started going to church at a young age. I didn’t question anything, I simply believed, like many, everything that I was told.

Then, around 10 years old on a Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in a pew at my church after choir rehearsal looking up at a beautiful stained-glass window and decided to use that time to talk to God while my mother finishing up whatever she was doing. I remember telling God “You are mean and I am mad at you.  Of all the ways you could have saved me, You let Jesus be tortured to death. Why? And if you are responsible for all good things and the devil is responsible for all bad things, what do you need me for?”

The more I thought about it, the madder I got! I told God “I don’t want to play this game and be a puppet to you and the devil.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, I just knew that I wasn’t doing it!

All of a sudden, I heard “THAT IS NOT WHO I AM.” Followed by an overwhelming feeling of love that filled my entire body. Similar, I imagine, to how people who have had near death experiences describe the feeling of The Light.

I remember thinking, “Oh..okay God, I am misunderstanding what I am being told,” and from that moment on I really starting to pay close attention to what my pastor and other elders in the church said.  Something changed, somehow I knew when Scriptures were being misinterpreted. I don’t how I knew, but I did.

I remembered a sermon about Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected. I remember this day as if it happened yesterday.  Again somehow, I knew that a part of me must die too. Not a physical death but an internal part of myself must be put to death, too.

It was so empowering, but crippling at the same time because no one could tell me what part of me had to die. Growing more and more frustrated over the years with the conflicts in what God was telling me and the Church, I eventually cut off the communications with God and only believed in the wisdom of men (and women).

I was taught to believe in God not believe God and so God was back up in Heaven sitting on a white cloud playing tug of war with the devil again.

Fast forward, I blocked the memories from my childhood and pretended that they didn’t happen. I got married, quit my job and moved to Canada for 2 years then to Western Australia. Overnight, I gave up everything that was familiar to me family, friends and had no distractions. I was all alone (so I thought). It was in WA when I surrendered and asked the Holy Spirit to guide me. I had to. I was slowly dying inside but it wasn’t the empowering death that I understood as a little girl. I was feeling empty, unfulfilled and barely existing. What I thought was the worst time of my life turned out to be just what I needed. You see, God loves us so much that He will orchestrate divine order in our lives to get our attention. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Him.

Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us. I have spent the last decade of my life seeking the Truths of my early years. Mostly about who or what God is, why we get sick and who is responsible for our health.