 hope today, vibration happening because God is good. His joy is ever-present for a whole stories. And you know what? You have a story too. And it's amazing to see how God works in every detail of the seasons of our lives. So I'm Anna. I'm here with Angela and with Sydney. And today, Angela, it gets to be all about how God is working through you. Oh, I am so excited to share a little bit of my God story today. And I don't think it's by happenstance that today is the first day of the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah. And it's declaring a new season. And I feel like my story, as you listen, you're going to get to hear a little bit of the new season the Lord's brought me into and what I believe he has for you. We are super excited. So you are rounding out all the host stories. And we are just super excited that you've just joined us and heard our stories. And speaking of Rosh Hashanah, as Angela mentioned, it is super exciting at sundown. It is five, seven, eight, four. And you know, a lot of people, if you've been following with the Jewish calendar, five, seven, eight, four is the declaration is the year of the open door. Let that settle in. Let that sink into your spirit and just know that in this new year, we get to celebrate the New Year twice, y'all. But this is God's New Year. So just take a time to just celebrate what God is going to do, the doors that He's going to open in your life and just be really mindful just to declare and decree the things that the promises that He spoke and the word of the Lord over your life. I'm just so excited. I have such an excitement, Anna, in my spirit about this because I truly believe that we are crossing over, that we are stepping into a new place and God is about to do the impossible things we never thought he could do before. Yeah, he is the God of the impossible for sure. And you know, there are seasons where we are just called into long suffering and waiting to see the fulfillment, the open doors of God. And we are just praying, we are believing that this year will be the year where you see how God is opening something new for you to step into. He is so faithful. He's so faithful. Rasha, Shauna, a new year. I think a lot of times we wait for our calendar new year and we're like, then the things will get better. Then I'll begin to make new vows or commitments. But today, I think it's just an invitation to you that today could be the beginning of a new life for you. Maybe you haven't even given your life to Jesus yet. Today, make that your commitment, make that your newness. God's got so many good things for us, guys. And I feel like when I hear Rasha, Shauna, I think the open door. What what is it that the Lord has prepared before us? You know, it's really excited. It is. Yeah. And before we're going to get into Angela's story, but we want to just remind you that this coming Monday at 8 p.m. All of our hosts was many as can be here. We're going to be on live for just a wonderful time of worship, celebration and prayer. So make sure you tune in 8 p.m. on Monday. Without further ado, Miss Angela, tell us your story. Oh, I am so excited and so honored to get to share a little bit of my story for you. Listen, I'm going to try to take you to the beginning to where we are now. So we're just going to hit some highlights here and share with you. So I was born here raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by two loving parents. I am the youngest of three siblings, so I have two older brothers. And here as the only girl, you can imagine what it was like growing up as the baby. Okay, I was raised in a Christian home. At the age of four years old, I experienced an undeniable miracle with a healing on my right hand. And at 12, I made the commitment to give my life to Jesus. But at 17 years old, I was invited by a dear friend of mine, Aaron Miller, to go to the Brownsville revival. And it was there that I came face to face with the power of an almighty God. I was slain in the spirit by God, which for it seemed to be an hour or so. I don't know where I was caught up with Jesus, but I knew I was with him. And in that moment, all I kept saying was, I surrender to you, Jesus. I surrender all. I give you everything. And that moment of surrender became a theme in my life and quite honestly is something that I will always live by. Surrender, I believe, is the key that unlocks everything. It is the key that unlocks a new level of intimacy with Jesus. And so at 17 years old, I became not just a Christian. Jesus wasn't just a part of my life, but he became life itself. And as I began a process, I was feeling led to missions. And I was processing, God, what do you want me to do? I felt like I would go honestly and do medical missions on the foreign field somewhere. And so I said, God, where do you want me to go to pursue this? As I prayed and sought the Lord, he gave me an open vision. It was the first time I'd ever had an open vision. And he showed me Boston College's campus. And after this vision, he declared to me, you're called to Boston College to be a missionary there. And so I followed his voice and I went to Boston College. I was on the premed track with a biology major. And my sophomore year came and during that sophomore year, I felt another level and layer of surrender. I felt I was to lay down this premed track, this biology major and pursue him and pursue theology and communications. So I double majored in theology and communications and graduated from there with both bachelor's degrees. But my junior year in college came a very life defining moment. As a junior at Boston College, I knew I was called to be a missionary there. And part of that vision was for me to be able to pray daily for the campus. And I was connected with a beautiful Christian fellowship there. So every day we would gather and pray together. But I felt very alone. I felt like nobody understood what I was carrying or what I saw for this campus or this city. And so I felt by myself, then the pastor left who is assigned there. And again, another level of loneliness. So here I am my junior year in my dorm room. And I'm just crying out to the Lord. And I'm like, God, I just I know you're here with me. But I knew you with skin on, you know, I need you with skin. I need a mentor with me. And I heard his voice and he said, am I not enough? I said, Oh, well, sure, Lord, of course, you're not. Of course you're not. But but if I could just get someone with skin on that I could talk face to face and get some wisdom and no, I'm not alone here. You know, humanity. And again, I heard his voice come this time sterner, but still full of love. And he said, am I not enough? And with tears running down my face and weeping in my spirit, I said, Father, of course, you are more than enough. If you are not enough, if the creator of the heavens and of the earth that the one who knows the innermost workings of my being is not enough, no one ever will be. So as a junior in college, I realized he was the soul satisfier of my every being. He was the answer to every problem I had. And I surrendered this idea of a mentor to get all of him because he's all I needed. Once I graduated from Boston College, I went to Florida for that summer to internship actually with WHBR down in Brownsville. And while I was there, I was processing God, what am I supposed to do next? I had been given this beautiful opportunity to return to Boston College. While I was at Boston College, I was working on my master's degree in theology while finishing simultaneously the bachelor's degree. And so I'd offered this opportunity to be a peer minister. And what this peer minister position meant, they would pay for the rest of my education, just three classes. That's all. Just had to finish three, have three classes to finish. They would give me a place to live on campus. They would pay for my food and give me a stipend to be a minister to those students who were on campus. As I was processing this in Florida, I kept feeling like this gnawing in me like something wasn't settled. And I couldn't figure it out because this is a beautiful opportunity. Why would you pass up this open door? But as I sat in it, and I was speaking with my mom one day, the voice of the Lord came through her as it often does. And she said, you don't need your master's to serve the master. And when she spoke that, I heard the voice of the Lord and like a scroll, just this unraveling. And I knew that he was asking me to surrender this opportunity to lay down this pursuit of a master's. I didn't know what I was going to do. But I knew what he was asking me to do in that moment. And so I stayed in Florida. And I began to internship with the youth ministry at Brownsville Assembly, where the revival had been taking place and under passers Holly and Michael Rowan. And while I was there, Pastor Holly had her first major speaking engagement, and she invited me to come alongside of her to be her assistant to it. So I went the keynote speaker on that Friday night was Pastor Darlene Bishop. And when she got done ministering, she had an offering like we often have in our church services. And in this moment, it was the first time I have ever heard the Lord speak to me a specific amount. Now I give in every offering, but this was a very specific amount. And he spoke to give $115. Okay, now y'all, you might be saying now that ain't a lot of money. I get it. Okay, but what you don't realize is shortly after I laid down that master's and made the decision. Okay, God, I'm going to follow you to Florida. Hurricane Ivan hits if you all remember that hit Pensacola, Florida and took away my job, which meant it took away my pay. So I had FEMA assistance, but at the time of this ask, my FEMA assistance had been red flag. So I'm sitting here with a word of giving $115. And I don't even know if I've got that in my bank account. I didn't want to embarrass myself if that checked it and clear and I certainly didn't want to embarrass the pastor I was with. So I have this internal struggle going on. But before I leave out the door where the last one's out, and I see a gentleman holding the door and I say, Are you with the conference? I give that check. That very night, I ended up meeting face to face Pastor Darlene Bishop and was offered an opportunity for us to come and spend time with her on her ranch, which I would later do. Not only that, but that same weekend, I was gifted $2,500 worth of brand new clothing. I share that because it's not about the gift. It was about the obedience. It's not about $115. It's about obeying that still small voice. And when I gave that, it opened me up to the greatest blessing of my life, a relationship with pastors, Darlene and Lawrence Bishop. As the story would unfold, they hired me to be their assistant. So I got to help them run their brand new sisters program, which was on BET Daystar and the church channel Word Network. I got to help with the behind the scenes of that and help with their sisters partners that went along with that television program. I traveled the world over with her as her assistant and helped with the church ministry and Pastor Lawrence's horse business. Yet a sitting girl got into horses. Okay, it was a whole story there. But as God word to have it, I got to not only live with them, but I traveled with them. And every part of who they are, every part of what God had done in them was imparted into me. It was an invaluable exchange. I think about that young girl, not sure of $115, surrendering that. And perhaps if I hadn't surrendered that God would have still done what he did, you know. But I know with certainty in that surrender, and the little surrenders in between that it opened before me a relationship that forever changed my life and made me into who I am today. While I was in Ohio serving with that ministry, I met my wonderful husband, Nate. That's a picture of him on the screen with our gorgeous daughters. Nate and I led the youth ministry there in Ohio, and yet came another moment after we got married. Look at those babies. Look at them. They're now 10 and seven. My little Zoe and Mia. They are gorgeous little girls and such gifts to my life. And so Nate and I, before we had those babies, we were leading the youth ministry at Solid Rock Church under Pastor Lawrence and Darlene and the Lord asked yet another surrender. My husband was offered an opportunity to work here in Pittsburgh. That meant everything that I was doing, I needed to lay down. I sought the Lord's face and he showed me very clearly that I was to lay that on the altar and move home. I moved home not knowing what I was going to do. You know, here I was doing ministry all of my life, all of these years thinking, okay, well, be home in Pittsburgh, you know, twiddling my thumbs. But we come home and we get busy with serving our local church at Life Church. And then shortly after, helped to plant a church called Hill City Church with two other families, us, the Blairs and the Falks. During this time, we had our beautiful babies that you just got to see a picture of. And so we got busy with raising them and serving in the church. Not too long ago, this ministry that the Lord had birthed in me long ago and that I'd been trying to function in every season of my life, I felt him come very clearly. We've talked about how we're celebrating Rosh Hashanah and that it's the year of the open door. And the Lord literally showed me this open door and knew that he was asking me to walk into that which was very personal for my life. And so though I still help at Hill City, I laid down that position and stepped into what he had. I'd been working on a book for over 15 years, y'all. That's a long time. It was sitting on my desktop, okay, for 15 years. It's called I Am. I finished that book. There's a picture of me with it. I finished that book. We wrote a curriculum that goes along with it. It's a training, a healing course that churches and organizations and businesses go through to help with their church culture to help with individual healing. And individuals also go on that journey of the I Am experience. With it, we've established a ministry team called the Am Ministries. And one of the partners of this ministry is Lindsay Garvin, part of that team. As this team, as we developed, we knew that we were called to do conferences. And the whole purpose of the conference was to create a space for people to experience and encounter his presence, letting him be the primary focus, no program the focus, nothing but Jesus. We wanted to create space for people to experience what I was so blessed and honored to experience a face to face with the power of an Almighty God. And so as we did this, my dear friend, sister and ministry partner, Lindsay Garvin, and her dear friend, Rebecca Sharp said, Ant, this ministry we are doing, it is powerful. This region needs to know about it. You have got to partner with CTV. You've got to get on there. They've got to know about this conference and get involved. And so they introduced me to their sweet, wonderful friend, Sydney. And Sydney was so sweet to oblige and we got to know each other and I shared a little bit of the conference. And she said, I feel the Lord on this. And I think this is a space. Let's share this on CTV. And so a beautiful relationship started. And I partnered and shared each year about the conference. And when my book was released in the curriculum, and I would come back. Well, here we are just one year ago in October, I got to actually come into the studio and talk about the conference. It was beautiful. Now listen, back in up years prior, when I was on the road with Pastor Darlene, I got to be in the studio before with her during her speaking engagements and her interviews. And here I was now in the CTV room and studio getting to share a little bit of my story. During that time, when we wrapped up, one of the producers here, David said to me, and I see a gift on your life. Oh, I am so sorry. And I feel like this could be a great place for you. Would you be interested? And I was like, would I be interested? I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, that might work, you know, but meanwhile, on the inside, I'm leaping and jumping and I'm thinking, David, you have no idea the prophetic words I've received, the visions and the dreams I've had. You have no idea what God did in me and through me. When I changed my major to theology and communications, I knew it wasn't just to communicate with God, though, that would be sufficient. I knew it was to communicate about God with him. So I share my story and I am so honored and privileged to see all of it collide that brings me here to cornerstone television today. My journey has been that of just his grace and a whole lot of surrender. But what I want to tell you today is that surrender is not this depravity thing. Surrender is not like to this sadistic God, like, give me something so maybe one day you can make it to heaven. No. Surrender is a beautiful posture of heart that says, Jesus, I want to give you whatever you give me. I want to lay it down because I want no other idol before you. I want you to take it so that you are all I seek. Lord, I want more of you. If maybe today you're watching and even hearing my story, you're saying, I want the new season. You're talking about Rosh Hashanah. I want to step into the calling God has for me, but I don't know how I don't know what that looks like. I want to encourage you. I want to invite you to talk to Holy Spirit, my very best friend. He is your constant companion, the spirit of truth and ask him, ask the Holy Father, ask Jesus, your advocate, your companion, ask him, what would you have for my life? What are the dreams you dream for me? And maybe today he's even asking you to surrender your thoughts of what you thought your life should look like. Maybe today he's asking you to lay down your dreams. I can assure you for every surrender you give to Jesus, he gives you more than you could imagine. He takes you from glory to glory and his plans are always exceedingly above that which you could have thought of or asked for. My journey of surrender has been beautiful and I know it'll be continual surrender from here on out. You know? I love this brochure from Ephesians. It says God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than all we could think or imagine, but you hit it right on the spot with that. That when we do surrender, we get to experience all that God has for us. You know, Andalus, you were just sharing the one thing that hit my spirit is like from the beginning when you were in Boston College. And that moment God said, am I enough? And how out of that has birthed this beautiful journey of just knowing that I am of God, that I am your deliverer. I am your rescuer. I am your healer. You experience the I am and now that that's been birthed in you. When you were a young girl at 18, 19, 20 years ago, all the way in Boston, how he took you to Florida, even in the midst of storm. Now you're here in Pittsburgh and God has a great deposit that he's using you. And it's just such a beautiful thing. We're so grateful that you are here. We're thankful for your ministry. We're thankful for your story and all the things that you've had to lay down in order to come to this place. You know, I was actually like started reading this book by Miles Monroe and talking about leadership. And one thing that he said, and when you were sharing your story reminded me of this is that he was just saying that, you know, there's a lot of people who are leaders, but there's not a lot of those that are in leadership. And he said, everybody has a spot that God has specifically for them. We don't have to compete. We just have to know our identity in Christ. Know who we are. And he opens up those doors. You don't have to force them open. You know, you heard Angela's story and many of our other stories. God didn't force the door open. It just it came open. We didn't have to bang on the doors. He made it happen. But one thing you were talking about that that surrendering, it's like that cup. We all have to take this cup. You can't get to these positions without laying your life down. Think about Jesus. He had a cup that he had a drink from a cup of suffering. It's the same with us. That there's times in our lives where God will literally say, I need you to lay this down. And it is hard. You heard with Angela's story, she had barely any money in the bank and said, here's $115. But then what God did on the other side, and we just want to encourage you today that maybe you are at this point and this is a perfect day. It's like to lay it all down, to surrender it all to Jesus. And you may not know what it looks like on the other side. But can we tell you it is glorious? It is beautiful and God loves to surprise us. You know, speaking of surrendering and speaking of our callings and our missions of our destiny where God's calling us to be. We have been on this 21 day of prayer journey. And today we are on day 18 and it's so apropos because today it is all about the willingness to accept heavenly assignments and our scripture for today is Philippians 2 14 through 16 and it says this, do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like the stars in the sky as you hold as you hold firmly to the word of life. Anna, what does this mean to speak to you? Okay, well, I'm going to talk about this scripture, but then I want to talk about another scripture from Philippians 2 that came to me while I was listening to you speak. But this scripture is so beautiful because listen, as children of God, we get to shine in this universe. There is so much darkness, so much fear and anxiety and sin and shame and doubt and as children of God who have experienced the love of Christ, who has experienced the healing of Christ, that when we face hard things where we are tempted to grumble, to argue, to complain that God tells us to look up child, child of God, look back up to him because he is the God over the storm and we can trust him and we can still just move forward and step out and shine like the stars in the universe. And that scripture definitely is ministering to me this week. And the other scripture from Philippians, and I don't have it in front of me, so maybe you can help me with this, but there's Paul wrote Philippians and he's such a good example of somebody who was taken hold of by God. So he was persecuting Christians and then Jesus met him in a supernatural way as he was walking along the road and he had to lay everything down and step into what Jesus had taken hold of him for that also came with immense suffering and beatings and hardship and trials. And Paul says in Philippians, and again help me remember this verse, but he says that he will take hold of everything that Christ has taken hold of him for and that message is that Christ has taken hold of you for something. You have purpose because Christ created you with purpose and so this is the story that you have been hearing today is to surrender everything that you are trying to control and hold onto and grab hold of what Jesus has taken hold of you because that is where we will see exceedingly abundantly more than all we can imagine. It's true, you know surrender isn't an act to try to attain what Christ already obtained for you. Surrender is a response to his great love for you. It is a Jesus I want nothing but you. You are the one thing that is needed and so whatever is in my hands it's yours for the taking. God has an amazing journey for all of us and if we're just willing to surrender to him he'll truly take you from glory to glory. This is the word of the day just surrender. Surrender all to our precious Savior and we're telling you there's nothing like it and we just want to remind you be sure to set your reminder set a little reminder on your TV on your phone to tune in on Monday at 8 p.m. we're going to have a very special time of worship we're going to pray we're going to have a live studio audience here so we definitely want you to be part of it to have an experience where we are just literally going to seek the king of kings the Lord of lords and come together and pray well we are so glad that you joined us today and we just pray and we know that your story is still being written and know that there's a new chapter you're stepping into something new and we declare and decree on the Rosh Hashanah 5784 this is the year of the open door get ready for what God is about to do in you and through you and for you we love you have a wonderful weekend