There have been several odd coincidences surrounding the founding of Angels All Around, and our settling in Alpharetta, GA, which makes us know that we are being directed by our Angels.
It all began with a “message” dream that my wife Maggie had. In her dream she was told that she needed to bring the story of Angelic guidance to people. It was so vivid that she woke me up from a sound sleep to tell me about it. She was very excited, and she doesn’t get very excited about much in the dead of night. Maggie told me how she was told to start spreading the word that “Angels Are All Around”, guiding us in the path that God has chosen for us. Her interpretation of how to do that initially was by providing Angel motif products. She said she was even given the name “Angels All Around™.” Maggie told me how she had asked “Angels All Around Us?” and was told 3 times that, no, Angels All Around™ says it all. So I secured the AngelsAllAround.com name the next morning and Maggie filed the incorporation papers that afternoon. We initially planned a web-based business in order to reach the largest number of people.
Now, how to find the products that we would like to sell. We wanted unique things, not what you would find in just any department store, but different, and of high quality and reasonably priced. Neither of us had any idea how to locate wholesale companies. Maggie did a search of the web for retailers selling products that we liked and came up with a couple names. She contacted each of them only to hit brick walls. None of them wanted to give us their resources because they didn’t want the competition, even though we were going to be web-based. One did offer to sell us his contacts for $50,000.00. Nice guy huh?! Finally though she happened upon 2 special people who she call “her Angels”. These women opened up to her, giving us company names and phone numbers. Without these 2 wonderful people we would probably still be struggling, product less!
Since both of us held full time jobs, working 12-14 hour days, it became immediately apparent that there weren’t enough hours in the day to ever put together a web store. So her Angel helped me find the time. I was laid off unexpectedly from an IT job that I loved! Now I had all the time I needed!! I spent many longgggg days and nights scanning pictures, writing code, building WebPages, and creating a shopping cart, all to sell our products.
During this time we also began looking for a storefront, as we had no idea how many different products we would find that met our standards and that we would like to sell. So we found a shoppe in a strip mall that held great potential. We were very excited. It was decided that I wouldn’t look for work back in the corporate sector. I would now be in charge of developing and managing the website and managing the store once we opened. The web page finally came together and we were busily negotiating for the storefront. I finished the page; we were about to take the store contract to our lawyer to look over when the second major event happened. This is really what caused us to look back at past events to see that there was a pattern of Angelic intervention developing.
On Tuesday the realtor that we had been dealing with called and very apologetically told us that his boss had given our store to a shop, already in the strip mall, who wanted to expand. Needless to say we were heartbroken! We had also been planning a cruise with her sister Kathy and her husband John, who cruise often, for the second week in December. The same week as the store fiasco Kathy called and said’ “I don’t know why but I don’t feel right about this cruise.” So, okay we wouldn’t go. Disappointment number 2. Friday I took my daughter Carrie away for the weekend for a “father-daughter” outing and was basically out of contact because we were staying at my Grandfather’s old house, which had no phone. I did have a cell phone however. Sunday Maggie called me on my cell phone and passed a message that an old friend was trying to contact me. When I found out who it was I was very surprised, because I hadn’t spoken to this person in 5-6 years. We had worked together in a previous life, before Keith was laid off and went to work for his brother, who owns a headhunting company based in Chicago. I called Keith and he told me that he had a surprise for me. “Have I got a job for you! It’s a consulting job and the pay is great. But it’s in Atlanta. Send me your resume within the hour. Can you be there tomorrow?” (I later found that Keith had contacted several people trying to find our phone number.) Needless to say I was shocked! Here I was, not looking for work, planning to run a store that we now did not have, and a job falls in my lap. But…in Atlanta??? Well we knew the IT market was virtually non-existent in Orlando so what did I have to lose? I sent my resume to him, which he knew would impress the hiring manager at this new company.
The interview went very well and I was hired, starting December 8th. Actually all it took was two 15 minute phone interviews to sell them on me! Just days later we would have left on the cruise. So now think about it. Had we signed the lease, had we bought tickets for the cruise, how would he have been able to accept what has become a very enjoyable job (which is now full time as the company has hired me)??? Had to be divine intervention don’t you think? So now that’s 2 more instances where, because we weren’t doing what we were supposed to, that we were helped. We are up to 4 divine events.
So now we are living in Alpharetta, GA. We did feel that Georgia felt much more spiritual than Orlando for some reason. Our web business went on just as if we were in Orlando. So now we were looking for a store to rent in the Alpharetta/Atlanta area. We’d spent some time looking at strip malls, which were far too expensive for us to even consider. Our daughter is involved in High School football every day after school. No, not as a player. She assists by bandaging minor injuries and giving the players water. It’s called a “Trainager”. She normally finished about 7pm each night and we pick her up. One day, just as we left the school Rich was paged. We pulled into a small parking lot nearby. As he answered the page Maggie looked out her window to see that we had parked right in front of a “For Lease” sign in a building that we’d passed every day for 2 months! Go figure! The sign hadn’t been there the day before. So She called the landlord the next day and…a store front that we could afford!!! We signed a 2 year lease the next day. We plan to open on December 2nd. That was Angelic intervention number 5. So go ahead and tell us we aren’t where we are meant to be, doing what we are meant to be doing. We’re sure there will be other events in the future.
Several things in our life have caused us to close our little shoppe in Alpharetta and move back to Orlando but we still maintain the "Angel It Forward" program because it's had such a positive effect on so many people in so many countries. That's one thing that will live on forever...long after we are gone.
Several things in our life have changed over the past few years, and we are on a slightly different life path, but...