met Anthony when I was working on my book Visits from Heaven, which contains evidential afterlife communication accounts from around the globe. I wanted to write a book that would help people understand that they will see their loved ones again, and a mutual friend, the late Natalie Smith-Blakeslee, suggested that I contact Anthony. We became fast friends.
Sometimes people are put in our path for a reason, and I know Anthony is one such person. As I said earlier, he is an incredibly gifted psychic medium. He has brought through many of my deceased relatives and friends with undeniable validations. Time and time again, I continue to be awestruck by the ease with which he connects to the Other Side. He has brought through messages while sipping his coffee at Starbucks and even doing his laundry at home.
But besides the incredible readings, Anthony has helped me to understand that we do not choose to be contacted by our loved ones; we are “chosen.” As you read the amazing accounts in this heartwarming book and get acquainted with the Anthony that I’ve been so blessed to know, I hope you, too, will come to the realization that life never ends and love never dies.
I think Anthony says it perfectly when he writes, “I’m sometimes asked why people who have passed away, would want to communicate with those they have left behind in the first place. It’s been my experience that there are a couple of reasons.
“The first one is love. Their physical bodies have died, but their love for us hasn’t. They see our pain and want us to understand that while we’re no longer connected physically, they are still connected to us emotionally. The second reason is that they can now see the bigger picture in a way we cannot, and they want to help us understand that there’s a reason for everything that happens here on this physical plane.”
Thank you, Anthony, for all you do to help us see the bigger picture.
Josie Varga
Author of Visits from Heaven and Visits to Heaven
www.josievarga.com
I used to do readings out of an office that I shared with a therapist in a complex I swore was designed by an architect while he was on an acid trip. The buildings were put together like a maze, and it took me a long time to learn how to navigate my way from the parking lot to our office. For that reason I would tell people who were coming to see me for a reading to call me from the parking lot, and I’d come out and get them.
I’ll never forget the day I went out to meet Donna. When I saw her, the stress on her face literally had me worried about her. Her daughter, on the other hand, was smiling. I could tell that for her, this was going to be an adventure.
Just like everyone else who comes to me for a reading, I didn’t know whom Donna and her daughter were hoping to reconnect with, and I didn’t want to know. Not that they were going to tell me anyway. In fact, they both agreed that no matter what I said, they were going to say as little as possible to me anyway.
With that, I’ll let her tell you her story, in her own words:
Neither my ex-husband George nor I were brought up to believe that life continued after death. We were raised in a very strict religion from childhood and were taught to believe that Armageddon is due to happen in our lifetime. Fire would rain down from Heaven and all the nonbelievers and those who are weak of faith would be destroyed.
The good news for those who survive is that they go on to rebuild the earth into a paradise. We believed that once people die, they remain dead until God decides to bring them back in the resurrection on earth after Armageddon. Should he choose not to resurrect you, you’re just gone for good. It would be as though you had never existed.
I can’t express the immense amount of pressure we felt from trying to live up to the standards of this religion. It was as though all our efforts to be strong, spiritual people never seemed to be quite good enough. The result was that it broke our spirit and trust in a God who is supposed to be loving and merciful.
For some reason, I was able to last longer than George. He gave into his insecurities within the first year of our marriage. The pressure was so great that it broke him. He couldn’t live up to the expectations of the religion, let alone the expectations he put on himself. I stood by him for years, always feeling that I could somehow pull him through and out of his depression. It didn’t quite work out.
After our marriage dissolved, we both quit the religion altogether, much to the chagrin of family and friends. His family lost all respect for him. It was very sad. The heavy guilt was still there, but we continued to search for something different on a spiritual level. George was investigating other churches as well as studying anything he could get his hands on regarding religion and spirituality. We would have long conversations about what could be the real truth regarding God. “Does God exist?” and “What do you believe now?” were questions that would lead to countless discussions.
After our divorce, as hard as it was, we settled into our lives. George and I were still very much friends and partners in raising our children. The kids were with me during the week and with their dad on the weekends. By this time George was suffering from acute pancreatitis, was in extreme pain, and had very little energy. He wasn’t his usual self as his illness progressed, and it became increasingly more difficult for him to have the kids on the weekends.
While I did the best I could, all of my energy was spent working two jobs to support the lot of us. Between getting the kids to school each morning and working days, nights, and weekends, I was doing well to just drop them off at George’s home on Friday afternoon before another shift. Ironically, I had just left them with a man already dead on his feet, while I was nearly falling down with exhaustion myself.
Somewhere towards the end of 2007, a friend of mine introduced me to a television show on the Lifetime Channel called Lisa Williams—Life among the Dead. Oh, did it grab my attention! Could it be true? Could this woman have the ability to hear messages from dead loved ones? Wow, I was enthralled! I was able to open up my mind to the idea that maybe, just maybe, we aren’t really gone for good when we die. The experiences on the Lisa Williams’ show seemed too real and wonderful not to be true.
Then it happened. At the age of thirty-nine, George succumbed to his illness, and we lost him at the end of January 2008. His death was absolutely devastating to me. It seemed my whole world went right with him. We relied on each other for everything. He truly was my closest friend and kept me grounded to this earth. Nothing seemed right in a world without George! How would I ever raise our children without him? I lost every bit of confidence and couldn’t imagine trying to go on without him.
When I discovered that Lisa Williams was coming to Denver to do a live show, I immediately bought tickets in hopes of hearing from George. I had to know if he was still alive somewhere! I’d never looked into psychics or mediums outside of her show— especially since it was strictly forbidden by our former religion and since I was still halfway holding on to what I had been taught about this type of thing. As the date of the show approached, I felt increasingly nervous. I would talk out loud to George, just in case he could hear me and tell him that he had to be there for me! I would cry repeatedly and tell him, “I just need to know you are alive!”
During the show, Lisa said she was getting the name George. I tried to get her attention, but the auditorium was full of people in search of loved ones and she passed on me. Then she brought up a clock or a watch stopped at 4:00.
