Anna M. Aquino

As a little girl I had this one doll that I genuinely loved. I named her Lauren. I used to carry that doll around the house. Her head was a very real like sculpted plastic along with her arms and legs. But her body was cloth. Unfortunately her head was too heavy for her body. As much as I loved that doll and carried her around. Eventually her head would keep falling off. My mother tried very hard to save Lauren. She would try to tighten the head in place by strengthening the cloth neck, but inevitably as much as I loved that doll I had to give her up. I just looked ridiculous carrying around this decapitated doll. I spoke in the last blog about how God wants us to come to Him like children, but I want to take that one step further. He wants us to trust Him unconditionally like children. He wants us to look to Him and not question his leadership. However there are things of the spirit He wants you to begin to mature in. There is a spiritual maturity He is yearning for ...

When I was a little girl my mom and dad owned this huge van. It was an attempt to have an RV van conversion because it had a sink, and cabinets. It was white outside with this huge mural of a sail boat on the outside. Now I realize how illegal this was, but the front was so big I can remember fitting a lawn chair between the two front seats so an extra person could set in the front seat. My mom used to drive by herself from Ohio to Florida with my sister when we were little. She would wake up early and drive down here to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins that used to live here. In the van there was an 8 track player. Now I‘m sure somewhere in the inside of that blue van there were more 8 tracks but we used to play the best of Ann Murray and Kenny Rogers ‘The Gambler‘ what seemed like over and over again. In fact as an adult every time I hear one of those songs I think of being a kid in a big blue van on the way to Florida. The road would go on for miles and my biggest worry ...

Back in Ohio where I grew up my mom and dad have an in ground swimming pool. I don’t remember how old I was, but one fateful Sunday we were having a family picnic and I crawled out of the pool to swing on a hammock. I was swinging too hard and on the hammock sideways and knocked my head against the wooden deck. My sister came running up to make fun of me. Starting to call me a “big klutz”’ which truthfully wasn’t far off, for some reason that ticked me off. She started running to the house to tell my grandmother what a klutz I was, and I newly wet from the pool started chasing her to stop her. I don’t know what I thought I would prove to think I would stop her. My mom and dad at the time needed their carpet replaced. We had exposed carpet tacks in the entry way of the house just past a linoleum entry way. I hit that linoleum running after my sister, slipped on the water dripping from my body and flipped around. Those carpet tacks caught on my left side of my foot leaving very distinct ...

One of my favorite childhood memories was when I was probably 8-9 years old. My dad put me in the car one morning and refused to tell me where we were going. He simply said for a car ride. After the minutes begin to drag on that car ride began to get unbearable to me. I wanted to know where he was taking me, and why we left. I always have had an overactive imagination and I can remember trying to guess, but I never figured it out. After what seemed like a lifetime, but really it was only an hour, my dad pulled the car into the Columbus Zoo parking lot. I can remember feeling so special that my daddy was taking me to the Zoo for the whole day just the two of us. I remember little about that trip, other than how special that made me feel. A few days ago I called him and talked with him about it, and he remembered how much I loved watching the eagles. It’s a special memory for both of us. Let’s be honest here. God doesn’t always tell us everything He’s up to in our lives and sometimes tha...

When I was growing up Pepsi used to come in glass bottles. My dad has always been a fan of Pepsi and so the glass bottles were always in an abundance in my house. The problem was my dad liked his glass full and the bottles never quite filled them up. My mom had to get these cork things to cork the left over bottles so the Pepsi wouldn’t get flat. I was a pretty curious kid and one day I had this great brainstorm. I wanted to know what would happen if I shook the Pepsi bottle up as much as I could. Heinz sight is always 20/20. I can look back on this and think why didn’t I just go outside to do this? But that would have required more thought into this experiment then I had been willing to give. In the kitchen I shook up the bottle. The cork flew off in an explosion hit the white ceiling. Pepsi began dripping all over the kitchen. “Ann, Can you bring your dad his Pepsi?” I could hear my mom call me from the living room. Drips and puddles formed at my feet. My mother’s footsteps heard. Th...

***Before I start teaching on this I want to preface this with a few points. I taught this message at Freedom about 4 years ago, to some of you it might be a rerun. God gave me this revelation probably 6 years ago, and since then I’ve found myself coming back to it time and time again. I felt to bring it up in this blog for some months now, but had been waiting on the right time. I am talking about spiritual infertility, not physical infertility. Infertility itself is a very sensitive area. Yes, spiritual issues can reflect in the physical, but I’m talking here about a spiritual mindset. So please before anyone wants to email me and yell at me. . . Please understand I’m not talking about any person in particular, but about my own struggles. Thanks. *** The very first commandment that God ever gave Adam and Eve was Genesis 9:7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." Again, for the sake of this teaching I’m talking about spiritual...

After my husband and I had my oldest daughter I can remember one day in particular trying to set her down for a nap. She’d been cranky. I was frustrated because it seemed every time I laid her down she’d cry. She couldn’t have been more than a month old. We lived in this little one bedroom 600 square foot apartment. I really had no one to give me help since we’d moved across country from all our family. I remember distinctly trying to put her down, she woke up screaming, and I felt the Lord say, “It’s just as frustrating to me when I work on something with you to let go, and we should be past it and as soon as we move on to work on something else in you, you pick it back up again.” It is possible for us to frustrate God. He loves us so much, and He is changing us from glory to glory. He’s got so much to do in your life. You have to let Him work on those things in you. Once He does work on that thing. . .you need to let it go and not pick it back up again. We get annoyed that He doesn’t...

When I was little I was on a swim team for a season. My stroke was the back stroke. I couldn’t have been more than seven years old. But, I remember that we had to be timed in that year at going a certain distance. I don’t remember much about it except doing my back stroke and then hearing my father. He was yelling at me. It startled me at first. As I opened my eyes I could see him yelling through the water. I had fallen asleep while swimming. It’s not something I would recommend. All too often in our Christian walk we can do the exact same thing. We can get caught up in doing the exact same motions for so long that we find ourselves getting so comfortable that we fall asleep. The Bible warns us of falling asleep in our Christian walk. In Matthew 25:1 [ The Story of the Virgins ] "God's kingdom is like ten young virgins who took oil lamps and went out to greet the bridegroom. Five were silly and five were smart. The silly virgins took lamps, but no extra oil. The sm...

I grew up in Ohio. On the property that my parents owned in a heavily wooded area was a bomb shelter. Built by whoever owned the property before my parents had bought it. We’re guessing it was built some time during the height of the Cold War since my mom and dad have owned the property since 1974. Many a bomb shelter were built around the country during this time because so many were scared of a nuclear attack. People thought that in order to survive they had to be in a shelter below the surface. After my parents bought the property my dad decided that building our play house right on top of it was the best idea he could come up with. I remember as a kid going down there on only few occasions. The funny part about this bomb shelter was that I’m pretty sure whoever built it didn’t take the time to figure out that every so many times a year it fills up with water. The steps to lead down to it were wooden and over the course of the years they’ve broken apart because of all the ...