Anna M. Aquino

*Thank you to Lottie Rigeaux who came up with this idea and gave it to me for a future blog some months back. If you have ever been to a Build-A-Bear, I am convinced they have got to be one of the coolest toy businesses these days. I wish they would have had those when I was a kid. You go in and can pick what type of stuffed animal you want. Then you have it stuffed but only after you can kiss a little heart that they’ll put in for you and any sound effects. Then you pick its name and can fluff it. Then like a monument to individuality there is a wall of outfits you can pick for your new friend. It really is a child’s dream come true. Many people treat Christianity like a Build-A-Bear. It’s like their in the store and they think they can choose a little Jesus doll and make him into what they think He should be for them. They like the whole salvation thing but they think the concept of sin is antiquated so they choose not to include that into their doll. Maybe they’ll take the grace out...

I recently reheard a story of my families past that got me thinking. My dad was telling me of helping my grandfather and great grandfather dig a well. He and my uncle were expected to dig this well with a post hole driver. I actually had to Google images to see what a post hole driver was, looking at them made me realize how ill equip using one would be to dig a well. My dad laughed as he told me that they went down inch by inch. At what seemed like a snails crawl. Several times they thought that they would hit water to find out it was only a pocket and they had to dig further. Finally, after hours they struck water. I remember many years ago setting in church feeling all annoyed because things in ministry were taking longer than what I thought they should. Pastor Arthur spoke a word from the pulpit about how Navy Seals are sometimes trained to maybe only move an inch a day and it’s so the enemy can’t see that their getting closer and closer to their mark. However, eventuall...

While my grandfather was here over the last weekend he shared a story with me that is hilarious, but I can defiantly teach on. I thought I’d share it with you today and my take on it. There were two neighbors. The first neighbor had a cat and the other a dog. The dog never got along with the cat and one day to the horror of the second neighbor the dog came home carrying the dead cat in its mouth. The cat was a mess. It was dirty and its hair matted. So the neighbor washed the dead cat up, dried it with a hair dryer and brushed its fur so that it was clean. In the night he snuck over to his neighbor’s porch to put the dead cat on the mat in front of the door. He didn’t want to admit to the neighbor that it was his dog that had killed the cat. The days went by. The owner of the dog didn’t hear anything much about the cat from his neighbor and the suspense was eating at him. Finally several weeks later the neighbor decided to ask the cat owner what happened to his cat because he hadn’t se...

When my youngest daughter was only a few days old I remember a particular moment. I watched her sleep and couldn’t believe that she was my daughter. I was in awe of the creation of her. I had been trying to spend some time with the Lord at the time, and finally I said to God, “I’m sorry I’m not getting into prayer like I’m trying to, but I just can’t take my eyes off of her.” I heard the Lord respond to me, “It’s okay, because I feel the same way about you. I can’t take my eyes off of you.” I don’t think many people realize how much God loves us as His creation. Many people have this deceived concept of God that He’s some big guy up there waiting to just slap people or drop a piano on them the minute they make a mistake. That view isn’t true. God loves us. He delights in us. He thinks we’re awesome. John 3:17-18 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son int...

Yesterday in my time with the Lord, I felt very strongly to go read Genesis 4:1-15. In it is the story of Cain vs. Able. I suggest you go and read it for yourself. I’m going to paraphrase. Basically God is pleased with Able’s offering and not Cain’s. I’ve heard teaching done on this as to why, and for the sake of this teaching I’m not getting into that part of this story. Just that God was pleased with Able and not with Cain. Cain get’s angry and jealous of his brother, and so he kills him. As I read this story it was as if a Holy Ghost 2X4 of revelation smacked me upside the head. Cain and Able’s are happening all the time today in the church as a whole. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.” Matthew 12:34 says, “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; ...

When I was growing up, my dad had a phrase he used to use on me all the time. It was the classic, “If you don’t quit your crying I’m going to give you something to cry about.” I hated that line as a kid. I was always looking at my dad like, “duh, if I didn’t have a reason to cry I wouldn’t be crying.” It is funny how when, both time as an adult, and having your own children can put things into perspective. I have found myself often saying that to my own kids. Today I think the phrase is pure genius. I mean really how is it that kids can whine over the littlest of things. It is funny but during your adolescence, you think that you are nothing as your parents but the older you get you realize that you have become similar to them on many levels. Don’t get me wrong. . .break the bad habits, but what I’m saying is that you realize as an adult that they really did know what they were talking about on many things. It should be the same with your heavenly Father. The older you get i...

I have noticed a growing trend in our society, and I see it seeping in the church more and more every day. It alarms me. I’m talking about as a culture we’ve stopped truly caring for each other. Sure, we pretend we do. We go to church put on our plastic smiles and pretend that we love our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But deep down we are so concerned about our own issues that we really don’t care. We’re faking it. Understand that I put myself in this category too. I’ve often made this comment about corporate America “that it used to be that when we saw our boats leaking we genuinely wanted to fix the boat and improve it. In today’s culture we want to just throw the weaker ones out into the water and make the boat lighter.” We’ve stopped genuinely caring about our fellow man, and instead only pretend to when it meets our needs. We have become a society who stereotypically will watch a train wreck and never think of the peoples lives at stake. We’ve become so desensitized to the wor...

The day before my last day of fifth grade I was waiting outside after school for my sister to come and pick me up. We’re just under six years apart and since she had her license she would pick me up after school. I was bored, and she must have been running late. The middle school had a submerged first floor so the windows of the first floor were ground level. There are times when you’re bored and you don’t think anyone is watching that you can choose to make stupid decisions and this was one of those times for me. I decided to step down into a cemented off small pit in front of the art room window and wait for her there. But I didn’t stop there. I thought no one is watching. . . I wondered what would happen if I leaned up against this window. The next thing I knew I was in the art room. Shards of glass laid around my body as if confetti. My head throbbed because I’d landed directly on it. No one was in the room and I looked at my hand to see blood already beginning to form in cuts from...