Anna M. Aquino

When I was in college I was dating a gentleman that lived right beside me in the dorms. One night I’d gone and purchased several single serve chocolate milks and left them in his refrigerator. The next day I was back in his dorm and suddenly I had the biggest urge for chocolate milk. So I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the first one I saw. Knowing I had just purchased three the night before I didn’t question opening up the small carton. A doubt never crossed my mind as I fixed the cardboard spout to my lips and expected a cool chocolaty refreshing drink. Instead, I got a mouthful of a taste that is beyond description. If foul death could be contained in a small single serving cardboard container I had just tasted it. Sour chocolate milk filled my mouth. I gagged, and ran to the restroom to spit it out. Quickly I searched for a cup to fill with water. When finally I could get the taste out of my mouth, I was able to laugh at this experience. The gentleman had several single serve c...

I started playing the trumpet in the fifth grade. Initially I had a natural talent for it. Of course, I wasn’t perfect. My dad tells stories jokingly of making me practice in the back of our wooded land, but at first I enjoyed it and I seemed to pick it up quickly. At some point in middle school, our band director decided it would be a good idea to have me and another trumpeter do a duet in a score in for a Christmas performance. As the parents, family, and friends piled into the middle school gym the words “stage fright” were an understatement. I freaked out. I tried to put the trumpet to my lips but the only notes that came out were shrill, wrong, and loud. An entire gym full of people witnessed my trumpeting downfall. Because of this particular incident I had an aversion to playing in front of people all throughout the years I played the trumpet. It was a fear that I didn’t care to shake. I lost my interest in the instrument and though I still played it in bands for many ...

I took a part time seasonal job this year. About a month ago I went to work deciding that I was going to wear one of my favorite pair of shoes. They were these burgundy wedges that I’d had for probably nine years now, but they were really comfortable. I should have known the shoes had worn out their use when I was in the parking lot going into work and the strap broke. But always trying making the best out of everything I got up to my department and stapled the strap back on thinking that they would at least last me until the end of the evening. We had a customer call in the store and he’d lost something in one of the dressing rooms. I didn’t bother to look in my lost and found log and instead transferred him to the department in which the item was lost. He called back I transferred him again. Long story short eventually while he was holding for this other department I figured out that I’d had his item. I went running through the store trying to find where I’d placed his call. I had no...

When I was in high school my friends and I used to sneak out my parents house by climbing out the top story window and down the TV antennae. Why we didn’t just go out the front door I’ll never figure out, but it made sense at the time. Once a good friend got half way out the window and got scared. She was trying to make it to the TV pole and wasn’t too sure about leaving the house. She started to freak out and yell at us all who were already waiting for her on the ground. To which we were trying to shush her because we were trying to sneak out and be as inconspicuous as possible. Finally after a lot of convincing she made her way down the antennae. I was thinking about this story laughing the other day. We were pretty loud. I’m NOT condoning sneaking out, the story is just a funny memory. :-) Life can be a lot like feeling like you’re stuck in a window. We go through a series of transitions and sometimes it can feel like your half in the old and half in the new. Having that...

I had been in desperate need for some hair help. About a month ago, I was finally able to make my appt with Judy. It was to be last Thursday. I was excited. I saved money. I had the perfect morning planned. I figured out that in the hour between taking my oldest daughter to school, and my appointment that I would take my youngest daughter to McDonald’s for the morning. Somehow, in my head I thought I am doing a good parenting deed. I am taking this child for some mommy time, and nothing could possibly go wrong. I had my time all planned out. It was going to be a perfect morning! Everything was going to work out great. My youngest was very excited to find out that mommy was going to treat her to a McDonald’s breakfast, and let her play on the playground. So we have our breakfasts, and she was playing. I am watching the time, and we were doing well. At about ten minutes before we had to leave, my daughter comes down from the slide telling me she has to go potty. So I take h...

About nine years ago I was working selling high-end jewelry. There was a man who came into the store who wasn’t my customer. I happen to overhear him mention to my coworker that he’d been in Vietnam. So I waited until his sale was being taken care of and I went over to shake his hand. We got to talking. Turns out he’d been in Tet Offensive. I studied this Marine before me. He was a large man that looked like he was still pretty tough. But the mere mention of Tet Offensive mixed with me shaking his hand was too much for his emotions. He broke down in tears. He politely took his purchase and left the store. His tears and brokenness have always stayed with me. It’s a reminder to me as to why I do what I do. The Veterans have lived circumstances that only Jesus can heal. After I wrote my first book “Come, They Told Me” the way I looked at Veterans changed. This yet-to-be published book based on my father’s tour in Vietnam struck me deep to the core of myself. I may never wal...

This week is a real important milestone in my family’s life. Nine years ago, Dan and I put everything we could fit in our car to move across country from family and everything we held dear. I was only a few weeks pregnant with our oldest daughter, and I puked part of the way here. Why do you ask we left? It was because I heard God tell me where we needed to move. So we did. Next to asking Jesus in my heart and marrying my husband, this choice still stands as one of the more defining moments in my life. In those nine years, we have been through a battle to stay where we know God has wanted us. For four years we lived an hour from our church and most Sunday afternoons you would find myself, my husband and oldest daughter picnicking in the back building of church and napping there because it was too far to travel twice in one day. For about a year and a half my husband had several jobs, the work would run out, and he would have to find another. I have testimony after testimony of...

I was speaking to someone the other day. This girl had just recently made a recommitment to live her life for God and she was struggling with doing what she knew God wanted her to do. It was the age old struggle of “What if I just can’t do it? What if I look like an idiot? What if I fail?” The internal turmoil she was facing is nothing new. I’ve heard these excuses a lot in the kingdom. We think if we wave the fear flag that it will excuse us from doing what we know God wants. Sorry to tell you it doesn’t work that way. Let me tell you a story: When I was a cheerleader in high school, I experienced first hand an embarrassment that taught me a lot. The one part of cheering that I worked very hard in was my jumps. Toe-touches, pikes, double-nine’s, etc I had a lot of power in those jumps. I had heard in years past it had earned me the nick name of the ‘jump queen’. However, I didn’t know what to do with that power. My toe-touches got to the point where I had so much power in them that se...

When I was in high school, I went canoeing with a youth group I used to attend. (If you have not figured out by now I really like to canoe and kayak and if I did not have to deal with the pesky wildlife of FL, I would go more often) We were canoeing along in the water. The person that was with me and I got in a bit more speed than the rest of the bunch and we had pulled away from the group. Somehow, we got caught on a log, and the boat flipped and followed the current and left us there. I immediately went down under the water. The boat was gone, and fear struck deep inside of me. I have always been a very strong swimmer but in that moment, I was scared. I looked at myself struggling under the water and thought of a million movie scenes I had seen of people drowning. I finally got myself wedged between the current and a nearby log. I did not know what to do other than to wait until someone came boating down the river. Fear held me to that log. I was not about to let go of it. It seemed ...