Anna M. Aquino

Recently I was engaged in an online conversation that reminded me of something, and I thought I’d share it today. I preface that this online conversation was with someone I don’t think is one of my readers, so if you think I’m talking about you I’m not. This individual was getting frustrated at the appearance of doors closing in their life and many were recommending that the person find a window and go through it. I of course came back with the “keep banging on the door eventually the person behind it will get annoyed and open it.” While we all have our moments of frustration, and I would be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t, I wanted to talk about this for a moment. We’ve become a society that is focused on the now. We aren’t looking at the long term but only the short term. We want it now, but really we wanted it 10 minutes ago. We’re a fast-food fast-paced culture, which really resents anyone else not being that way. This concept can be found throughout our Western thinking...

Larkins Hall at The Ohio State University is an athletic complex. They’ve changed it since I went to school there, but it used to have a very steep metal roof. Its rough brick exterior and metal roof made it quite an interesting piece of architecture. I used to have to walk beside it several times a week to get to other classes. Whoever designed the building must have negated to think about springtime. One particular day I was walking beside the building and I heard what sounded like an airplane whirring over head. The sound continued to gain speed until with a loud whoosh I watched ahead of me as ice, snow and icicles came down crashing in front of me. Suddenly I felt as if I was in a real life arcade game. The ice was melting and at the speed it was flying off that building I am sure it would have knocked someone out cold. In front of me and behind me the sections of ice blocks were loosening on the roof making their way down the metal makeshift luge slide and falling. It had the pot...

Back in January I was praying and kept getting the phrase “new spring” and “springing forward” as if it was dropped deep within my spirit. Immediately I ran to the calendar to see when spring started this year, and after I wrote this on the calendar I went back to prayer, and kept praying about this. When I was in gymnastics we used to have to do exercises on the spring board. That is the little apparatus that the person runs and jumps off of once you get on the end and typically jumps onto the horse. Spring boards are really two boards fashioned together at one end and springs on the other end. I can remember being a little intimidated by the spring board. You are to run at them as fast as you can and spring off the other end. Springing off can be scary. I mean really you’re propelling yourself high in the air, and have very little control over your flight. Sometimes in can get frustrating living in the prophetic side of serving the Lord. God doesn’t live in time, and His...

While in college at The Ohio State University, I spent a lot of time in the theatre scene shop. As part of the program there, each student has to put in certain about of volunteer time in the department somewhere, and I volunteered there. But once my hours were up, I was employed there. I was the only woman who I knew of that worked there at the time, and one of the very few if not only they hired. One particular day there was a student doing his volunteer time in the department, and I was put in charge of the crew working in the shop because the Teaching Assistants’ were on the set. This particular student was giving me a hard time about being a woman working in the scene shop. I was growing very annoyed with the situation, and was trying to show off. I was trying to prove that I had every right to be in that shop. My arrogance was showing. I was building a flat for a production, and the flat I was working on required me to nail a joint together at an awkward angle. Common sense and r...

This weekend I drove my oldest to a birthday party about an hour across town. My youngest did not get to go because she was not feeling well, so Dan kept the youngest at home so he could install our kitchen sink because we have been in the middle of a kitchen remodel and I went to the birthday party at some friends’ house. I was lost once, but eventually found their new house. In true fashion of these particular friends of ours, the birthday party was decked out complete with bounce house, a petting zoo, a pony, etc. Right after we got there I decided I needed to lock my purse in the car, so I walked out the front door. I neglected to see a small step further down on the porch. I took a nosedive in their driveway. With a summersault a flip and a flop I came up on my bottom and in pain. I knew immediately I had really hurt my ankle. I‘ve broken enough bones in my body to know it wasn‘t broken, but I knew I twisted it good and I hurt. For those of you who have known me for years these ki...

I was 16 years old when the Lord put it on my heart to write my first book. I expected when I finally wrote it for the waters of the industry to part like the Red Sea before me. I knew I was doing the will of God. So why was it taking so long?! When Dan and I chose for me to stay-at-home with the kids because that is what we felt God wanted for this season, it was as if the wind was knocked right out of me. That was the furthest from what I knew God had called me to do long term, and for years I cried and fought depression. I grew to dread the question that always came when introducing yourself for the first time. “So what do you do?” people would ask. God called me to be a writer and minister of the gospel, so that’s how I responded. I have gotten some classic responses, from those who were sympathetic to one woman who kept insisting that it was my hobby and not my career because I wasn’t making anything as a writer at the time. Dan and I used to get in small squabbles anyti...

The church I grew up in always reminded me of what the inside of Noah’s Ark must have looked like. It’s wooden paneling and large curved structure resembled the inside of a ship. The rectangular stained glass windows in muted shades of greens and browns let in light from the outside. The floors under the red padded pews were wooden. Thus the church would really echo if you weren’t careful. One particular Sunday morning my sister and a friend was setting in the pew behind my mom and I. Much to the chagrin of my mother I’d kicked off my shoes at some point in the middle of the service. As the organ pumped the last hymn I looked down and couldn’t find my shoes anywhere. At first I thought, it had to have been my sister who took them, so I turned around to glare at her, but they didn’t seem to be there. I started to panic. Two shoes don’t just get up and walk away. I knew I’d be in trouble with my mother if I had to walk out of service barefoot. Finally as the final chords of the doxology ...

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. I am not sure how it started but somehow I had determined in my head that I was going to catch one of the birds that used to fly around their back yard. I tried to catch it by chasing after them, but it never seemed to work. One day we visited my great grandfather somehow the topic arose. He was very old at the time. The memory is not vivid but I remember that to me he seemed ancient. His skin hung in folds on his face telling the story of time. He chuckled for a moment and said, “Well girl, if you can get salt on its tail you can catch it.” I did not know that he was joking. It must have been an old Southern Ohio tall tale because salt is so heavy. I think he mean that if you were close enough for salt to fall on the bird you were close enough to catch it. However, I did not take it that way. For weeks, perhaps months, as soon as I would enter into my grandparents’ house Grandma would greet me with a saltshak...