Anna M. Aquino

When I was a little girl I can remember the excitement of the 4th of July. For several years the town would set off a fireworks display from the back parking lot of the mall. My grandparents lived down the road from there. My family would congregate in grandma and grandpa’s back yard to watch the fireworks. It was as if the display was just for us as my sister and I frolicked around my grandmothers perfectly manicured marigolds with sparklers in hand. I remember the excitement of watching a firework should up in the sky. It was if the entire town must have waited with baited breath for the explosion to pierce its sparkle across the night. It was mesmerizing. But I also can remember the disappointment that hung like a curtain against the wind when we saw a firework go up, and nothing happened. It was a dud. We as humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26). God has put so much inside of us. He’s filled us up with talents, gifts, and abilities. They’re like gunpowder underneath our

When I was a little girl my grandmother used to read a book to my sister and I called "Mr. Bear Squash-You-All Flat". Some years ago my sister found me a copy to read to my girls. If you’ve never read the book, it’s a fun children’s story with some good spiritual applications. Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat is a mean grumpy bear who goes through the forest loperty-lop and squashes the forest animal’s homes. Until one day Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat tries to squash a home that was inside a big tire. The tires occupants hide their faces thinking that they’ll have to find a new house, but he can’t squash the house. He gets really mad and runs loperty-lop even further and tries to squash it and instead flies up in the air and bangs his head against a tree branch. Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat leaves that part of the forest and the animals never hear from him again. Many of us approach dealing with any adversaries in our lives like the animals did to Mr. Bear. We run and hide. We th

This weekend we got the opportunity to go to the beach with some dear friends of ours. I knew when the chance arose that if I told the kids where we were going we would get riddled with questions, and prying as to when are we going? How we were going to get there? Was it time to leave yet? Etc. Etc. If you’ve been around young children you understand what I’m talking about. So I made the choice to surprise them. However I made an error because I told them there was a surprise and instead of hearing questions over and over again about going to the beach I got questions over and over again about what was the topic of the surprise. I found myself wanting to scream “JUST TRUST ME!” over and over again. There are times in life we don’t always know exactly where the Lord is leading us. He usually doesn’t reveal everything to us. Maybe we can see the long term goals in our lives but those short term goals seem a little vague. I know there have been times I’ve asked the Lord twenty million que

When I was a kid, I can remember getting a new box of cereal and being in eager anticipation of getting to the toy. Maybe I’ve grown up and the way I look at the toys in cereal boxes has changed, but I remember they used to have to coolest toys in those cereal boxes. Inevitably I’d open the box expecting the toy, only to find out that the toy had been hidden in the bottom of the cereal box. One would have to eat the entire box of cereal before they could even get to the toy. Sure one could have dumped all the cereal out and gotten the toy, only to put the cereal back in the box, but in my house growing up my mom would have never let us do that! We would have to wait. It our young minds the waiting was excruciating. Day after day went by, and we would be waiting and waiting. In the eyes of a child waiting for any length of time is too long. Would this be the day we could get to the toy? Would we ever get to the toy? We wondered why we could just thrust our hand in the box and see if we

Today I’m going to keep it short and sweet for this blog. Many of you have heard some of these things that are updates, and many of you haven’t. So if I’m repeating myself to some of you . . .sorry! I am just so overwhelmed at God’s faithfulness and I need to testify. Many from various locations read this blog and I felt to share this today. Many of you have heard my story. God told me He was calling me into ministry at 12, and to write my first book at 16. I’m now 32. . .so it’s been awhile. Really, minus some things here and there in life I’ve been going towards that goal ever since. Many of you have been part of my life to witness that finally after all of these years I’m beginning to see break through in this area. As you know, I signed with Destiny Image for my first full official published book to be released. Many of you also know that Dan and I launched Doveagle Ministries last October, and have been prayerfully seeking out churches and now public high schools for me to begin s

A few days I was talking to one of my best friends in the world (love you girl) and we were discussing the fruit from a situation. She’s been going through a lot recently, and felt that there was no good fruit coming from a situation. To which I responded, “You’re fruit isn’t bad. It’s just still green.” The Bible uses the symbolism of fruit often. John 15:5 (NIV) “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing Romans 7:4 (NIV) So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. Matthew 7:16 (KJV) Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? The concept behind this is simply if you are a good tree then you’ll produce good things in the kingdom, or if the situation you’re walking through is a God ordained situa

Over the holidays, my husband had purchased the book “Become a Better You” by Joel Osteen. Having just finished my own book I am settling into my between writing a book ritual of reading a lot and researching for the next. On Friday, I was having some thoughts that I knew were contrary to what God is doing in my life and I emotionally cascaded on Dan. He smiled patiently and told me to read Joel Osteen’s book. I knew that this was one of those times that it was God’s instructions coming through my husband, but all day Friday I avoided it. When Friday night rolled around, I was still in an emotional funk and Dan responded by asking me if I had started reading that book yet. Finally, I started to read it. Isn’t awesome how there are times where the Holy Spirit can direct us to be in a place to hear the exact thing we need at that moment? I needed to read this book. As I read it, I sat in tears as the Holy Spirit continued to bring things up to me that I needed to work on. One major vein

I just finished the rough draft for my 12th book. This one is on hearing the voice of God and walking out your destiny in Him. I wrote the above statement down and I have been mulling on it for a while. I have gotten very annoyed with the typical Christian. We have become so afraid to speak up publicly when sin or immorality is displayed. For years the concept of separation of church and state has been shoved down our throats like a bunch of ipecac, and society tells us we are supposed to take it. The concept of “separation of church and state” was written in a letter, and it is only point was that any religion should not be forced on another person. It was never meant to be a justification for ramped immorality in our government. To add to that I say that includes the religion of lawlessness and atheism that seems to be running our culture today. I as a Christian have a right not for it to be forced down my throat without me speaking up. We as Christians need to start standing up for