Anna M. Aquino

This morning when I took the girls to school, I heard on the radio that tomorrow Sept 26th, is “See you at the Pole”. If you’re not familiar with the movement, it’s when they encourage students to meet at the flagpole of the school and pray for their friends and school. As soon as I heard that I was immediately transported in my head with my experiences of “See you at the Pole”. Unless you are a person that has known me for years most have a hard time believing that I was ever timid or shy. The bold girl I am today is a result of the Holy Spirit and years of training me to step out of my comfort zone. But I was not always like this. I didn’t want to stand out in school, and often I was too scared to ever find my voice. I can remember though I got to school early every year for “See you at the Pole,” I was too afraid to ever be a part of the movement. I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want to be different. I laugh hysterically now that I was every like that, but I was. When ask...

This morning my whole family was dragging a bit. The “Monday, Monday’s” can sometimes get to everyone. One kid didn’t want to wake up and stayed in her pj’s until the last possible moment. I’ll admit I felt the same way, and it appeared we all needed something to get us going. I opted to drive the girls to school this morning and had a “Mom you’re so silly” moment. I started car dancing to the morning radio while driving in the car line in front of the school. Before I knew it the girls were laughing hysterically at me, and I suppose a few bystanders were too. But it got us all awake and in a much better mood. It’s too bad the dash board blocked my renditions of the “RunningMan” and the “Tootsie-Roll”! Sometimes you just have to have a silly moment. It’s all too often we go throughout out life being so serious. We can’t be so religiously serious all the time that we forget laughter and smiling is a good thing. Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spir...

For quite some time now I’ve known that a very mighty man of God has been trying his best to get me on TBN (In which again I want to say the Jesus in Him totally rocks).   I’d heard snippets of possible times and it was getting a tad frustrating.   I knew that it was going to work out to be a God thing, but it had been taking a bit to come together.   It wasn’t the fault of TBN, just the all-around communication of the situation.   Well one of the days came that I knew was a possibility of me going over there, and he was going into the interview but I was still slated for a possible later date.   I’ll admit I had a moment.   I cried for about a second, took the phone call telling me such, and then decided I was going shopping.   Maybe it sounds funny to you, but I knew eventually all of this would work out.   In faith I went out and purchased a dress to wear when it would work out.      The next day, while I was working out,...

  We were blessed on Sunday to get to go out to lunch with some pastor friends of ours, and anytime you have kids at a restaurant it can be an adventure. My youngest kept interrupting me talking because she wanted a drink refill. Ok, so thanks for the reminder we really need to work on interrupting. We informed the waitress and I never saw it come. About ten minutes later my youngest starts whining. We mention it to the waitress again, and to our knowledge nothing happens. About another ten minutes later my six year old starts whining. She wants that refill and I’m offering her my drink. About another ten minutes she’s really upset, and that is when I look down and somewhere in all of this the waitress did bring the drink and it was right in front of her. We’ve all done that in life before. We get really frustrated as to why something isn’t happening the way we want it to, and start getting crabby. When all along God says he’s already given us what we need already. 2 Peter 1:...

On Saturday evening I had the awesome privilege to go view the new film with Kirk Cameron called, “Monumental”.  They were having a free viewing at Cornerstone in St. Cloud.  This film had immediately intrigued me.  It’s basically a discovery tour where Kirk Cameron pursues what was the motivation of the pilgrims and what they went through in order to found the United States.  I learned a lot just by watching it. I was never aware that although certain individuals love to quote the whole separation of church and state, Congress actually once printed a Bible and put it into schools.  It’s a beautiful film.  That was very well done. If you know me you’d know that this was so up my alley.  I love God and I love my country.  I have become more and more upset at where I see our country headed and the choices it seems to be making.  I have felt like I’ve been mourning the nation of what God intended us to be, in the last several years. I have f...

When I was young, I spent a lot of time taking gymnastics lessons. I wasn't going to be the next Gabby Douglas, but I spent my time in a gym. When I went to cheer leading all the floor work benifited me. I can remember the gym I trained at had these trainers who used to push us down lower into our stretches. We'd be stretching minding our own business and they'd come over and push us further in the splits. Laugh if you want, but that is painful! Then they'd hold us down in the stretch until a substantial amount time had passed. While it was easy to get irritated when they would do that, today I'm still pretty flexible for a woman in my 30's. Their pushing me to push myself further may have hurt at the time, but made me better in the long run. We all need people like that in our lives. The kinds of people that see more potential inside of you than you see in yourself. We need the kind of leaders that refuse to let you quit, and make you be more flexible...