Anna M. Aquino

As I have mentioned in blogs past, I inherited my grandmother’s Christmas decorations. In those decorations were these three large candles. The problem was these three candles weren’t meant for Florida heat. They were stored in the attic and every year kept getting more and more deformed. So last year I had a grand moment of inspiration and decided to melt the three candles down. I used the same wick to turn the wax into a large three wick candle. It was a bit of a mess, but what I ended up with was and is semi functional. This year when we pulled the Christmas decorations out of the attic I was curious to see how the infamous candle creation had fared. I wondered if I would find a large pile of wax because I know that attic can get very hot. Surprisingly it looks exactly like it did when I put it up there last year. When things or people unite together it just makes the whole stronger. Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of thr...

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend. We were a tad on the rough side at our house. I hardly ever get sick. I mean when I was a kid I got sick at every little thing, but when I was in college someone gave me a prophetic word that God was protecting me in the area of my health and from then on maybe I’ve gotten a cold a year, minus the health issues I had after my youngest was born. However the flu from HELL came through my house this last week like a tornado. Dan got it first, and then I did. I am praying the kids don’t get it. After a week of this junk, I’m much better though I probably need a few more naps. We keep standing on 1Peter 2:24 and Romans 8:11. My ‘Night before Thanksgiving’ consisted of me: hacking most of the night trying not to wake up the kids, trying to pray at 4 am when I couldn’t sleep, and boiling hot tea and settling down to drink it only to accidently dump it on my chest and burn myself in the early hours of the morning. While my family had vis...

Yesterday while in prayer I felt the Lord impress upon me to do a family activity. I thought I’d share the experience in light of Thanksgiving being Thursday. I cut five stripes of construction paper for each person and we all had to write on it five things we were thankful for and then share it with the family. As we went around the circle and shared the things we were thankful for, I took each strip of paper and added another link to a paper chain. Each thing we shared created awesome dialogue in the family of things we were grateful for, and our chain continued to grow. What I had felt the Lord saying to me is that this was a reminder that every time we are thankful about something it extends our reach out from just ourselves and into the world. When we start listing the things we are thankful for we stop focusing on the things that are frustrating us, and we can begin to focus outside of our own little bubbles. Jeremiah 30:19 (NIV) From them will come songs of thanksgiving ...

Yesterday Dan and I decided we needed to vacuum under our couch. So in a wave of ambition he started taking apart the sectional, and trying to move it so I could reach in those places that haven’t been reached in too long. It doesn’t matter who you are, we have all had an assorted collection of stuff that collects under our couch that you can’t help but look at it and wonder, “How did that get there?”, or “ Huh? I didn’t know that was there?”, and the “Eww really, KIDS!” I would have never guessed all that junk was under the couch. It certainly didn’t look like it from the outside, but never the less all of that was hidden from my view. As people we live our lives like this. We think that all is well. We spend a lot of time making sure we look good, and truthfully there can be a lot of things going on in the inside. Underneath those smiles, teeth whiteners, and lipstick can be something that isn’t as pretty. We have to learn to have an attitude that we are open for correction. ...

Every year I look forward to giving the testimony of how Dan and I moved to Florida. It seems like such a long time ago yet I can’t believe it’s already been 12 years. Twelve years ago on Monday (Veteran’s Day, God so has a sense of humor) Dan and I piled into the car from my parents’ house in Ohio. I puked all the way here because I was pregnant for our oldest daughter and I hear stress makes morning sickness worse. We had our futon mattress rolled up in the back seat. All we knew is that Central Florida is where we felt God was leading us, so we left. We got to Florida on that Tuesday and on that Wednesday 12 years ago today, God lead us to our church Freedom Life (then Tabernacle) Church and our dear late spiritual mentor and friend got up on the platform and begin to prophesy to us that we were right on time. Through all the craziness we were right where God had called us to be at that season of our lives. It’s funny, when we moved here I expected to only be here for five y...

I’m still in horror and shock from last night’s vote. I woke up with a huge headache and realized it wasn’t a nightmare. Please do not start political fights with me today. I’m a little raw and I think I may need to take a social media fast for the next few days. This election was more to me than two candidates whom neither were ideal choices. I sat watching the elections results roll in and it was like mourning the death of what my country once was. I realize that process has been a slow one coming over the last several decades but I feel as if I’m mourning something that was once so great. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said,"The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation Will be the philosophy of the government of the next" As the Lyrics of Carmen’s God in America, so truthfully point out, “So when you eliminate the Word of God from the classroom and politics You eliminate the nation that Word protects.” The truth of that became very real to me last night. I w...

The American elections are tomorrow and I am going to address my fellow American’s today for the blog. If you are one of the many blog readers of mine that are outside of the US, I love you all and I want to encourage you all to be praying for our elections tomorrow. Our nation needs it. To those of you who may read this blog and not agree with me, realize I still love you and we can still be friends. :-) This is my opinion. However God has given me a platform, and I need to use it the way God wants me to or I will be accountable one day before Him. While so many don’t speak out due to fear of losing one’s non-profit status, the Constitution already put in motion that churches and ministries would be tax exempt regardless. To my fellow Americans, For far too long we have held on to some misguided notion that believers didn’t need to be involved in our political process. We like to cling tightly to the notion of separation of church in state when really that was a phrase coi...