Anna M. Aquino

Years ago while still in high school, I can remember struggling with something in my Christian walk. It really annoyed me when someone started to talk about “having to praise God, or tell Him how good He was.” The way it was coming across was doing that just so you the person could get blessed and I didn’t get it. It sounded rather manipulative to me. Also I kept asking God, “Why do I have to tell you how awesome you are? Surely you know because you’re God! Really God, do you have an ego problem that you have to be reminded of all of this?” I suppose that me being this honest about struggling with this is making some of you laugh, but follow me for a moment here. Then one day as I was setting in World Harvest Church in Columbus, OH, I can remember I felt as if the Holy Spirit whooshed over me and suddenly my issues with this seemed to fizzle away and disintegrate before my very eyes. It was as if I could feel the Holy Spirit drop deep down within me, “It’s just like a parent...

I hope you all had an amazing Resurrection Weekend. He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed. On Friday my family and I had the awesome privilege to view the “Savior” an original modern passion musical about Jesus, His life, fulfillment of prophesy, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. It was performed at Calvary Assembly in downtown Orlando. My daughters sat transfixed to the stage. They loved it. My youngest who is 5 kept turning to me with questions, and statements that as an adult I thought were the cutest things in the world. I’ll admit I might be a little bias, but her passion and enthusiasm made me think. When Jesus was being beaten she looked at me with almost tears in her eyes. When the narrator said they spit at him, compassionately she said, “Oh mommy, that’s not nice. If I would have been there I would have given him a hug.” I was grateful that throughout these scenes the action and beating was taking place behind a scrim and only shadows could be seen, so...

As many of you know a few weeks ago my family and I drove across the country for the holidays. As any long road trip it soon became full of its own adventure. Truthfully the way there wasn’t too bad. We took three days to get there because we stopped and visited a few people on the way. It was the way back, when we drove it straight through that I was again saying to Dan we need a jet plane. My oldest daughter was setting in the backseat of the SUV with her DS taking pictures along the way. She was getting very annoyed with us because she wanted to get a picture of all the states “Welcome To” signs, so I started trying to tell her where they were whenever we were going to pass them. On our way into Michigan I said to the girls, “Look there is the sign. We’re in Michigan! Look! Look! Look!” I was sure they heard me. We were nearing the Canada border and all was well. About ten minutes later I heard a “MOM!” from the back seat of the car. “We’re in Michigan! Why didn’t y...