Anna M. Aquino

            When we were house training our dog Mojo, we hung a single jingle bell by a ribbon on the inside door knob.   The concept is fairly simple.   He learned quickly if he had to go outside to ring the bell and we’d let him out.   Last year when going out to go to the bathroom, was still a fairly novel idea to him we had some issues with our cable internet.   A worker arrived to fix the cable in the back.   Mojo started to ring the bell.   I thought the dog just wanted to bug the worker so I didn’t let him outside.   I ignored the first few rings.   But Mojo didn’t stop.   He got indignant ringing that bell.   I didn’t want to let him out with the cable worker.   He’d be in the way, I didn’t know how this man was with dogs, the back gate was open so the worker could go in and out, etc.   Mojo kept ringing the bell, and I kept ignoring him.   Finally I loo...

  Last week my youngest daughter had her artwork chosen to represent her school at our local library.   We were all excited and went to the opening of the art exhibit.   We happily took a couple of pictures, saw her work, said a round of “hello’s” and came home.   The next morning when I dropped the kids off at school, the art teacher practically ran me down.   Given the problems we’ve had recently at my children’s school, I thought Really?   What now?   Evidently the art show had been independently juried, and my daughter won 1 st place in her division.   Evidently they’d had an awards ceremony that we hadn’t known about and unfortunately missed.   Had we have known all of this we’d have happily stayed for the awards, but we hadn’t known.   My daughter was so excited to have won, but we all felt bad we missed the ceremony.   Though there were several things roaming in my mind, when the art teacher chased me down, I aut...

  There are many going through a season right now where God is relocating and shifting them into new places and seasons.   It can be an exciting time, but it can also be a little scary and frustrating.   I think that many Christians live their lives in fear.   They are afraid of missing God and His will for their lives.   That fear becomes bondage, and isn’t from God.   A dear friend of mine reminded me this week of a quote from one of my hero’s in the faith, Hank Kunneman.   He says that “God’s ability to talk to you is greater than your inability to hear”.   Meaning God will talk to you, and He will lead you.   You have to trust in that.   As I look back on my life and I think of some of the wild divine stories he has orchestrated in my life, it gives me great courage to know that somehow despite all my questions and lack of a clear picture at times, God still got me right where I needed to go.   When you stay sensi...

Last fall through a series of divine appointments I met the station manager for TBN.   It was one of those God stories that I knew eventually an interview would happen.   Then nothing did.   I’d called, I’d prayed, and I yielded it up to God.    I had to keep renewing my mind but I had moments of thinking “Why God did all of this happen and then the interview didn’t?” I was willing to think it wasn’t going to happen this time around, and at some point all of it would make sense.   God’s timing is so perfect.   I got a call on Monday to come in for an interview.   The very interview I wasn’t sure would ever happen has now happened.   I don’t know when it’ll air yet, and I’ll post the video online when I get it.   It was a good interview, and I’m not sure it really hit me what I was doing until the promo for TBN came on.   I think my chest fell to my knees for a moment, but God is so faithful.   I think it went well. I ...

A few weeks ago I was driving back from the grocery store with I came across and intersection. There were probably twenty five ducks and they weren’t being very quick about crossing the road. I thought at first if I drove very slowly then they would move so that I could get home, but that wouldn’t work. The ducks took their own precious time crossing over to get to the pond on the other side of the street. Then I half considered getting out of the car to hurry them along. However, there were already a couple of people gathering to take pictures of their voyage and I really didn’t want to look like a crazy woman trying to hurry them up. So I sat in the car and waited….and waited….and waited. While I didn’t look at my watch, it felt like at least 15 minutes until there was a hole in the pack of ducks were I could get my car. Half of them were on one side of the street and the other half on the other. This is not my picture. I thought about grabbing one but I didn’t. It can fe...