Anna M. Aquino

              The summer of 1998 was a rough few months for me.   I was living at OSU going to school for summer quarter and had a lot of personal moments of turmoil. Of the many things going on, I had to move to another side of campus because it was summer quarter and thus had to get used to living somewhere else.   I didn’t react well to a lot of the drama going on around me, so I didn’t adjust that quarter as well as I should have.   Despite the fact my parents paid for a meal card (Sorry mom, still a sore spot in conversations) I didn’t really ever go that quarter to eat and I think I lived that summer off of Ramen Noodles, Beef Jerky, Pop Tarts, and Jelly Belly’s.   Obviously this wasn’t a healthy choice, though I suppose I could have the foursome petitioned to be the 4 food groups of college life.   Honestly I think that summer my body kicked into survival overdrive mode, and while I surviv...

              In Exodus, Moses is sent back to Egypt to bring the Israelites out of slavery.   I’m sure Moses didn’t realize how trying and testing it would be to get Pharaoh to let them go.   With every plague and argument with Pharaoh I’m sure he hoped it would be the last.   Maybe he went thinking that because it was God’s will it would somehow be easy.   I think we all naively think that sometimes.   God’s will isn’t always easy.   Pharaoh didn’t appreciate God’s will at all. Pharaoh refused to move so that God’s will could be fulfilled.     Pharaoh started to do everything he could to make it harder on the Israelites.   In Exodus 5 he declares that they won’t be given straw to help them make the bricks.   Basically they’ll have to gather it themselves which makes their back breaking labor even more intense.   (Incidentally I heard once that if you look at th...

            When I was in college I decided to take a wheel throwing pottery class.   It was something I always wanted to try and it fit in with my schedule as an elective.   Though I was never great at it, I did enjoy it and getting a wheel one of these days is on my wish list; though it is murder on fingernails.     Taking that throwing class for the quarter I did at Ohio State brought so much perspective on a Bible principle.   Isaiah 29:16 You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay ! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter , “You know nothing”? Isaiah 64:8 Yet you, Lord , are our Father. We are the clay , you are the potter ; we are all the work of your hand. Romans 9:21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some potter y for special purposes and some fo...

              Many of you who have read my blogs for a while now know that I often take funny stories and turn them into a Biblical life lesson.   This one is no different.                My first car was full of personality.   It was a 1979 Cutlass Oldsmobile, the perfect tank for a first time driver.   I think it may have doubled for a submarine had I ever tried to submerge it in water.   Perhaps the periscope attachment came separately.   It was silver on the outside, and was supposed to be red on the inside but had been sun faded to red and hot pink on the interior. The car’s name was Rocko.     I once fit 9 people in it, but that’s another story.   This is a picture that was taken of me in the car…I still love that banana clip LOL!              ...

My grandmother was amazing.   She loved me so very much.   I can remember every time I went to her house I was made to feel so special.   I was thinking the other day about how she had a drawer dedicated in her kitchen just for me.   She knew I love natural fruit roll-ups.   So she’d buy them for me and leave them in the drawer.   I know that sounds like something so small and simple, but I knew she put thought into keeping that drawer filled for me, so whenever I was at her house I had my favorite snacks.                People seem to forget that God is like that too.   He knows us better than we know ourselves.   He knows the things we like and he wants to bless us.    He is not some meanie-headed God that doesn’t care about us, but he loves us all individually.   He knows us.   Luke 12:7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all number ed. Don’t ...