Does God's Love (Really) Never Fail?: Quina Aragon

Quina Aragon: Kids' books and stories and even superhero stories are all about how you are the superhero and you have the superpower just within yourself. But we don't have the power to love like Jesus all by ourselves. Guess what Jesus promised his disciples before he left? He said, "I'm going to leave you with a superpower helper so that you can experience God's love for you and you could show God's love to other people, even when it's hard."
Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.
Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.
Dave Wilson: So not many kids can say this. Third grade, Mrs. Humphreys was my teacher in a little tiny school in Findlay, Ohio. You probably remember that school. You drove by it. I don't think you went to elementary school there, did you?
Ann Wilson: No, I totally remember it.
Dave Wilson: Firmin Elementary. I'll never forget this. Every day she would have a Bible story that she would read in a public school to the whole class.
Ann Wilson: Oh, wow. That's before they took the Bible out of school.
Dave Wilson: I don't want to tell them how old I am, but this was a long time ago.
Ann Wilson: But it was your favorite time?
Dave Wilson: Well, recess was really the best because I could dominate on the playground. But no, I mean, I can remember, and she had like a kid story Bible. She would just sit in the front and open it up. I'm not a church-going kid. I mean, I'm from a broken home and my mom would try and make me go to church and I had to go, but I didn't like it. But I'll never forget Mrs. Humphreys. She introduced me to the story of the Bible.
Ann Wilson: You know what I remember? I remember giving my life to Jesus and opening the Bible and starting to read. I didn't even know Old Testament, New Testament, I didn't know it was divided into books, but I started to read and I remember thinking, "Are you serious? This is amazing. How did no one tell me about this?" Isn't that interesting, our views of the Bible experience, some of our first days of reading the Bible or hearing it?
Dave Wilson: Story is powerful and today we get to jump into another story—the Bible story, but Quina Aragon's story that we started yesterday. We got a lot of your story, but Quina, welcome back.
Quina Aragon: Thank you.
Dave Wilson: We want you to keep going on your story. If you missed yesterday, I'm not going to recap it. I can't recap your whole life in one sentence. You need to go back and listen. Well, you've given your life to him. You've surrendered your life to him. Did you assume, "Okay, this is going to be great," and it was, probably?
Quina Aragon: Yes and no. I knew that God would do amazing things. I didn't know what that meant. Really what I knew at that time especially, and even now, is that I just want Jesus. I want him to be near and I want to be near to him. But even in the middle of that honeymoon period of first coming to know the Lord at 16, a father figure mentor passed away suddenly from a heart attack. I don't think he knew the Lord, but he was a big influence in my life. He taught me how to play basketball. He was just a big deal to me. Then shortly after that, my parents got a divorce. Then we dealt with addiction in my family. We dealt with a friend of mine from my old basketball team dying in a boating accident. They were drinking and boating. It was just back-to-back.
Ann Wilson: When did you start writing poetry?
Quina Aragon: Right after I came to know the Lord. So that was back when I was 16 or 17.
Ann Wilson: So you kept writing after that?
Quina Aragon: So I kept going. I did the poetry club at USF. I would do the open mic nights. I would perform at churches if they wanted me to come and things like that. I kept going for sure with those things in college. I didn't think about being published one day. That wasn't really on my mind. I saw it as almost like evangelism. Like, "Okay, I'm going to proclaim something, but through poetry." That's what I did throughout college and after. Afterwards, around the time I met my husband, even a little bit before, that's when YouTube became a thing. I sound so old now. YouTube became a thing, and so then it was like, "Maybe you should put some videos out there." I started working with other creators in my area and would create spoken word videos. So that's how that got going.
Ann Wilson: Can you give us like a paragraph written that's in your head that ministered to you as you wrote it?
Quina Aragon: There's one that I still want to make a video for called "Just an Arrow." It's something like: He had his eyes set beyond shadows and leaves, Trees blended together. A dark forest filled with fog would not block his purpose, For he had determined to never be filled with regret. And then it goes on about this warrior who—anyways, I don't want to give it all away—but it's a warrior who's going through a forest and he's shaping the arrow. But it's from the arrow's perspective and how uncomfortable that arrow is in the quiver, and how it's bumping against other arrows and how it's not understanding its purpose. But when he shoots it, it hits his target, living flesh—this person. And instead of killing the person, the plot twist at the end is that it actually brings them to life. So it's this ministry of reconciliation that we've been given, and we're sent out as arrows, but it's very uncomfortable. Imagine yourself as an arrow being shot through and you're just like, "All of these dizzying colors and all of this forest, the trees blending together and fog." You don't really always understand what's going on, and then God uses you and you're like, "What? How? Like, in all of this mess and dizziness, how can you use me?" There's just so many pieces that God has given me, oftentimes coming out of where I'm at.
Dave Wilson: Even as we talked to you off-mic, we know you've walked through some things in the last few years. Talk to us about that because Jesus has met you in a way that's been powerful but hard.
Quina Aragon: I've had a lot of health issues the last four years. Chronic pain, and I was like an athlete. I never really—any doctor's checkup would just be like, "Yep, you're good," and that's what I was used to growing up. Back in 2019, I developed these ovarian cysts that were massive and would just completely debilitate me. Back then, because endometriosis is oftentimes not diagnosed and sometimes doctors don't know to even explore that, I was just told to take some Motrin and good luck. And here's an emergency bill. I was dealing with that. John, my husband, and I would say we've just been in the furnace since then. My grandmother dying, who was the matriarch of my family, and then my health started to decline with the cysts, but not really getting the help that I needed medically.
Ann Wilson: But you had a daughter in the midst of that?
Quina Aragon: Yeah, and she was what? She was like three. She might not remember all of this, but what she would remember was really when she was about four. Beginning of 2020, I went to go speak at this Bible conference thing. It was out of the state, so I called my husband at like 1:00 AM in extreme pelvic pain. Should I go to the ER? Should I wait it out? It kind of died down. So I went back to Tampa, back home, and we went to see my gynecologist and I specifically asked for this one woman who had treated me really great when I was pregnant. We get there and she had a family emergency, so she wasn't there. So they were like, "But we have this male doctor." I was like, "I don't want a male doctor. No." But I was like, "Well, we drove all the way here." Turns out, in God's providence, he specializes in endometriosis. He's world-renowned as a surgeon, as a specialist in endo. He was the one who really spotted that and advocated for me. Boom, immediately had surgery and then got diagnosed with stage four endometriosis. I didn't even know it had stages back then, but it does, and stage four's the worst. I had the worst you can have. Even after surgery, we were dealing with infertility before that and after—so secondary infertility. We were told after the first surgery it kind of clears things out so that hopefully you can get pregnant again, and we kept trying and trying and nothing. So that was very, very difficult. A lot of grief—that long, stretched-out grief—and anxiety around that. Within that same year, I had another cyst that was even larger. So then I had to go back into another surgery. I was told I might have ovarian cancer. Thank God I didn't, but immediately had surgery then. Meanwhile, all my friends are on their second, third, fourth baby, and so dealing with that. Then the third surgery came a year later and before that third surgery, my back gave out. I was actually in the middle of writing a book for Moody Publishers on the love of God. I was enjoying myself, too, because I was studying, "Oh man, this is so cool. I love what I'm writing. I love what I'm learning." Mysteriously, just in the middle of the night, this pain came from the back, the mid-back area, wrapped around to my ribs, to my chest, and then it traveled up to my neck to where every time I would inhale, it felt like someone was stabbing my lungs. I was so confused because I had not done some crazy exercise or anything like that. It was just a regular day. I had to go to the ER and this was during COVID protocols, so my husband was with me in the ER when they were like, "It's good you came because your heart's producing excess troponin and there could be some cardiac issue going on. Also, there might be a blood clot. Also, do you have a living will? Have you signed..." It was just boom, boom, boom. My body shaking, I'm just thinking, "Am I going to be able to see my daughter ever again? Will she ever see me again?" And then they're like, "We're going to bring you upstairs and your husband can't come. So we're just going to monitor you and do all these tests." That brush with potential death was really traumatic and really big for us as a family in 2021. Really I thought that was going to be like a two-week thing. It ended up being a year and a half, almost two years of debilitating back pain. On a good day, it was four out of ten pain. On a typical day, it was about six or seven out of ten pain. On my worst days with flare-ups, it'd be eight or nine out of ten pain. I'm taking way too many meds than anybody should be taking and trying to find—and you're a mom. Then going from doctor to doctor and being told, "Have you tried yoga?" Yes, I'm trying that. It's something way more severe. It was just mysterious chronic illness with the back. Going into last year, 2022, my health was just in shambles and we were just not able to carry the load of trying to bring my daughter to school, trying to just do regular life stuff when I'm having chronic fatigue and chronic back pain. Then I developed these cysts even though I'm on meds for that. I'd had three surgeries at that point. We were just like, "We need to move. We need to move back home." So we came back to Orlando and I had my fourth final, Lord willing, surgery where they had to remove pretty much everything—ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix, uterus, all of that. I hope it's okay that I'm being very transparent with the specifics, but that was a massive decision because obviously we would have liked to have—if it were up to me—three, four kids. I love kids. I write kids' books. I love kids. But in God's providence, that's just how it happened. The surgery was successful, but now I'm working through the hormonal changes. It immediately puts you in menopause at age 33. I jokingly say to my aunt who's about to hit menopause, "If you need any advice, let me know."
Ann Wilson: But how did you end up writing these three children's books in the middle of all that?
Quina Aragon: I think the first one is really special because that came from a time in prayer. I was pregnant. This was "Love Made." Back then when I was pregnant, I didn't know I had any issues. I thought I was just a regular healthy person. Our pregnancy was a surprise. It was very shortly after we got married and we were like, "We'll wait two years." Boom, you're pregnant. I wrestled with that because I was like, "I'm not ready. I don't know if I'm mature enough to be a mom." I had this health issue in my pregnancy where I would bleed, and so we thought we lost the baby. We didn't. After all that, I was praying and thinking about the Trinity. I was just thinking about God being the Father, Son, and Spirit in this—not just the intellectual exercise of thinking about that, but just really delighting in the fact that God has lived in a community of love from before the foundation of the world. That blows my mind. They were in relationship. God is love as the Scripture says, and so thinking of creation as this overflow of joy within the Trinity, within the Godhead, that overflowed so that the creatures of the world and humans especially can experience that love and be enveloped into that love. As I was praying about these things, in my brain it connected somehow to marriage and pregnancy and how would I explain creation to my daughter, how would I explain the image of God to my daughter, and out came this poem in my journal.
Ann Wilson: It's beautiful.
Quina Aragon: Thank you. I had a friend who was pregnant at the same time as me in my neighborhood and at my church, and she asked me to do a poem for her baby shower. I was like, "I don't have a poem on kids because I've never had a kid. I can't do that." So I told her no, and then that same day as her baby shower, I wrote this poem. So I texted her and I was like, "Do you want me to just read it from my journal? I haven't memorized it." She's like, "Yeah, that's fine." So I did it and the whole room's crying at the end. So then I'm thinking maybe there's something to this piece. I asked my animator friend to make a YouTube video out of it. I did the voiceover and he did the animation, and then that's when it really gained traction and got picked up and eventually got published.
Ann Wilson: I can't wait to read this to our grandkids. It's beautiful. I love the concept of it, the illustrations. I feel like there aren't a lot of children's books that are reflecting the beauty of this kind of relationship.
Dave Wilson: I got to be honest, when I picked it up, I thought, "I won't read the whole thing, I'll skim it." I read the whole thing. I read all three sitting there on the couch. Hearing your story now, here's my thought. It may be totally wrong. You can't have biological children, but God's given you the gift of producing children, really, through these books. It's not over. You're going to continue to birth in a different way, beautiful children that are going to be impacted all over the world by what you write. I'm guessing there's a lot more to come.
Quina Aragon: Amen. Thank you for saying that.
Ann Wilson: Tell us about "Love Gave," which was the second one.
Quina Aragon: "Love Gave" basically just continues that storyline of the Bible in a simplified way, but in that same lyrical style, that same sort of Trinitarian lens of love. It explores the problem of sin and it uses this friendship paradigm to say, "Hey, God made us to be friends with him, but our sin gets in the way of that so that we can't be friends."
Dave Wilson: Why don't you read a couple of those pages right there?
Quina Aragon: Each book starts out the same, and the same line for all three books: "Before God made the heavens and the earth, he lived in perfect joy. He delighted in himself, one forever existing perfect being, Father, Son, and Spirit, all one." Each book has a different line right after that. In this case, in "Love Gave," it's: "In love, God made everything, even you and me. Now, he made us to be his friends, but we have a big, big problem. Do you know what it is?" Then it gives the kids a chance to go, "Oh, it's this or that." Then it's this big word "sin." And then it goes into Adam and Eve walk away from God in the Garden of Eden. So it introduces sin as this problem that keeps us away from God, that we can't be friends with him. Because kids, this kid I just met on the swings, he's my best friend now. Everything's about friendship at that time.
Ann Wilson: It's the Gospel.
Quina Aragon: It is. The Gospel is the story of friendship. It talks about sin, but then it also brings in Jesus as this friend of sinners and this friend of children—that he received them as they were, and that what we can do to be friends with God now is really based off of what God did for us. So it's this idea that love—God is love—and love loved so much that love gave us Jesus. That's another line that's repeated in all three books—that God is love and love loved so much [blank]. So in "Love Gave," it's that love gave us Jesus that all we have to do is believe in him and trust in him to be friends with him again. Then this last book, of course, "Love Can."
Dave Wilson: You're going to have to read them all?
Ann Wilson: We could do story time!
Dave Wilson: I know, but I love this one. A story of God's superpower helper.
Quina Aragon: "Love Can" introduces the power of the Holy Spirit using that superhero superpower theme. I love the superpower of love, but it's a little bit subversive in terms of the way that the culture, our culture, thinks about superpower. So most kids' books and stories and even superhero stories are all about how you are the superhero and you have the superpower just within yourself. "Love Can" is trying to tell kids, "Listen, we don't have that power to love like Jesus all by ourselves. We need a superpower helper." Guess what Jesus promised his disciples before he left? He said, "I'm going to leave you with a superpower helper so that you can experience God's love for you and you could show God's love to other people, even when it's hard. Even when you have to wait in line or you have to share your toys or you have to forgive when that boy said something mean to you." For grownups, we need that reminder as well that this parenting thing, this mentoring thing, this whatever season of life we're in, we don't have the power just from our own resources to be able to love like God or to love like Christ, or even to experience the love of God. But love loved so much that love came to live in us. That's the line in "Love Can." That we can love too because of God. The title for this last one, I remember before I knew I had to write a third book and I wanted it to be about the Holy Spirit. I wasn't sure. I was like, "Love does," "Love this." It was the day that my grandmother passed away. My whole family was there in hospice and my cousin and I pulled away to get a breather at one point, my older cousin Marusha, and she said, "What about 'Love Can'?" I was like, "Of course." All the light bulbs went off in my head and I was like, "Yep, that's it." It's just amazing how death and pain was juxtaposed with the birthing of this idea for this book, that "Love Can."
Ann Wilson: Quina, you are remarkable. I think it's a great reminder for all of us that even in the midst of our pain, our journey, God still is using us. He'll make a dent where we're sent. I love that you haven't given up, that you've continued to persevere, that you've continued to follow Jesus even when it's been difficult. You've had a rough road at times, as we all do at times, but thank you for giving us your heart, for giving God all of your gifts so that he can use them. You're remarkable.
Quina Aragon: Praise God. Thanks to the Holy Spirit.
Dave Wilson: We had a great time with Quina Aragon today. She's got the three kids' books: "Love Made," "Love Gave," and "Love Can." You want to get them for your kids or maybe for one of your friends' kids. You can get your copies right now by clicking the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com. We're going to have Quina back tomorrow.
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