My name is Anna E. Portillo
Anna E. Portillo (MDiv, MABS, Reformed Theological Seminary -Charlotte) is a writer, wife of a church-planting pastor, and mother of four young children. She loves serving in the church with women, music, caring for others, and visioning what it looks like for the Kingdom of God to go forth. She has a particular love of helping others to read and know and hunger more for the Word of God, as the only source of life and truth.
Most importantly, Anna is a daughter of the King, learning slowly – often stubbornly – through joys and trials what it means to be on pilgrimage in a weary world, but with a Heavenly outcome, and accompanied by a Great Savior.
Anna developed a love of writing not for writing itself, but through a love of knowing and studying God’s Word in her years in seminary. Though masters’ degrees require writing, in seminary, she found that bringing the Truths of Scripture to bear on daily life through writing was life-giving. In times of dealing with chronic illness, suffering through loss, serving alongside her husband in ministry, and caring for women in and outside of the church, writing has become an outlet, a way of learning and expressing what the Lord is teaching her, prayerfully for the benefit of those who may read her words.
Anna’s greatest passion in writing is to help others – women, children, families, and whomever the Lord may bring to her works – to marvel at the grace and promises of God in His Word, to hunger more and more after His Words and His truth, more than anything that the world could offer.
From her own experience, and also through walking alongside others, she knows that it is easy for suffering, depression, loss, and cynicism to get in the way of trusting the Words of Scripture. Yet if the Lord has showed her anything in her years of learing to walk with Him, it is that He is the One who holds us fast, in the midst of our waivering, doubting, and faintly burning faith. The words of the prophet Isaiah hold true, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3, ESV). Her prayer is that the Lord will use her writing to help encourage others, and fan in the flame the faith of those who may feel like they are floundering.
May you find life, light, and truth in the words on this page – in the books and resources, along with the blog posts: not for anything in the words themselves, or in the person who authored them, but as they point You to the Lord and Savior, and Author of the Word of Life and Truth!
