NIKI FLORICA

Ideas. Why is that such a scary word? Don't get any ideas. She's been filling her head with ideas. I think sometimes we forget that life is a process—a never-ending progression of ideas—and that living in this world means exposure to all kinds of them, just as living with Christ means being changed by the ideas he brought into the world when he came. I've lived most of my Christian life on the defensive. I knew what I believed and when I came against something that contradict

I'm usually pretty good at laughing at myself. You know, when the stakes are low. When things get stressful, though, and nobody else is laughing? Yeah, that kills my good humour. The past couple of months have marked a struggle to build competence in what I do. New tasks are always daunting, but new tasks along with the weight of dozens of people's expectations are crippling for someone like me. I wish I could say I'm a cauldron of confidence, but that would be a bald-faced l

Job training is no one's idea of a good time. All the uncertainty and awkwardness, the stupid mistakes, the overlooked details, the insecurity of comparing ourselves to the seasoned workers around us, the waking up at seven a.m. thinking about those lemon squares you left in the fridge last night without dating them . . . As first-world problems go, it's got to be a top contender. On a small scale, it's a glimpse into a mechanism God uses to grow us in life. It's a time of de

Funny thing about toast—when you smell it, you want it. Ever notice that? I mean, there was a time when I would sooner eat dirt than toast, and I still can't deny its magical property of being appetizing in any and every context. It's just one of those things. Innately appealing, we need only to experience a whiff of it to crave it. Something in us just wants toast. What if I told you that Jesus and toast have a lot in common? See, the Word of God calls us to follow Jesus, bu

Squirrels get a bad rap. I know from experience—watching my family's ongoing bird-feeder vs. squirrel feud of feuds—but I can't help admiring their tenacity. Take my family's furry rival, for example. The bird food has switched branches, seen branches removed, been strung from the clothesline, from fishing wire, from the eaves, and the squirrel has always prevailed. Annoying as it is for those in my family who are not squirrel sympathizers, I happen to find it kind of awesome

Now, I typically don't write my Thankful Thursday posts at eight o'clock on Thursday night, but when life hands you lemons and a busy day, you make lemonade at your earliest convenience. So, here we are. I had a relatively unproductive 24 hours, all things considered—one of those days when every task seems to take an eternity and leaves you feeling utterly devoid of accomplishment. But in a way, I suppose that's just a matter of perspective. Our need to constantly operate at

Meet Dudley, Myrtle, and Rudy, the three happy snowmen mascots of this Thankful Thursday post. Technically, I should be studying for my final exam tomorrow, but thankfulness waits for no exam, and I think we could all use a reminder that there is always something to smile about, especially at this time of year. Christmas is in just over a week and I catch myself wondering how it's snuck up so fast. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all, and part of me is feeling that little p

I do not have a spontaneous bone in my body. I mean that in the most literal sense. I am not impulsive. I hate making decisions and usually go out of my way to leave the big ones up to other people, and most of my life happens within a comfortable status quo that I have no problem with 90% of the time. When the idea of a bob haircut first struck me, it was almost laughable. Inspired by one of my favourite characters from Marissa Meyer's The Lunar Chronicles, and later by anot

In our effort to have a relationship with God, to know Him and His Son on an intimate, personal level, I think there is a pitfall we often fall into—the trap of squeezing God into a little, buddy-shaped box. I'm no expert, but from where I'm standing, contemporary Christianity places a ton of emphasis on Jesus the Savior and Friend, but less on God the Righteous and Just Judge of the Universe. We have no problem going to Jesus with all our daily problems, or claiming him as o

I've always known what it's like to have Someone in my life who would never let me down. You'd think after all this time I'd figure out that He's the only one. I'm not a fast learner. No matter how many times I allow my trust to drop an anchor in worldly seas—in a friendship, a hobby, a passion, a person—I'm always left floundering when that anchor doesn't hold and God reminds me, once again, that He is the only one I can really, truly rely on. Maybe I don't appreciate that f

I feel like I've spent way too much of my life watching the clock. Despite my early enthusiasm for it, I realized quickly as a six-year-old that school was not my favourite place to be, and as soon as I learned to tell time, I imagine I spent a lot of classes doing just that. Watching that minute hand tick slowly, slowly toward the next period, the next bell, the next end of the day. It's a nasty habit that's followed me through all of elementary and high school, and now with

Earlier this week, I blogged about the inevitable reality that life is pain, and that we have only two options in that regard: to suffer, or to suffer with Christ. It's as true now as it was days ago, as it was months ago, as it was two thousand years ago . . . but that doesn't mean there aren't other facts of life that are equally true as well. Life is joy, for example. A contradiction? I think not. It's the kind of paradox that can only exist within the infinity that is God

As someone who is constantly on the hunt for clean fantasy, there's nothing quite like those "Eureka!" moments when I stumble on a gem. 2020 has been a fantastic year for reading, not only because I've had more time, but because I've been more deliberate in narrowing my search. In the past, my strategy has been to pick up popular fantasy titles, start reading, then abort when they failed to meet any kind of clean standard. A flawed system—not only because I was expecting a tr

Prayer works. Not always in the ways we expect, not always in the cookie-cutter outcomes we may look for, but God and His Holy Spirit are co

I must have been three, maybe four years old when I went with my grandparents to pick this adorable pup from its litter mates. Since that day, Cody was the dog I never had—the smiling face that met me on my grandparents' front porch, the ecstatic bark when we arrived for visits and the frantic one when we left. My grandparents' yearly vacation was a highlight of back-to-school time, when Cody would move in as a temporary resident and for one whole week, I could pretend that t

Despite the mountain of bookish research I could be doing at present, I'm taking a brief respite to enjoy this fine Thankful Thursday morning, and to draw a deep breath of gratitude before plunging into the grind. Have a stressful day ahead? Feel free to join me! I promise, it'll only take a minute. This week, I know exactly what I'm thankful for: unexpected encouragement and guidance from a new friend God brought into my life days ago. At a time of stress and confusion in wh

When time slows down, it gives us a breath to slow down with it and savour our circumstances. To look at the little things and see what we may otherwise have glossed over for lack of spare minutes, or for lives packed to maximum capacity. When time slows down, suddenly we have minutes in abundance. Suddenly we can spend time together doing nothing but being together; we can climb a tree or lay in the grass and stare up at the sky just thinking and praying and feeling God's Pr

Failure is one of the most unpleasant phenomenons to grip our world since Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. Whether magnanimous or minute, the feelings of worthlessness, disappointment, grief, pain, and guilt that so often accompany failure can be crippling . . . and damaging to our spiritual mindset. Failure has the power to distort. It can shrink the grand scope of life and inflate the tiny speck of one mistake, until all we see is the task we couldn't fulfill. Som

In the past, I've been pretty quick to judge the disciples for their lack of faith throughout the gospels. I mean, as Christians of today, we haven't seen Jesus in the flesh; we haven't witnessed his miracles or looked into his eyes or heard his voice speak our names, but the disciples had. Their relationship with Christ was tangible, visible, measurable. And yet, they still despaired and lost hope. Take the crucifixion for example. Jesus had warned the disciples on more than

What's our knee-jerk reaction when we hit an unforeseen bend in the road? When the teacher assigns that horrendously stressful group project, or a family member falls ill, or our plans for the future are altered by a drastic twist or turn of events? Option One: panic. Anxiety. Fear. In the face of uncertainty, human nature latches onto worst-case-scenarios and all the ways in which we are woefully unprepared. The spirit of fear would have us panicking, and I know for myself,