NIKI FLORICA

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

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

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

We already know that getting through this life with our faith intact means eternal life, joy, and ecstasy in heaven. But God doesn't just da

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

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

Yesterday I spent my Christmas morning at the vet clinic, saying goodbye to my well-beloved and precious little guinea pig, Truffle. It was a rough morning. Lots of tears. We brought our piggy home in a box, indisputably a pretty awful Christmas present, but since it's Thankful Thursday I thought I would endeavour to count some of the blessings Truffle brought us. My personal first and only pet, Truffle/Buba was perfect for my family—a vanilla piggy with chocolate-dipped chee

This weekend I heard the story of a courageous young woman who has battled unimaginable health issues for more than six years. Her story, though painful and riddled with periods of fear and doubt, is a triumphant testament to the goodness of God. In her words, “God is real, and He is good.” There were so many ways in which her testimony touched me, so many facets of her story that blew me away. How did she find courage when the pain seemed to have no end? How did she keep pra

There are times when doing good feels easy. When going the extra mile is a pleasure, and brightening someone's day is an exciting mission that brightens our own in the process. When doing something good, thinking of someone else before ourselves, feels more like a privilege than a challenge and comes with a tidy blessing to top it off. Obviously, those times are great. I wish I could say it's always easy to put myself aside, but it's not. Sometimes when I'm faced with the opp