NIKI FLORICA

Yesterday marked my first trip to campus in a few weeks, and I was reluctant to go. Having mostly online classes allows me to stay within the precious comfort zone (population: 1) but it also means that when I do need to venture into the unknown, every time feels like the first time. Maybe I should move to the moon. As I parked my car and prepared for the trek across campus, I kept one train of thought in a loop on my head, a rolling tape of a conversation I'd had the night b

The moment I saw this Hebrew phrase on the page of Mark 7, I knew I had to blog about it. I knew because I felt called out by it. Challenged. Convicted. Commanded. Compelled. Eph'pha-tha. That is, Be opened. (Mark 7:34). The past year and a half has been a time of closed stores and closed doors, and many people have struggled with feeling closed-off because of it. I must confess, I can't relate. Lockdown has been, to me, permission to stay in my comfort zone without interrupt

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 talked last week about the human will. Well, I'm still talking about it. In Luke 18, Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. It was near the end of his ministry and he knew what that meant as well as we do now. On his way, a blind man heard him coming and called out to him for mercy. Now, I'm sure that you and I could figure out what the blind man wanted from Jesus, let alone Jesus himself. Did he need to be told that the poor man wanted sight? Probably not. I don't think that's a stre

Some people have the gift of giving gifts. One of my O&Ds (oldest and dearest) has proved it time and time again, most recently when she gave me the beautiful **Cinder-themed** candle featured in this post's photo. Chatting about it, we both agreed that gift-giving should be a thoughtful art. A gift for the sake of a gift means very little, while a gift given with thought for the recipient's personality is almost always meaningful. The same rules apply to our intangible gifts

I can happily say that my new favourite show is officially The Chosen—not only marked by quality acting, sweet costumes, killer screenwriting, and loveable characters, but also featuring Jesus. Yeah, that's right. Jesus. Need I say more? As far as cinematic Jesus depictions go, The Chosen paints my favourite picture. Unlike in the original Ben-Hur film, he is not a faceless figure who floats through scenes on strings of otherworldly music. And, unlike in the film version of T

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

While sifting through blog ideas this morning, I came across one line in my daily devotion and knew I had found my Monday Musing. "Although you may feel as if you are going nowhere in this world, your spiritual journey is another matter altogether, taking you along steep, treacherous paths of adventure." ~Sarah Young, Jesus Calling Interestingly enough, my thoughts were running along these lines at church yesterday, comparing my spiritual journey to my efforts as a writer, an

There are some stories we fancy we know so well that we don't bother to pick up the book—and for a long time, for me, that was The Pilgrim's Progress. It wasn't until a recent book thrifting excursion, when I found a stunning cloth-bound edition, that I finally set out to follow Christian on his pilgrimage to the Celestial City from beginning to end, once and for all! I'd been putting it off for years, and having experienced different versions of it (from storybook renditions

Passion is a difficult one. I understand the struggle, and I'm by no means past it. But if your passion is in the puppy years, like mine,

God is so much bigger than I've always known, and He's beginning to show Himself to me in ways I hadn't imagined before. I and people in my life are seeing miracles, feeling true Spirit-filled convictions, hearing God's will with a clarity I'd only groped for before. God hasn't changed, so I know it must be me. My perception of God's power has grown, and the more I believe He can do, the more He does. Yesterday, I needed to make a choice—a choice between acting or waiting. I

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

The past couple years have been hard for me. I'm sure they've been hard for you, too. We're all going through something, hiding it behind "o

The past few months have taught me a lot about myself—for one thing, that I spend way, way too much time in my own head. Novel-writing is my passion, but it can be an all-consuming one, and once it reaches that point, I usually start to feel it. It's the same with any task, any undertaking. As long as my physical goals are kept in perspective and balanced with my spiritual life, things feel manageable. I have God's peace with me, His Presence beside me, and they keep my goals

To indulge, by definition, is to "allow oneself to enjoy the pleasure of" something. And it really can be anything. We tend to think of it in terms of chocolate or entertainment, but the rules are much broader than that. In fact, we can indulge in things that, on the surface, may seem completely unpleasant. Self-hatred is one of them. In a recent Sarah Young devotion on judging, I was struck hard with a warning against "indulg[ing] in self-hatred." It may seem counter-intuiti

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

Peace comes from Christ. It's not something we can manufacture for ourselves, though we still must be proactive and cooperative with God's w

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

Jesus ... can take the tattered scraps of truth we brought to that flopped conversation, and use them to plant a seed in that person ...

“Now, Son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them from me.” ~Ezekiel 33:7 Ezekiel was among the many people of Judah taken into captivity by the Babylonian Empire. I'd imagine he was in a pretty rough emotional place, lamenting the loss of his former life, the destruction of his homeland, and the enslavement of his people. But God had plans for Ezekiel, and chose him to receive something extremely valuable: th