NIKI FLORICA

I think it would alarm me if I actually knew how much time I spend with my head down, watching the road ahead of me. On walks, I barely see the sky. The trees are shadows in my periphery. If birds are singing, I don't hear them through the whirlwind of thoughts in my head. The benefit of keeping your head down is focus. Your eyes are on the road ahead—on the prize, if you would, on where you want to go. You're watching your feet—choosing the best steps forward, avoiding any p

There is always a degree of discomfort in coming up against opinions that differ from our own. It's natural—and perfectly human—to bristle just a little when our perspectives are challenged by someone with a different point of view. It can also be extremely healthy. Especially in the context of spiritual discussion, where God may use us to sharpen each other's understanding or push us in certain directions. I'm very thankful for the biblical fellowship I've been blessed enoug

For the past few weeks, sitting down to blog has felt like staring at a solid wall and trying to see through it. And no, I'm not referring to writer's block, though I've certainly experienced enough of that. The wall I have in mind is worse—taller, thicker, uglier, and stationed squarely between me and God. We often think of Satan as a master destroyer, but in many ways, he's a master craftsman as well. He carves beautiful idols for us to worship, forges weapons to use agains

I don't normally let more than a week slide by between posts, but I don't normally let myself off the hook in general, so this could be a good thing, couldn't it? It's been a busy few weeks and, aside from a pile of assignments, the pressures of AuthorTube, work, my attempts at a social life (go, introverts!), and National Novel Writing Month, I've also reached a fork in the road. In many ways, I feel that God may be calling me to course-correct my post-secondary education, w

There's a quote in the film, God's Not Dead: "It's not easy, but it's simple." The "it," if I remember correctly, refers to doing the right thing, to walking the Christian walk even when it becomes difficult. And though it may seem like a case of semantic gymnastics, this line always stayed with me. How often do we make the decisions in our lives so complicated—tangled with rationalizations and hidden motives and justifications and catastrophizing—until we really believe that

"I pull you close to me when this life cuts deep But when everything gets easy it's easy not to keep you first." (Riley Clemmons, "When Nothing Hurts") I wish I could take credit for these incredible lyrics, but I can own the fact that they are as true for me as if I wrote them myself. Last night, after a particularly stupid mistake by yours truly, I lay in bed desperately trying to stop obsessing about how I could have acted differently. I had made a poor judgment call and c

It's a bad time to have a cold. Not that there's ever a great time, but, well . . . y'all know what I mean. I don't get sick often, but when I do, apparently my body doesn't mess around. I spent the night with a kleenex nose-ring (bull-style) and got up at four to do some early morning reading when my bed made it clear that we were mortal enemies. We've all been there, right? It's not fun, but there are worse things. It gives me pause to consider the people in the world, in t

Crazy week, folks. Craaaazy week. Second-year has just begun and already there just aren't enough hours in the day; writing and AuthorTube and the blog are still vying for attention; my TBR is rapidly growing and my time for pleasure-reading is rapidly shrinking, and you know what the worst part is? My God-time is under attack. I'm probably not the only one fighting this constant battle against busyness in which God-time is usually one of the first casualties. I dedicate the

I bombed my first driver's test. And, no, before you say, "Oh, I failed, too!" believe me when I say that mine was probably worse. In fact, I'm almost 100% sure. It's okay, I've accepted it . . . mostly. Failure was not something I was overly accustomed to, and I don't say that with any kind of arrogance or conceit whatsoever! Academically speaking, I just always worked hard and saw good results, and generally speaking, I don't spend much free time doing things I'm not okayis

Yesterday I turned the last page of C.S. Lewis', Miracles. Maybe it's an English major thing, but trudging through Lewis' spiritual musings just gets me going, tickles my fancy, turns my crank if you would. Here's one I dog-eared (which is only acceptable in books of this nature: I'd NEVER do it to a novel): "But behind all asceticism (*basically just severe self-denial—think puritans*) the thought should be . . . Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control ev

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 can't imagine a bleaker point in history than the days between Christ's death and resurrection. If I were with Cleopas and his fellow traveler on the road to Emmaus that first Easter Sunday, they'd probably agree. I've never been to Emmaus. I couldn't tell you where to find it. It could have been a main road, a bustling place with lots of traffic where people could always be found, but I tend to imagine it on a more quiet scale. A less-traveled road to a backwater village,

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

Good ol' I Corinthians 13. Short and sweet and sharp as a dagger. Love is patient, love is kind, love doesn't envy, think highly of itself, think badly of others, seek its own welfare, misbehave, and here's the best part: every good work or spiritual skill is pretty much worthless without it. Let's be honest. It's a nice chapter and everything, but it's also a bit . . . overwhelming? I mean, who does all that? Who is patient and kind all the time, never envies or thinks highl

When you stop to count them, a TON of spiritual traits boil down to good ol' fashioned acts of will. Prayerfulness. Forgiveness. Thankfulness. Selflessness. Love. Even faith. We love to think of being inherently forgiving or prayerful or full of faith as if it just happens when we've been believers long enough. We look at those around us who excel in certain areas and say, "Well, So-and-So is just naturally forgiving. It's easy for her, much harder for me." We might even let

I had a rough day last week. A Thursday, but if we're being honest, I wasn't feeling very Thankful. Some new-ish responsibilities at work were killing me: I wanted to nail it and instead felt as if I'd spent the entire shift in anxiety overdrive and still managed to be less than flawless in my execution. I was so rattled and discouraged, tears were flowing by the time the car pulled into my driveway. Now, with the same shift looming on the other side of tonight, I'm tempted t

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

Perspective is a gift. God knew we couldn't handle the full, grandiose scope of everything He's doing in our lives, so he gave us limited sight. A piece of the puzzle—our small, incomplete, but seemingly all-consuming perspectives of life. They're a gift in that we are not crushed by the overwhelming weight of the big picture, but Satan can use that gift and twist it to his advantage as well. C.S. Lewis' Screwtape talks about time as a spiritual thing. The present is where ti

I recently saw a post that said something along the lines of, "Be the best at whatever you do," and it struck me as slightly far-fetched. How can we all be the best at our jobs? Wouldn't it be more realistic to strive for hard-working, dependable, competent? Maybe. But it reminds me of our objective as followers of Christ, who very specifically instructs us to "be perfect" as God is perfect. Rest assured, Christ knows this goal is eons beyond our reach. We are innately flawed

Lost, chained, a fool, or at wit's end. Which one are you? Try finding yourself in the spectrum of Psalm 107's desperate people. Are you the lost soul wandering the wilderness, nowhere to go, hungry but not sure what for, craving a feeling of belonging? Are you the one who sits in deepest gloom, in chains of your own making? Are you the fool who turned your back on God, marched to the beat of your own drum, and now stand at death's door, crying out for help? Are you the sailo