NIKI FLORICA

Maybe this goes without saying, but isn't negativity the worst? I mean, you're just rolling along, enjoying God's grace and goodness, and someone just can't help trying to bring you down. Grumbling. Complaining. Poking holes in everything good. Sometimes we can resist that gravity, buoyed by thankfulness and love for the Lord. But sometimes, thankfulness isn't enough to keep us floating. Negativity is contagious, and the grumbling of others, more often than not, can drag us d

All right, y'all, who watched The Chosen Christmas Special on Sunday? If you did, please accept my fist bump through your computer screen. If you didn't—well. It's worth a watch. Powerful, beautiful stuff. In addition to stunning musical numbers and an excellent Christmas episode, several of the actors from The Chosen cast performed monologues on the names of God throughout redemptive history. Ironically, it was Judas Iscariot's (or rather, Luke Dimyan's) words that packed th

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

Christianity asks us to do a really hard thing when it comes to how we feel about ourselves. On one hand, we need to be brutally honest. The key to, well, everything is looking at ourselves with truth-coloured glasses and acknowledging all the brokenness that comprises us, which we alone can do nothing about. That key unlocks Jesus, because only when we truly acknowledge what we are can we give ourselves fully to him, ask for his help to make us something different. After tha

Sometimes I feel like a Lost Girl. Like I took a wrong turn at the second star on the right and ended up a thousand miles from Neverland, in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out if I'm where I'm supposed to be or if I'm supposed to course-correct and if so, where to? I've never heard God's voice giving me GPS directions. Some people have, and I think that's an incredible blessing, but it just hasn't been my experience. Looking back on the past few years, an outsider lo

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

trodden: walked on . . . crush[ed] or flatten[ed] with the feet . . . pressed down into the ground. (Google) Who's feeling pressed down today? How about crushed? Flattened? Walked all over? Is your hand up? Hey, no shame. Mine is, too. Satan has been hard at work in me this week, stirring up struggles I just want to be done with but can't seem to shake, especially when I'm too tired to fight back. Relating? Jesus talks about the downtrodden in the parable of the sower, Luke 8

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

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

Want to hear a secret? Just kidding—it's not really a secret. I'm a smidge of a pessimist. Just kidding—it's more than a smidge. I think it stems from my fear of being caught unprepared for an emotional blow; I hate having hopes dashed or high expectations crushed. I hate being let down, so my subconscious coping mechanism is to lower my expectations on all fronts so I can't be disappointed. The problem? It also makes it much, much harder to get excited. School starts tomorro

Imagine this. You have a dream about something you've been dreading. It goes badly. You screw up, or the whole shebang goes south in the most drastic way. It's a worst-case scenario as it can only be in dreams. Then you wake up and realize—DEEP BREATH—it was just a dream. Maybe you've already done the dreaded thing, or maybe circumstances have changed and spared you from that fate. Either way, what follows is that inevitable feeling of gratitude flooding every sense and tingl

Surprise—I'm still here! Although normally I try to post blogs even while I'm on vacation, this year, I decided to give myself a break for a week of rest and relaxation in Northern Ontario. The time away was such a blessing, y'all: I even scratched some new items off my never-done-before list, INCLUDING swimming in black, weedy water infested by living creatures. Be proud of me. There are a few topics I could delve into for this post, but one in particular stood out to me whi

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." Matthew 7:24. I always thought this verse was a bit redundant—a case of saying the exact same thing twice. The message seems clear enough: only serve God. But why frame it this way? Why the repetition? One of my favourite things about the Word of God is how very alive it is. I've read this verse countless times in my life and never dug an

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

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