NIKI FLORICA

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 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

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

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

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

Don't you just love it when your daily devotion reaches out to slap you in the face? I certainly do. Well, mostly. Some of the time. It kind of depends on the slap. Sometimes a spiritual message targeted to what we're going through can be incredibly encouraging. Other times, that bible verse, song lyric, or line from a devotional is a hard wake-up call we need, but don't necessarily want. In both cases is evidence of God's intimate involvement in our lives, but if you ask me,

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary ... It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't ... you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” Why did I choose

One thing I've been awful at since day one—discerning God's will when I don't know how to move forward. Especially in the publishing world, there are so many avenues an aspiring author can take, each with its own pros and cons. There are gazillions of advice websites, how-to-publish books, and social media accounts to get totally lost in. There are horrible, horrible odds of success when it comes to traditional publishing, specifically. And there are stakes, too—high ones, in

Anyone who's watched High School Musical or the Teen Beach Movie or any such Disneylicious teen drama know that at some point or another, the heroes and heroines always get hung up on the idea of the future. I never got it before. I mean, I've seen High School Musical a bajillion times and for years, Troy and Gabriella's anxiety about the future never resonated with me like it does now. Because now, I find myself where they are—older, actually, which is too terrifying to even

I don't abide by everything in my psychology course, but here's a fun fact (at least as I understand it): between ages 15 and 25, the limbic system of the human brain is maturing more rapidly than surrounding sections. The result? Until roughly age 25, we tend to be ruled by our emotions. I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Psychologist is talking about me. What rules you? Is it your goals? Your logic? Your morals? Your personality? Or is it your emotions? Th

I think it's fairly safe to say that we've all had expectations drenched in a cold wave of reality. Human beings are creative. We're blessed with vast imaginations that allow us to envision our dreams in vivid ways, but unfortunately, those dreams and expectations are a bit like chalk on a driveway—pretty to look at on a sunny summer day, but quick to melt into streaky asphalt as soon as it starts to rain. It's a miserable feeling. Watching something we imagined, anticipated,

A day or so ago, I entreated heaven for clarity. I've struggled for a long time with the desire to use my passions for the Lord, but my preconceived notions of what that should look like have been and are getting in the way. I prayed for God to speak to me, to show and tell me the path I should be following and how I should move forward—if I'm to move forward at all, or else wait on more specific direction. Clarity can come in a single overwhelming downpour. Other times, it c

It's National Novel Writing Month, and I'm a roiling blend of nerves and excitement and dreams of a finished product by the end of one month. And "dreams" is probably the right word—the chances of me actually writing a 50 000-word manuscript in 30 days are slim, but all the same, it's an exciting time of year, and my first time doing a November NaNoWriMo project. Over the past few months, writing has been difficult for me. My WIP series has hit some roadblocks I didn't antici

It's interesting how we can petition the Lord for help with something, and then when He gives us the boost we need, we assume we can handle

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

If there's one message I've heard God whispering to my heart this summer, it has been to slow down, rest in Him, and wait—a difficult instruction in light of my perpetual compulsion to be perpetually productive. On vacation, I made the decision to take a break from writing, which meant going an entire week without plotstorming, character sketching, or story-weaving of any kind. I thought it would be painful, but I was amazed by how absolutely liberating it was. So much so tha

Tackling new or overwhelming undertakings in our lives can be exciting, but it can also be laden with baggage—fear and uncertainty, doubt an

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

I've been reading through the book of Acts, and while it's impossible not to be inspired by the passion of the first Christians, I've also found myself struggling. Not with the message or the dedication of the apostles, but with the discrepancy between their time and ours. With the fiery presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives—the filling of the Holy Ghost that takes place so often in Acts and brings forth incredible fruits of repentance and salvation. I had to look at mys