Welcome new friends from recent speaking engagements at Camp Berea, Victory Life and Lake Forest! So glad you have you here! I send a little encouragement monthly(ish)--hope it's helpful to you! Real Talk with Nicole. Let's be real together in this wonderful, beautiful, difficult thing we call life. Lots of time on my feet to prep for the upcoming Marathon with Revelation Wellness Walking can be a spiritual discipline of its own. I would love to say that I'm a person who does well with "quiet...
5 months ago • 5 min read
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. -St. Francis of Assisi A life unedited is a cluttered life. We pick up all kinds of things: relationships, priorities, obligations, joys, sorrows. We layer and layer until we feel overwhelmed, overburdened and underwater. This is not reason for alarm; but it is reason for attention. Over the decades, I've often found myself yearning for spaces of rest and reset, while knowing full well that the idea of a perfectly...
10 months ago • 2 min read
I've been thinking about my relationship to the dark. "Relationship" might feel like a strange word to use to describe light (or the absence of it) but it's the best word I can find to name something as dynamic as a word that describes a moment in time as well as a snapshot of our soul. The dark allows us to sleep, to quiet, to rest. But also--the dark can be a lonely place. It can be a frightening place. Many things that might feel innocent in the light become ominous in the dark. Once I was...
over 1 year ago • 5 min read
If today's message speaks to you, you might enjoy receiving messages weekly. You can sign up here! and unsubscribe anytime. I had one of the most disconcerting dreams. I was standing in front of a massive trash dump. photo cred: Vice In the dream, I was throwing all kinds of important and personal things into the trash heap, and I heard a voice behind me say "this is what it's like to spend your time on social media. It may be wonderful and beautiful things, but it's still landing in a...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
"For it is God who works in you to will and act according to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:13 I sense we are all a little (a lot?) tired. It's not the kind of tired that can be fixed with a cup of tea or a nap; not even the kind of tired that can be remedied with a vacation -- although we wouldn't turn down either. The kind of tired I'm talking about is a sort of weariness; an overwhelm; that feeling you get if you've even been lost and then become really, really tired of being...
almost 2 years ago • 2 min read
J Friends, my heart is heavy with what feels like the nonstop tragedy cycle. Our lives are full of wars and rumors of wars; natural disasters, school shootings, mental health crises--tragedies near and far. What do we do? How do we engage? What must we pray? In the light of all that is heavy and hard right now, I offer you this article with light edits that I wrote immediately after the Newtown shootings on December 14, 2012--when a gunman killed 20 children and six educators. Today, we kneel...
almost 2 years ago • 4 min read
Our stories have power. I took this picture during a conversation with my spiritual director this month. It was the perfect picture of how unexpected seasons have felt in my own story--a path with an uncertain length and an unknown destination. It feels like these unexpected seasons are fraught with danger--how will we handle grief, change, loss of identity, suffering? But they are also a holy invitation: to allow God to undo, release, and renovate our hearts in ways that bring us into his...
over 2 years ago • 1 min read
Our stories have power. I took this picture during a conversation with my spiritual director this week. It was the perfect picture of how unexpected seasons have felt in my own story--a path with an uncertain length and an unknown destination. It feels like these unexpected seasons are fraught with danger--how will we handle grief, change, loss of identity, suffering? But they are also a holy invitation: to allow God to undo, release, and renovate our hearts in ways that bring us into his...
over 2 years ago • 1 min read
Hey friends! Wanted to share a special opportunity to stock up on Christmas gifts! From now through Dec 3rd, take advantage of the following fun deals, as a little thank you for hanging with me this year. Discount code for my newsletter fam! Enter CHRISTMAS20 for 20% off your entire order. The Miracle Moment Christmas Bundle: $25 (regularly $34) Bundle includes The Miracle Moment book, The Participant's Guide, and a set of 4 original artwork notecards for the important relationships in your...
over 3 years ago • 1 min read