If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?
“You’ll get here, just hold on.”
To a place of surrender, peace, less stress, and more joy. Better direction. More writing. More books. Much more bravery and adventure.
A life of simplicity, fruitfulness, and purpose.
A life that is full.
What is one word that describes you?
Persevering
Endearing
A take-it-one-day-at-a-time kind of gal
Loving and accepting,
But I take no nonsense, pal
I’m imperfectly human,
Yet faithful, and my heart is sincere
On a mission to live from a healed version of me
More and more each year
I am not strong,
But God’s grace helps me endure
The world is chaotic,
But my heart still cradles hope
It allows me to embrace each new day
And intentionally cope
I am resilient,
Like a flower coming back to life in the spring
I am awakening,
Excited for what God in these next seasons will bring
Persevering,
Yet learning when to be still
To trust God
And allow my nervous system to be steady and chill
To rest,
To thrive,
And not just survive
To rise again each day
And surrender to God’s will and way
To take it one day at a time
To learn, to be present,
To stop and smell nature’s perfume in the air, hear the cheerful birds,
see life all around, and feel God’s care
Persevering is one word to describe me—
Even after seasons of deafening despair and fear
Each day,
No matter what,
I choose to be here
Share five things you’re good at.
1. Overthinking. Wait, should I even; no, let me continue. 🤔🧐🤯🥴
2. Overlisting. A gang of to do’s and goals listed in my phone’s notepad or physical notebooks. 🗒✔️
3. Overworking. And if not working, then planning. 😏
4. Overstimulating myself trying to multitask. Try working with students and trying to stay attentive in a virtual training at the same time. Yes that was me the other day. 🙃
5. Overwatching the same old tv shows or letting them watch me. I always end up falling asleep. 📺
I am good at these, but working to be bad at them.
Signing out,
Tannika Nikeya
What are you doing this evening?
I’m charged up and ready to write! This evening, while I fast tv, I am going to do some reading (just a bit) and writing (just a lot). I am excited because after having experienced writer’s block in my writing journey, lately, I have been flowing. God has graced me to crank out either a blog post here or a poem or song there. And now I’m back to writing short stories.
Oh, I forgot to mention: I will be writing while eating some Chinese food. My favorite are Shrimp Egg Foo Young and Shrimp Fried Rice.
I am additionally working on new pieces for a new series titled Persevere and an additional collaborative series with my bestie titled P’osies Cafe.
So stay tuned!
What’s your favorite recipe?
I love cooking and baking. While I’ve made everything from cheese biscuits to cheesecake, my absolute favorite and easiest dessert to make is my banana pudding. I’ve been making it since my early college years, and it has become a delicious and reliable staple in my life.
It’s my go-to dish for any church or family gathering. I even made it for my cousin’s wedding, and it was such a hit that it disappeared almost instantly.
What’s funny is that even though it’s always a crowd-pleaser, my siblings still ask me if I put bananas in it. The secret? Most of the time, I do—I just blend them in so they don’t see them! I also add cream cheese and Cool Whip for extra richness. While I don’t make it entirely from scratch (I do use instant vanilla pudding), the combination of a dash of vanilla extract and a whole lot of care and compassion makes another delicious bowl for the people I love.
Recently, my other new favorite dessert to make is fudge brownies. I love chocolate brownies, and I think from now on, I am going to stick to making my own. I baked a batch from scratch the other night, and my mom said they were my best yet. I’m so excited that I finally perfected the recipe!
I’m even working on a Google Doc to share with my sisters, who sometimes call my mom and me for recipes. I’ll probably share my full brownie and banana pudding recipes here soon, too.
For now, I encourage you to find a dish or two you can perfect and share. There’s nothing like a meal made with love to bring people together.
Are you seeking security or adventure?
I am seeking continual healing. As I mentioned before, healing is a process and an ongoing journey. And healing isn’t just for your body, but for your mind, your heart, your spirit, your finances, and your relationships. And I want healing to permeate every area of my life.
Healing is crucial to have a clear mind, light heart, and a different outlook that allows you to respond from a healed place, not from a place of pain, projection, or fear.
And I am seeking security. When you are healed or continually healing, you feel more secure. Security or feeling secure pertains to feeling safe and having certainty, soundness, and stability.
Like many women, and due to my own trauma, I want to feel secure. But to be honest, I will assume that all human beings, male or female, want to feel safe and sound. I want to feel safe and not just physically. I want to feel safe to be myself and express my heart. I want a stable future. I’m not aiming to always be in survival mode but in thriving mode.
“I am seeking security and healing… and adventure will follow. Life is an unfolding adventure, and I choose to walk it whole.”
– Tannika Nikeya
And so I am seeking security and healing. And I am taking the necessary steps for such. Acknowledge pain, sin, and fears. Seeking counsel and taking accountability. Setting boundaries and learning to enforce them. Doing the work to create the life God and I approve of. Healing my finances and allowing God to also heal my heart. I’m getting my affairs in order as the saying goes. This is all healing homework.
And with the healing journey and our preparations for the future and making things right in the present comes adventure. Adventure will tag along through every lesson, blessing, ups and downs, storms, setbacks, revelations, memories, and moments. Life is one big adventure, and I pray grace for us to all to trust God, grow, heal, learn to pivot and persevere, and live life to the fullest.
What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
I wrote this some time ago, but it answers this question just fine.
My Poem
I don’t want it all
I just want what’s for me
And I want the strength, wisdom, and resilience
To handle all of it gracefully.
Written by Tannika Nikeya (c) 2025
AI-generated image by ChatGPT
What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
Today, I decided to take off from work to rest and allow myself to grieve. I recently lost my furbaby and cousin. And this season has seemed, if not the most difficult, the most straining.
However, when I saw today’s prompt, the answer immediately came and I had to respond.
“What’s the oldest thing I am wearing today?”
my skin
and my scars
In my body dwells my spirit, and my body is covered with my skin. I wear my skin daily. It has been with me since I was in my mother’s womb. Unfortunately, some parts of my skin have scars, and so does my soul.
My skin and my scars have plenty of testimonies from trials, tests, and time. So, I try to care for my skin with not just cleaning and lotion, but with God’s Word and promises.
I have a lot of scars: some are visible, and some are not. But they will not be despised. Some have healed. Others will heal and become less visible over time. And, some will remain visible but remind me that I am human. These scars will also remind me that I overcame and persevered with God’s grace and love.
Tannika Nikeya
AI-generated image by ChatGPT
Why do you blog?
Here are seven reasons why I blog:
4. To encourage others to take one day at a time along their journey of life and healing.
6. To get used to using my voice.
5. To remind myself and others who struggle with anxiety or even depression to rest, persevere, and hold on to God to get you through the fight.
7. Lastly, I blog because it allows me to let my hair down a bit. And whether I am blogging about beautiful moments in nature and around me I have taken with my camera or blogging what I learned from spending time reading my Bible while sitting down to a cup of hot water, honey and lemon, I can express it freely with my writing.
Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.
Faithful
One thing I hope people say about me is that I am authentic. And I hope people continually say what people have said about me and to me. That it is easy to share things with me or talk with me. I am trustworthy. They can count on me.
That Part
However, I am reaching that part of my life where concerning myself with what people think needs to hang out the window by a thread or be my view from across the street, and not my focus. Worrying about what others think can cost you living life and cost you your peace. Their opinions will be louder than God’s perspective and wisdom. You may be giving, trustworthy and serving like myself but mix people pleasing, anxiety, overthinking, and some unhealed factors into the mix, things can go haywire, and one can suffer unnecessarily as well as your authenticity can dwindle. So, be humble as well as chew the meat and spit out the bones of others’ opinions and advice. Heal and grow, and don’t worry about what others think. But do be authentic and do be kind.
Proverbs 29:25 MSG
[25] The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.
The Healing Continues
So, I will now spend more time practicing what I say to myself. What do I hope I say about myself? And last but not least, what do I hope Jesus has to say about me.
WJWS, I Pray
What Jesus will say, I pray…
“Oftentimes, she was afraid. She even stumbled, but she persevered with my grace and love. She overcame. Well done, good and faithful servant.“
Philippians 4:6-9 NLT
[6] Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. [7] Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. [8] And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. [9] Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Tannika Nikeya 