The Struggle Is Real Quotes

“Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.[2]”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“The simple act of taking notice of everything bigger than you—the trees, the sun and moon, the rolling hills, the wide rivers—can shift your perspective off yourself and back onto the Creator.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Our awareness shifts from the world around us to the world we’ve created. Over time, it becomes dangerous to live only within the world we’ve created on a personal-sized screen.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“It takes only one person to change an entire family system. It takes only one person on the freedom cycle to affect everyone else. This change won’t be like transformation TV. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen without a struggle. There will be inevitable setbacks.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Imagine being described like this every day: “[Insert your name here] _____________ has an intact moral compass and is courteous and considerate of others, gentle and reasonable in decisions, full of compassion, unwavering and resolute, transparent and authentic.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“that every time we embrace the truth that God is greatest, and He knows best, we can become healthier.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Understanding what you bring to your family system helps shape your understanding of the particular joys and struggles you remember—and understanding your own temperament impacts the way you move forward with relationships today.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Your temperament is a huge part of who you are. This means that the way you experienced your family is hugely important to the way you understand life today.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Parenting is a delicate balance of convincing your kid they can do anything in life . . . while also screaming “Don’t do that!” every three minutes. UNKNOWN”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“God’s love without God’s truth will give you a distorted view of yourself and others.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“The opportunity to walk back in our stories with Jesus might present itself when a snapshot of a memory comes to mind and we invite Him to connect the way we feel today to any hurt from our past. It might mean taking an honest feeling (insecurity, anger, resentment, powerlessness) into God’s presence and allowing Him to uncover, rewrite, and release us from the power of a memory or pattern in our past.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Good living is the side effect of a transformed relationship with Christ. Dallas Willard says that a heart transformed by God creates people who live “in such a way that doing the words and deeds of Christ is not the focus but is a natural outcome.”[2]”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“means suspending our own reality and willingly choosing to see things God’s way.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“We find the good when we handle the four most important relationships on earth—our relationship with God, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the world at large—in the right way.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“God is not like a Dear Abby column. To actually seek His direction—fully, the way James describes here—will take a much more intentional approach. It will require more than just your desire and your faith—it will require your willful choice and action.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“If you want to get a different result out of life than you are currently getting, you are going to have to suspend your own understanding of reality for a time.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“think we are all conspiracy theorists when it comes to God. We find ourselves doubting His intentions when the story lines don’t make sense. When it comes to deciphering the world, our culture relies on logic and emotion, not on tradition or authority. Perhaps the most radical thing God could require of us is to believe what He says.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“sighed out a whispered help me prayer. “Help” prayers aren’t just about God showing us the way forward with decisions. Often my help prayers are more about grounding and direction: Help me understand me. Help me understand why this feels the way it does. Help me understand what this struggle is really about.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“I like to imagine us having this conversation on a great hike together when we come upon a break in the trail—a deep and muddy ditch in the middle of the path. I jump right into the ditch and am calling to you from the bottom. You are standing above, wondering why in the world anyone would jump in. It’s muddy and dirty and probably a little smelly, too, and it looks like it’s going to take a lot of work to get to the other side. But I’m calling you down because I know it’s the only way back up. Christ is here ahead of us, and He promises to lead us out. You can stand at the edge of the ditch for as long as you’d like. You can try to find a way around. You can try to jump over. You can try to turn back. But at the end of the day, the only way forward is the way down. You see, I’ve come to such a ravine more than once on my own journey”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“The Bible speaks to us about Jesus as our Living Word. We find Him in the pages of Scripture, and we find Him in the pages of our new stories—”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“gain a heart of wisdom requires us to number our days aright—to take the good and the bad, the beginnings and the endings, the births and the deaths—and allow space for God to write His story within it all.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Endings in our stories are never all bad or all sad. Threads of sadness, anger, disappointment, loneliness, and fear become a tightly wound ball of loss sitting in the middle of our chest, bulky and burdensome. As a result, we feel like we can’t take a deep breath or see beyond this massive tangle of negative emotion.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“When the chapters don’t go as we planned, we often become unmoored by what we can’t control. We are tempted to wallow in self-pity and to turn back to the temporary comforts we used in our old stories to control the painful emotions of grief that we didn’t see coming.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Suddenly our new stories are challenged. We wonder if we are enough. We wonder if God is really present. And even more—we wonder how God could allow such deep pain if He cares for us.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“The painful confusion that transitions and endings bring will always challenge our ability to live into our new stories. Transitions shake our foundation, testing its integrity.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Living day to day in the topsoil of our souls will create shallow roots that cannot sustain us when the inevitable seasons of transition and grief plow into our lives.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“think the vitality of our souls is at risk when we give in to the temptation to live a superficial existence, to flee from the painful moments and difficult questions that often create meaning.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Christ is most magnified in the small, selfless choices of men and women who choose to believe in the unifying love of Christ over the dividing power of the flesh.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Our knowledge about Jesus becomes action in Jesus when we recognize the divisive words in our marriages, families, and workplaces as direct attacks from an enemy who desires to divide us. One”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck

“Develop compassion and capacity for brokenness. There are a few evil people in the world. There are some fools who will never learn.”
― Nicole Unice, The Struggle Is Real: Getting Better at Life, Stronger in Faith, and Free from the Stuff Keeping You Stuck