Author: Baylee Snelling

The Table Set Before Me

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This morning felt like holy chaos.

My sister came with her four little ones,
and I had Beckett.

We spilled across multiple rows in the Father’s house —
passing babies from arm to arm,
slipping in and out of the pews,
quieting cries,
sharing smiles.

It was loud and unpolished,
and yet somehow,
it was perfect.

Because even here —
in the bustle and the noise,
in the interruptions and the laughter —
I could feel it:

“You prepare a table before me.”
— Psalm 23:5

Not a table set with silver and stillness,
but one overflowing with family,
with joy,
with the sacred sound of being together.

This is the feast I didn’t know I was hungry for.
And this is the house where my cup runs over.

When Restoration Looks Different

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Today my mom shared a verse with me:
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”
— Joel 2:25

I’ve been thinking about what restoration really means.

I used to imagine it as getting back exactly what was lost —
like God would hand me the same dream,
only without the heartbreak attached.

But the more I sit with this,
the more I realize restoration often looks different than we expect.

It doesn’t always come as a perfect rewind.
It comes as something new.
Something reshaped by the breaking,
stronger because of what it’s been through.

Sometimes, it’s quieter than I imagined.
Sometimes, it’s not even in the same form.
And sometimes, it comes so slowly
I don’t recognize it until I’m already standing in it.

God doesn’t restore by replacing.
He restores by redeeming.

The years that felt wasted,
the dreams that felt devoured —
they may not come back the way I pictured.
But they will come back.

Not because I know how,
but because He promised they would.

In the Meantime

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Some seasons feel like slow motion.
Like you’re doing all the right things —
but nothing is changing.

You’re loving the best you can.
Praying, hoping, planting seeds.
And still… waiting.

It’s easy to feel overlooked here.
To wonder if any of it is working.
If the small, faithful things really matter.

But then I come back to this:

“Let us not grow weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap a harvest
if we do not give up.”
— Galatians 6:9

And I remember…

God honors what no one else sees.
The quiet consistency.
The choice to stay soft when it would be easier to shut down.
The everyday good that doesn’t make headlines,
but makes a life.

Maybe the harvest is coming.
Maybe it’s already unfolding —
slowly, silently, in ways I can’t yet see.

So I’ll keep tending what He’s given me.
Trusting that in the meantime…
He’s still growing something good.

If the Pages Could Talk

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If the pages could talk,
they’d tell a story
not everyone saw.

Of nights where the only light
was the glow of the monitor
and the quiet hum of prayers
I never meant to say out loud.

They’d whisper of pages
tear-stained and half-written —
moments where I didn’t know what came next,
but still picked up the pen anyway.

They’d speak of healing that came slowly,
in margins and in pauses.
In prayers I scribbled sideways
when the ache was too heavy to carry upright.

They’d tell you about the girl
who kept writing,
even when the words were hard to find.
Who chose presence
over pretending.
Stillness
over striving.
Faith
over finality.

If the pages could talk,
they wouldn’t just tell you what happened —
they’d tell you what held me together
when everything else was falling apart.

When the Question Finds You

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The other night,
I was talking with my mom —
words soft, the ache quieter than usual.
And without really planning to, I said it:

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Not in anger. Not even in desperation.
Just honesty. Gentle, aching honesty.
Like something long held finally exhaled.

Later that evening,
I opened my Bible study,
not expecting anything —
just turning the page like always.

And there it was:

“Please, my Lord,” Gideon asked,
“if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?”
— Judges 6:13

I sat still.
Because it felt like He’d answered me —
not with a solution,
but with solidarity.

The very thing I had whispered
was echoed in ancient words.
Like the question had been waiting
for someone else to ask it too.

I didn’t need an explanation in that moment.
I just needed to know
that someone had stood in this place before me —
and God met them there.

This is the mystery of mercy:
that even the rawest ache
does not scare Him away.
It draws Him closer.

The World Keeps Moving

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It’s strange how life keeps going
when your world has stopped.

People still talk about the weather,
still buy coffee,
still make plans for the weekend —
while you’re standing still,
trying to make sense of how everything changed.

It’s disorienting, really.

To finally hold what you once prayed for,
and still feel like pieces of you are missing.

To carry joy in one arm
and grief in the other.

No one teaches you how to do that.

How to smile at the thing you longed for
while quietly mourning what you lost to get here.

You start to wonder —
Is the ground steady beneath me?
Or am I the only one who feels it shaking?
Is this how life works now —
a mixture of beauty and ache,
woven together like threads in the same cloth?

Sometimes, it’s hard to keep walking.
Not because you don’t want to —
but because you’re not sure which direction is forward anymore.

So I whisper to myself,
“Just one step at a time.”
On ground that feels both sacred and uncertain.

And maybe the miracle isn’t in how fast you move —
but in the fact that you keep moving at all.

The Strength Fear Tries to Steal

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I’ve wasted so many todays
worrying about tomorrow.

Not intentionally.
Not because I wanted to.
But because anxiety is sneaky like that —
convincing you that if you think it through just one more time,
you’ll feel better.

Spoiler: you don’t.

I read something recently that really stuck out to me:
“What does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties today of its strength.”
— Alexander McLaren

And I felt it.

Because fear doesn’t just whisper worst-case scenarios —
it drains the light from moments that were meant to hold joy.
It robs us of the strength we do have for right now,
by convincing us we need to hoard it for what might come later.

But we weren’t made to live that way.
Not crouched in fear.
Not rehearsing pain that hasn’t even happened.

Today is still here.
And it still matters.

God didn’t promise we’d be fearless.
But He did promise He’d be with us.
And that is more than enough.

Maybe peace isn’t the absence of what we fear —
but the presence of the One who knows how to carry us through it.

So for today —
not tomorrow, just today —
I’m choosing presence over panic.
Trust over spirals.
And strength over fear.

What I Want to Remember About Right Now

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If you had asked me a few months ago,
I probably would’ve said I wanted amnesia for this season of my life.

But now?

I want to remember
the way Beckett and I can make each other belly laugh —
even when all we want to do is cry.

The way we snuggle when he first wakes up,
before greeting the rest of the world.

I want to remember the time I’m getting with my parents,
and the special bond they’re building with their grandson.

How I’ve grown comfortable with my thoughts
and where they lead me.

How I trust myself now —
to know who’s safe, and who isn’t.

I want to remember
the way I’ve learned to see God in the details.
To feel His presence in every room.
To look to Him to light even the darkest of days.

This isn’t a season to forget.
It’s a season that reminds me
just how much I have to be thankful for.

So, what do I want to remember about right now?

Everything.

The Prayer I Was Afraid to Pray

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Lament.

A word I recently wrote about.
A word I’ve been seeing almost every day since then.

To lament is to feel, show, or express grief, sorrow, or regret.
Biblically, lament is a form of prayer that expresses deep sorrow, grief, or pain to God.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

It’s unprocessed and messy.
I’m saying things to Him that I didn’t even know I had in me —
emotions that have been long hidden.

I hesitate to start,
afraid that voicing it might somehow pull me away from God.

But it’s been quite the opposite.

I’m being drawn closer to Him —
as if He’s surrounding me in the quiet.

I see Him in the daily, the mundane.
I feel Him in the ache and the uncovering.
He is the wisest Counselor —
helping me name the lies I’ve carried too long,
gently exposing what needs healing,
and holding every part of my heart while He restores it.

The Turn I Almost Missed

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I thought about writing today —
about joy in the storm.
But I hesitated.
It felt like something I’d written too many times before.
Like maybe I should find a new angle,
a different message.

So I got up.
Did some laundry.
Checked a few boxes off the list.
And opened my devotional —
Watching for the Morning by Vaneetha Rendall Risner.
A liferaft of a book in this season.

The title for today?
“The Greatest Turn in Scripture.”

And beneath it, these words:

“Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.”
—Lamentations 3:21–23

I stopped.
Because I knew.
God was speaking to me — again.
Through a verse I’ve read a hundred times.
Through a theme I thought I’d already written to death.

But maybe that’s the point.

Even Jeremiah —
mid-anguish, breathless and undone —
stopped.

He didn’t forget the pain.
He didn’t pretend it didn’t exist.
But he remembered something deeper.
“Yet this I call to mind…”
That even when everything felt lost,
God’s mercies were not.

And suddenly, hope entered the story.

I almost didn’t write this.
I almost brushed past the very word I needed.
Because I thought I’d already said it.

But today reminded me —
some truths are worth repeating.
Some mercies are new, even in familiar form.

I’ll never forget the storms.
But I’ll also never stop looking for the joy
that rises in the middle of them.

“I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him.’”
—Lamentations 3:24