Becoming

I’m Learning to Leave the Light On

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I don’t always know what’s coming next.
Some days, I don’t even feel certain about what’s right in front of me.

There are moments when it would be easier to shut the door,
to turn the lights off,
to wait in the dark until something makes sense again.

But I’m learning not to do that.

I’m learning to leave the light on —
not because I’m fearless,
but because I don’t want uncertainty to harden me.

For myself.
For hope.
For the parts of me that are still becoming, still healing, still learning how to trust without a clear outline of what’s ahead.

Leaving the light on looks like staying open.
It looks like choosing presence over retreat.
Like believing that clarity isn’t the only sign of faith.

Some nights, faith doesn’t look like confidence at all.
It looks like keeping the room warm.
Like refusing to shut myself off.
Like making space for what might still arrive.

Tonight, I don’t have answers.
But I’m still here.
Still open.
Still trusting that light, even when it’s small, is worth keeping on.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
— Psalm 56:3 (NIV)

A Love Letter to My Future

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I haven’t met you yet —
not fully.
Not the way I hope to.
Not the way I will.

But I think about you often.

I wonder how your laugh sounds now,
freer than before.
How your eyes rest softer
because you no longer flinch at love that stays.

I wonder what peace feels like in your body —
if your shoulders sit a little lower,
if your breath comes easier,
if joy has found a home in the spaces where grief once settled.

You are who I’m becoming,
but some days, I still feel far away from you.
Still in the middle.
Still aching, healing, hoping.

So I write to you not as someone who’s arrived,
but as someone still on the road.
Still limping forward with faith in one hand
and surrender in the other.

You are the proof that the story didn’t end in the valley.
That I was not buried by what tried to break me.
That resurrection was more than just a word I whispered on Sundays.

You are the woman who gets to love from wholeness.
Who walks in rooms without apology.
Who trusts God — not just for others,
but for herself too.

I don’t need to rush to you.
You’re not running out of time.
And I am not too late.

We’re just becoming.
One breath at a time.
And I’m already so proud of you.

Love,
The version of you who’s still holding on.

I’m Not Who I Was — And That’s a Good Thing

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I used to think healing would bring me back to who I was before.
Before the breaking.
Before the questions.
Before the silence.

But I’ve learned —
healing doesn’t take you back.
It walks you forward, slowly,
into someone new.

And the woman I’m becoming
is softer than she used to be —
but she’s also steadier.
She still feels things deeply,
but she no longer apologizes for that.

She pays attention now.
To what feels safe.
To what feels like peace.
To what feels like home.

There was a time I thought becoming meant performing —
trying to prove I was strong, unshaken, “okay.”

Now, I know better.

Becoming looks like knowing when to speak
and when to stay quiet.
It looks like grace for the in-between.
It looks like choosing truth,
even when it’s tender.

And while I wouldn’t have chosen this path,
I’m learning to see beauty in who I’m becoming along the way.

No, I’m not who I was —
and maybe that’s not something to grieve.
Maybe that’s something to honor.

It’s the quiet strength that speaks the loudest.
Can you hear it in yourself, too?