identity in Christ

Maybe You Haven’t Met All of Yourself Yet

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I used to think becoming meant adding something I didn’t already have.

More confidence.

More courage.

More ability.

But lately, I’ve started to wonder if becoming is less about adding…

…and more about uncovering.

About recognizing gifts that have been there all along.

Potential that was buried beneath self-doubt.

Strength that only revealed itself when life demanded it.

For a long time, I believed the voice that said,

“You’re not ready yet.”

“You’re not qualified.”

“Someone else could do it better.”

And maybe you’ve heard those voices too.

But what if they were never telling the whole truth?

What if there’s more in you than you’ve allowed yourself to see?

Not because you’re extraordinary.

Not because you’ve suddenly become someone different.

But because God has always seen something in you that you were slow to recognize in yourself.

He doesn’t call us because we’ve already become everything we’re capable of becoming.

He calls us knowing who we’re still growing into.

Maybe that’s why Scripture is filled with ordinary people who initially questioned themselves.

They saw their limitations.

God saw who they could become in His hands.

And I wonder how often we spend our lives arguing with the One who made us about what we’re capable of.

Maybe today is a good day to stop doing that.

Not with arrogance.

With gratitude.

Because seeing the potential God placed within you isn’t pride.

It’s stewardship.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
— Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

I Am Chosen to Be His

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

There are days when circumstances try to tell us who we are.

A difficult season says we’re forgotten.

A disappointment says we’re overlooked.

A failure says we’re not enough.

A closed door says we’re unwanted.

And if we’re not careful, we start listening.

We allow temporary circumstances
to become permanent conclusions.

But lately, I’ve been returning to a simple truth:

I am chosen to be His.

Not because everything is going according to plan.

Not because life feels easy.

Not because every prayer has been answered the way I hoped.

I am chosen to be His regardless.

Before the outcome.

Before the breakthrough.

Before the explanation.

Before the healing.

Before any of the things I keep waiting on.

And there is something incredibly freeing about that.

Because if my identity comes from Him,
then it doesn’t rise and fall with my circumstances.

A difficult season cannot take away what God has already declared.

An unanswered question cannot undo what He has already spoken.

A hard chapter cannot change whose I am.

The world may change.

My circumstances may change.

My emotions may change.

But this remains:

I am chosen to be His.

And that is enough.

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”
— Ephesians 1:4 (NIV)

What Cannot Be Crushed

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed… struck down, but not destroyed.”

I’ve read those words before and heard resilience.

Lately, I hear something else.

I hear preservation.

Paul doesn’t deny the pressing.
He doesn’t pretend the blows don’t land.
He simply draws a line between what touches the outside
and what reaches the inside.

Hard pressed — but not crushed.
Struck down — but not destroyed.

There is something in the believer that cannot be flattened.

Not because we are strong enough.
But because Christ in us is.

Life can press.
People can misunderstand.
Plans can shift.
Expectations can collapse.

But the Spirit of God within you?
Untouched.

That’s the miracle.

The world can affect your circumstances.
It cannot dismantle your identity.

It can exhaust your body.
It cannot erase your belonging.

It can knock you down.
It cannot take what God has planted.

Maybe that’s what this verse is really about —
not grit.
Not toughness.
Not proving how much you can endure.

But the quiet truth that there is something eternal in you.
Something anchored.
Something held.

You may feel pressed.
But what matters most in you
is not crushable.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
— Colossians 1:27 (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.

What Is Your Only Comfort?

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I’ve spent most of my life in church — Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesdays too.
I was raised on Scripture, shaped by the quiet rhythm of pews and communion trays, and taught early on that the Word of God is enough. It still is.

So when I recently came across something called The Heidelberg Catechism, I wasn’t looking for new theology or creeds. I just happened upon a phrase — one that reached into my heart and wrapped its arms around something I didn’t know needed holding.

“What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
That I am not my own… but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

I had to read it again.

Because lately, I’ve been carrying a lot — grief that lingers, questions that don’t resolve neatly, and moments that make me feel a little too small for the weight of this world.

But those words.
I am not my own… I belong.

Not to my pain.
Not to my past.
Not to what others say about me, or even what I sometimes believe about myself.

I belong to Christ.

Not because I’ve earned it.
Not because I always feel it.
But because He said so. Because He gave everything to make it so.

That line from the Catechism isn’t Scripture — but the truth behind it is echoed all throughout the Bible:

“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price…”
—1 Corinthians 6:19–20

That’s what I want to remember on the days I feel unseen.
On the nights I question if I’m doing enough, being enough, holding together enough.

I want to remember that comfort — the kind of comfort that can only be found in Scripture, the kind that the Heidelberg Catechism question offered me.
Not found in perfect understanding, but in the unwavering truth that I belong to Him.