Motherhood

The World Keeps Moving

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

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.

What I Want to Remember About Right Now

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

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 Song I Didn’t Expect

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I wasn’t trying to have a moment.

I was just in the car with Beckett, letting a children’s playlist play on Pandora — not even a worship station. Just music to keep the car ride calm and light.

But then these words came through the speakers:

“If you’re hurting, I know someone who heals your wounds…”
“If you’re broken, I know someone who broke for you…”

I paused.

Not because I planned to —
but because something holy had just entered the space.

It didn’t make me cry.
But it did catch me off guard — in the best kind of way.
Like grace tapping on the window.
Like peace arriving before I even asked for it.

“They couldn’t keep Him on the cross.
Couldn’t keep Him in the tomb.
His name is Jesus — and He’s in the room.”

The song is “In the Room” by Forrest Frank — a Christian artist I’ve heard before.
But I’ve never heard this song and I wasn’t expecting to hear it in that moment.
And maybe that’s what made it hit different.

Because sometimes God doesn’t wait for the worship station.
Sometimes He meets you in the in-between —
the errands, the car rides, the daily rhythms of motherhood.

Sometimes He shows up right where you are,
before you even think to reach for Him.

That’s the kind of Savior He is.
Not reserved for Sunday mornings.
Not only found in quiet time or devotionals.

But present.
Personal.
In the room.

Maybe This Is the Post

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

I didn’t plan a post tonight.
I didn’t come with a title or a theme or a tidy truth to wrap everything together.

I sat down to write —
and nothing came.
Just a tired kind of quiet,
the kind that doesn’t ask to be explained.

But maybe this is the post.
The one that doesn’t offer clarity or closure,
but simply shows up.

Maybe this is the kind of honesty we all need sometimes —
to admit we don’t always have the words,
or the answers,
or the strength to keep unpacking what still hurts.

Maybe the miracle isn’t always in what we say.
Maybe it’s in the showing up anyway.
In being present to the moment — even when the moment feels like not enough.
Even when you feel like not enough.

And maybe
this is the kind of space
where we quietly remember
that even when the words won’t come,
He still does.

That He doesn’t need eloquence
to meet us.

He just needs us.

So if you’ve arrived here —
empty-handed, weary, unsure of what you’re even looking for —
you’re not alone.

Let’s sit here for a while.
Not searching for the right thing to say.
Just resting in the comfort that we’re seen anyway.

“…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
— Matthew 6:8

The Mother Made of Mosaic

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

The Mother Made of Mosaic

I want you to close your eyes for a moment.
Picture mosaic tiles —
in every shade of blue.
Soft cerulean. Deep navy. Hints of sky and sea.
All broken, all different.
Light and dark, side by side.

Now imagine building a mother from those tiles.
She’s tired —
on her knees —
cradling her baby close.

She’s fragile.
She’s breathtaking.
She’s made of sorrow and strength,
held together in a way that almost doesn’t make sense.

But look closer…

What’s holding her together?
What keeps all those tiny pieces from falling apart?

The grout.
The in-between.
The part no one pays attention to.

That’s her village.
The hands that check in.
The arms that hold her when she’s too tired to stand.
The voices that speak truth when the sadness tries to steal her name.

Without that —
without the grout —
she wouldn’t hold.

And yet…
because of it,
she becomes art.

A living mosaic.
A mother made of grief and beauty,
of breaking and belonging.

And in the quiet moments —
when the light hits just right —
she glows.

 

Something is shifting.

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

I don’t know how to explain it —
only that I’m not where I used to be.
And maybe I’m not yet where I’m going.
But I can feel it…
somewhere between the breaking and the becoming —
something is different.

It’s not loud.
Not sudden.
Not a big breakthrough I can wrap words around.

It’s just… a soft settling.
Like peace showing up in places that used to feel hollow.
Like trust being rebuilt quietly in the background.
Like I don’t flinch as hard at the old triggers.
Like maybe I’m becoming someone I can trust again.

And I don’t have answers.
I still cry.
I still wonder if I’m doing it right.

But I know this much:
God is moving in ways I can’t always name —
and healing is happening
even when I can’t measure it.

So I’ll stay here.
In the in-between.
With open hands.
And just enough hope to believe that what’s shifting
is sacred.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:11

What Stayed Becomes the Legacy

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

I could make a list of all the things that left.
The people.
The promises.
The versions of life I thought I’d get to live.

But maybe it matters more to name what stayed.

The quiet strength I didn’t know I had.
The still, small voice that kept whispering, “Keep going.”
The arms that held my child even when mine were trembling.
The Presence that never walked out — even when everything else did.

What stayed wasn’t loud.
It didn’t demand attention.
It didn’t come with guarantees.

But it carried me.

And now?
Now I see it for what it is —
a legacy.

Because this love —
the one that stayed,
the one that steadied,
the one that kept showing up when no one was watching —
that’s what I get to pass on.

Not a perfect story.
But a faithful one.

He may not remember every hard day.
He won’t know how many battles I fought silently —
But he will carry the way I loved him.
Steady. Present. Unshaken by what tried to undo me.

This isn’t just healing.
This is inheritance.
This love — this staying —
is the legacy I leave.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:13

Motherhood Is the Mirror

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

“The most profound thing we can offer our children is our own healing.”— Anne Lamott

They say motherhood changes you —
and it does.
But not always in the ways you expect.

It doesn’t just stretch your body.
It stretches your heart.
Your limits.
Your sense of self.
And some days, it stretches your faith.

Motherhood has become a mirror I didn’t know I was standing in front of.
It reflects everything back to me:
my tenderness,
my triggers,
my hope,
my hurt.

There are moments that undo me —
not because they’re hard,
but because they’re holy.
Because he looks at me with eyes full of trust,
and it makes me wonder if I’ve ever looked at myself that way.

He doesn’t care if I got everything done.
He doesn’t care if I cried in the shower.
He just wants my presence — not my perfection.

And somehow, that’s healing me.

Because in showing up for him,
I’ve had to learn how to show up for me, too.
To hold space for the version of myself I’ve tried to outrun.
To mother the child I used to be,
even as I mother the one God placed in my arms.

It’s not easy.
But it’s sacred.

Motherhood hasn’t made me flawless.
It’s made me honest.

It’s revealed the cracks —
and the grace that holds them together.

And maybe that’s the point.
Not to raise a perfect child…
but to love them so well
that they never question if they were worth it.

Just like God is doing with me.

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you…”
— Isaiah 66:13 (NIV)

The Kind of Noise That Calms the Heart

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

Sometimes the quiet comes in unexpected forms

It wasn’t a quiet weekend.
Not in the way I thought I needed.
The air was full —
of movement,
of moments overlapping,
of little feet and loud laughter
and lives brushing against each other.

But there was something in that fullness
that eased the ache.

Not by fixing it.
Not by filling it.
Just… by being louder than the thoughts
that usually linger too long.

Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive
in hushed tones and solitude.
Sometimes it’s wrapped
in the noise of other people’s joy
and making it a part of your own —
and that’s enough to steady what feels undone.

And maybe that was the grace of it all —
not silence,
but presence.
Not stillness,
but the steady rhythm of life carrying on.

Strength in the Tenderness

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

That ache in your chest?
It’s not weakness.
It’s your heart being honest.
It’s the weight of loving deeply
while walking through something impossibly unfair.

You’re not bitter —
you care.
You’ve carried so much,
stayed soft when life begged you to go hard.
You’ve loved well,
even when you weren’t loved back the same way.
You’re human —
and this hurts.

So if the tears fall tonight —
let them.
If the ache stirs —
let it speak.
It means your heart is still open.
Still tender.
Still beautifully alive.

That’s not a weakness.
That’s your strength —
whispering through the ache
that love still lives here.