spiritual growth

Things I Don’t Have Language For Yet

/ Baylee Snelling / 2 Comments

There are things in my life right now that I don’t have words for.

Not because I’m avoiding them.
Not because I’m pretending they don’t exist.
But because they haven’t settled into language yet.

They live somewhere deeper than explanation.
Somewhere between what’s happened and what I understand about it.
Somewhere I’m still learning how to sit with.

I’ve noticed how quickly we’re expected to name things.
To define them.
To explain how we feel and why and what it all means.

But not everything arrives with clarity.
Some things take time before they can be spoken honestly.

So for now, I’m letting a few things remain unnamed.
Not hidden — just unfinished.

I trust that when the words come, they’ll come gently.
And until then, it’s okay to live with what I don’t yet know how to say.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
— Romans 8:26 (NIV)

Still With Me

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

There’s a quiet reassurance woven through Scripture that I keep coming back to —
the reminder that God doesn’t leave when life feels unsettled.

Not when faith feels steady.
Not when it feels thin.
Not when the questions linger longer than the answers.

He stays.

Sometimes I think we expect God’s nearness to feel dramatic —
a sudden clarity, a strong emotion, a sense of certainty.
But more often, His presence feels like something quieter.

Like endurance.
Like steadiness.
Like the ability to keep showing up even when the path isn’t clear.

This kind of faith doesn’t always announce itself.
It simply remains.

And maybe that’s what Sunday is for —
not to arrive with everything resolved,
but to remember that we’re not walking alone into the week ahead.

God is still with us.
Still faithful.
Still holding what we can’t.

That truth doesn’t remove the weight of life,
but it does make it a little more bearable.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

“The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth.”
— Psalm 145:18 (NIV)

Not a Resolution

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Every year around this time, we’re encouraged to dream big.
Pick a word.
Set a goal.
Decide who you’re going to be by December.

So we do.

And then, quietly, we find ourselves standing at the corner of
“This was too lofty”
and
“I’ve already let myself down”
by the time February rolls around.

I’m learning that maybe the problem isn’t our lack of discipline —
it’s the pressure to become someone overnight.

This year, I’ve gone back and forth between words like steadfast and courageous.
Both good. Both meaningful.

But the word that keeps returning —
the one that feels less like a goal and more like a posture —
is honesty.

Honesty about what I’m carrying.
About what I can give.
About where I actually am, not where I think I should be by now.

So instead of asking who I want to be by the end of the year,
I’m asking something smaller, quieter, and more livable:

How do I want to live today?

And right now, the answer looks like this:
with honesty — toward God, toward others, and toward myself.

That feels like enough to begin.

“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.”
— Psalm 51:6 (NIV)

I’m Not Waiting for Closure

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

For a long time, I thought closure was something I needed in order to move forward.
A conversation.
An apology.
An explanation that made everything make sense.

But life doesn’t always offer that.

Some stories don’t wrap up neatly.
Some questions stay unanswered.
Some endings come without the clarity we hoped for.

And waiting for closure can quietly turn into waiting on life to begin again.

Lately, I’ve been realizing that I don’t have to wait for everything to make sense before I keep living.
I don’t need every loose end tied.
I don’t need a final chapter before I turn the page.

There’s a different kind of peace that comes from accepting what is —
from releasing the need to understand it all
and choosing to move forward anyway.

Not because it didn’t matter.
But because I matter too.

So I’m not waiting for closure.
I’m choosing presence.
I’m choosing the next right step.
I’m choosing to live fully in the middle — even if some things remain unfinished.

And that feels like freedom.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!”
— Isaiah 43:18–19 (NIV)

Held by His Faithfulness

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Some weeks remind me just how fragile I am.
How easily shaken.
How much I want certainty, protection, assurance that nothing will slip through my fingers.

And then I remember this truth:

I am not held by my own strength.
I am held by His faithfulness.

Scripture doesn’t promise that life will be easy or predictable.
But it does promise something better — something steadier.

God is faithful.
Not occasionally.
Not when circumstances cooperate.
But always.

He strengthens us not just for what we can see,
but for what we can’t.
For fears we don’t yet have language for.
For discouragement that creeps in quietly.

There is comfort in knowing that even when I feel unsure,
even when my footing feels unsteady,
even when I don’t trust myself to hold it all together —

He does.

So this Sunday, I’m not asking for perfect peace or clear answers.
I’m resting in the kind of security that doesn’t depend on either.

The faithfulness of God is enough to stand on.
Enough to trust.
Enough to carry me through whatever comes next.

“But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”
— 2 Thessalonians 3:3 (NIV)

The Quiet Test

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Every time I start to feel like God isn’t there,
I remember something simple:

The teacher is always quiet during the test.

Silence doesn’t mean absence.
Sometimes it means you’re being trusted to keep going
with what you already know —
the truth you’ve learned, the faith you’ve practiced,
the strength you didn’t know you were building.

Because tests aren’t meant to feel easy.
They’re meant to reveal who you’re becoming.

Not in moments of certainty,
but in the quiet ones —
where you choose to stay faithful without being reminded why.

And maybe that’s the real work of the silence:
not to break you,
but to form something steady that lasts.

“Let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”
— James 1:4 (CSB)

The Space Between

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

This evening begins 6 days —
144 hours.
8,640 minutes
without my whole heart with me.

That number makes my chest tighten a little.

None of this timing was mine to choose.
The plans were made. The schedule laid out.
And I’ve been quietly dreading it ever since.

Time is strange, isn’t it?
We beg it to slow down —
then suddenly, we need it to fly.
To disappear.
To carry us somewhere that doesn’t ache quite so much.

I think these are the moments that shape us most.
The ones where everything feels stretched —
heart, soul, time.

And here I am, sitting in it.

I could resist it.
Run from it.
Let the ache name me.

Or I could do the harder thing:
lean in.
Not into the absence —
but into the One who meets me here.

I’m not sure what the next 8,640 minutes will hold.
But I know this:
I won’t walk through a single one of them alone.

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
— John 14:18 (KJV)

Where Greed Hides

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

We’ve been talking about the spiritual disciplines at church.
Last week, the conversation was about generosity.
This week, it was about greed.

And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how the two aren’t always as separate as we like to think.

Because greed doesn’t always look like hoarding money or climbing some corporate ladder.
Sometimes it looks like holding back in quieter ways —
the kind we justify.

Like struggling to give our time.
Or hesitating to offer encouragement.
Or keeping our prayers to ourselves because we don’t want to say the wrong thing.

We tell ourselves it’s not greed.
It’s busyness.
Or insecurity.
Or boundaries.

But what if it’s more than that?
What if greed is anything that keeps us from living open-handed —
with our time, our words, our presence, our resources?

I’m realizing that greed hides in the small things.
In the moments when I pull back instead of lean in.
When I protect my own comfort instead of offering someone else mine.
When I talk myself out of giving because I don’t have “enough” — time, energy, words, wisdom.

But the truth is, if God asked me to give it,
He’s already given me enough to do it.

So maybe the better question isn’t “Am I generous?”
Maybe it’s: Where am I still holding back?
And why?

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
— 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)

Daily Bread

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Some seasons don’t feel like forward motion.
They feel like circles.
Like prayers prayed a hundred times over.
Like showing up, again and again, to the same hard place —
with nothing to show for it but faith.

It can feel like nothing is happening.
No breakthroughs. No answers. No big, sweeping change.
Just… more waiting.
More unknown.
More of the same.

But what if the change isn’t out there?
What if it’s in you?

What if the waiting is where you’re being refined —
gently, slowly, quietly —
into someone more surrendered, more rooted, more whole?

Maybe this is what He’s teaching you:
You don’t need to see the whole map to keep walking.
You don’t need tomorrow’s provision to trust Him today.
You just need the daily bread He promised.

Not clarity for the next year.
Just courage for the next step.

You’re learning to walk by faith —
not by sight.

And that’s no small thing.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
— Psalm 119:105 (ESV)

The Way He Sees Me

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Sometimes I forget what a gift it is
to be seen by Jesus.

Not just noticed —
but known.

He doesn’t rush past my heartache.
He doesn’t misread my silence.
He looks right at me —
and He stays.

With compassion.
With clarity.
With that quiet strength that speaks love
even before I find the words to ask for it.

That kind of seeing changes things.

Because when I remember how gently He sees me,
I want to look at others that way too.

Not through the lens of frustration or judgment,
but through the eyes of Christ —
the One who offers endurance
and encouragement
and the kind of love that never runs out.

So that’s my prayer today:
to see people like He sees me.

With softness.
With truth.
With grace that goes first —
even when it’s hard.

Anchor Verse:
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.”
— Romans 15:5 (NIV)