Tender Moments

Tracing the Face of God

/ Baylee Snelling / 2 Comments

There are moments I find myself crying out, not because I don’t believe God is near — but because I desperately want to feel Him.

It happened when I was driving home after something had upset me. I was talking to God the way I do when I’m worked up — no script, no filter, just honest. And I said out loud, “Even though I’m alone… I know I’m not alone. I know You’re sitting right here with me.”

But still — I wanted more.
Not more proof, just more presence.

I wanted to feel Him.
I wanted to see Him.
I wanted to hear something from Him — not metaphorically, not spiritually… but tangibly.

And then something struck me:
What I really wanted… was to be able to touch Him.
To smell Him.
To reach for Him like a child does their parent.

That’s when this image came to mind — one I’ve seen a hundred times in my own house.
Me, rocking my baby to sleep…
His tiny hands gently reaching for my face — tracing my lips, my eyelashes, my nose.
Not because he’s trying to calm me…
But because he’s learning me.
Because he wants to know the features of the one who loves him.

And I realized — maybe that’s what God wants from us too.

Maybe He wants us to be so hungry to know Him, so desperate to recognize Him, that we would reach for Him like a child in the dark.
Not to fix anything.
Not to perform anything.
But just to discover.

To trace the lines of His face.
To wonder where His hair falls at the nape of His neck.
To feel the curve of His jaw, the arch of His brow, the kindness in His eyes.
To know: this is my Father.

We often think of God as the one tracing us — counting the hairs on our head, holding our tears in a bottle, never sleeping as He watches over us.

But what if the invitation has always been two-way?

What if He’s not hiding — just waiting?
Waiting for us to draw closer.
Waiting for us to cup His face in our hands — not because we need something from Him… but because we want to know Him.

I want to know the God who knows me like that.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)

Motherhood: The Gift and the Grief

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

There are days when I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be —
rocking him in the quiet,
kissing his forehead,
hearing “mama” and knowing it means me.

And then there are days when motherhood feels like something I’m still learning how to hold —
not because I’m absent from it,
but because some parts look different than I imagined.

No one tells you how much letting go is wrapped up in loving.
How much loss lives inside of even the most beautiful things.

And yet, this is what I know:

I am his mother.
Fully. Deeply. Undeniably.
Whether I’m holding him or waiting for him.
Whether it’s loud laughter or quiet ache.
Whether the world understands it or not — I know it in my bones.

This isn’t just a Hallmark holiday.
It’s a sacred tension.
It’s a joy and a heartbreak.
It’s both.

And somehow, I get to live in that middle space —
the one where gratitude and grief sit at the same table,
and I’m learning not to rush either of them away.

Because maybe this, too, is motherhood:
Not picture-perfect.
Not easy to explain.
But honest. Holy. Still mine.

When You Don’t Get to Stay

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

There are moments when you know —
your presence brings comfort.
Not because anyone says it,
but because something in the atmosphere shifts when you’re near.

You show up.
You offer calm.
You anchor the moment with your quiet steadiness.

And for a while… that’s enough.

But then comes the shift.

A silent decision.
A subtle closing of a door you didn’t realize you were standing in.

And just like that, you’re no longer needed.

Not because the comfort changed.
Not because the ache disappeared.
But because something else spoke louder than tenderness.

You just carry it —
quietly, inwardly.

Not because you chose to let go,
but because you weren’t given the chance to hold on.

And you wonder…
if love is meant to hold,
why does it sometimes have to let go?

When Showing Up Is the Bravest Thing You Do

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

Whispers from the wreckage and the rising

I almost didn’t go.
Not because anything was wrong — but because something in me felt tender.

There are moments when I walk into a room, and everything in it is good.

Kindness. Laughter. Familiar faces.

But even in the goodness… something aches.
It’s not because anyone has done anything wrong — it’s just that some seasons carry a kind of quiet grief that follows you into even the warmest spaces.

The ache of being in a different rhythm.
The awareness that what used to feel like “yours” now lives in a chapter you wouldn’t have wanted to close, had things been different.

I’ve learned to show up anyway.
Not because the ache disappears…
but because there’s still something sacred about choosing presence — even with a tender heart.

Later in the week, I found myself in another quiet space —
one where I’ve been slowly, gently untangling some deeper things.

Not everything made sense.
But something softened.
Like maybe I don’t have to keep carrying the weight of it all.
Like maybe presence, not perfection, is what healing actually looks like.

I keep thinking of all the ways I’ve shown up this week.
Not just in rooms or appointments,
but to my own pain.
To my faith.
To the voice inside me that keeps whispering, keep going.

Sometimes, the bravest thing we do isn’t rising.
It’s returning.
It’s staying present in the ache.
It’s listening for God when all we hear is our own heart beating loud with fear and hope and something in between.

I think that’s where healing begins.
Not in fixing it all —
but in being willing to stay in the room with our own story.

So here I am again.
Still showing up.
Still listening.

And maybe that’s the whisper I needed this week most of all:

Maybe showing up is the rising.