If the Pages Could Talk

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

If the pages could talk,
they’d tell a story
not everyone saw.

Of nights where the only light
was the glow of the monitor
and the quiet hum of prayers
I never meant to say out loud.

They’d whisper of pages
tear-stained and half-written —
moments where I didn’t know what came next,
but still picked up the pen anyway.

They’d speak of healing that came slowly,
in margins and in pauses.
In prayers I scribbled sideways
when the ache was too heavy to carry upright.

They’d tell you about the girl
who kept writing,
even when the words were hard to find.
Who chose presence
over pretending.
Stillness
over striving.
Faith
over finality.

If the pages could talk,
they wouldn’t just tell you what happened —
they’d tell you what held me together
when everything else was falling apart.

When the Question Finds You

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

The other night,
I was talking with my mom —
words soft, the ache quieter than usual.
And without really planning to, I said it:

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Not in anger. Not even in desperation.
Just honesty. Gentle, aching honesty.
Like something long held finally exhaled.

Later that evening,
I opened my Bible study,
not expecting anything —
just turning the page like always.

And there it was:

“Please, my Lord,” Gideon asked,
“if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?”
— Judges 6:13

I sat still.
Because it felt like He’d answered me —
not with a solution,
but with solidarity.

The very thing I had whispered
was echoed in ancient words.
Like the question had been waiting
for someone else to ask it too.

I didn’t need an explanation in that moment.
I just needed to know
that someone had stood in this place before me —
and God met them there.

This is the mystery of mercy:
that even the rawest ache
does not scare Him away.
It draws Him closer.

The World Keeps Moving

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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.

The Strength Fear Tries to Steal

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I’ve wasted so many todays
worrying about tomorrow.

Not intentionally.
Not because I wanted to.
But because anxiety is sneaky like that —
convincing you that if you think it through just one more time,
you’ll feel better.

Spoiler: you don’t.

I read something recently that really stuck out to me:
“What does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties today of its strength.”
— Alexander McLaren

And I felt it.

Because fear doesn’t just whisper worst-case scenarios —
it drains the light from moments that were meant to hold joy.
It robs us of the strength we do have for right now,
by convincing us we need to hoard it for what might come later.

But we weren’t made to live that way.
Not crouched in fear.
Not rehearsing pain that hasn’t even happened.

Today is still here.
And it still matters.

God didn’t promise we’d be fearless.
But He did promise He’d be with us.
And that is more than enough.

Maybe peace isn’t the absence of what we fear —
but the presence of the One who knows how to carry us through it.

So for today —
not tomorrow, just today —
I’m choosing presence over panic.
Trust over spirals.
And strength over fear.

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 Prayer I Was Afraid to Pray

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Lament.

A word I recently wrote about.
A word I’ve been seeing almost every day since then.

To lament is to feel, show, or express grief, sorrow, or regret.
Biblically, lament is a form of prayer that expresses deep sorrow, grief, or pain to God.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

It’s unprocessed and messy.
I’m saying things to Him that I didn’t even know I had in me —
emotions that have been long hidden.

I hesitate to start,
afraid that voicing it might somehow pull me away from God.

But it’s been quite the opposite.

I’m being drawn closer to Him —
as if He’s surrounding me in the quiet.

I see Him in the daily, the mundane.
I feel Him in the ache and the uncovering.
He is the wisest Counselor —
helping me name the lies I’ve carried too long,
gently exposing what needs healing,
and holding every part of my heart while He restores it.

The Turn I Almost Missed

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I thought about writing today —
about joy in the storm.
But I hesitated.
It felt like something I’d written too many times before.
Like maybe I should find a new angle,
a different message.

So I got up.
Did some laundry.
Checked a few boxes off the list.
And opened my devotional —
Watching for the Morning by Vaneetha Rendall Risner.
A liferaft of a book in this season.

The title for today?
“The Greatest Turn in Scripture.”

And beneath it, these words:

“Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.”
—Lamentations 3:21–23

I stopped.
Because I knew.
God was speaking to me — again.
Through a verse I’ve read a hundred times.
Through a theme I thought I’d already written to death.

But maybe that’s the point.

Even Jeremiah —
mid-anguish, breathless and undone —
stopped.

He didn’t forget the pain.
He didn’t pretend it didn’t exist.
But he remembered something deeper.
“Yet this I call to mind…”
That even when everything felt lost,
God’s mercies were not.

And suddenly, hope entered the story.

I almost didn’t write this.
I almost brushed past the very word I needed.
Because I thought I’d already said it.

But today reminded me —
some truths are worth repeating.
Some mercies are new, even in familiar form.

I’ll never forget the storms.
But I’ll also never stop looking for the joy
that rises in the middle of them.

“I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him.’”
—Lamentations 3:24

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.

When Grief Becomes a Prayer

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

“Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.” — Lamentations 2:19

We don’t talk about Lamentations very often.

It’s not the book we memorize.
Not the one we highlight in bright yellows and pinks.
It’s messy.
Heavy.
It aches in a way that doesn’t tie up neatly with a bow.

But I’ve found comfort there —
not because it fixes anything,
but because it feels like the inside of my own heart sometimes.

There’s this idea I read recently,
by Clint Watkins:
“You may feel that God is being unloving or unmerciful.
But instead of turning those feelings into a conclusion,
lament helps you turn them into a conversation.”

That line stopped me.

Because how often do we rush past our ache,
afraid it will make us unfaithful?
How often do we silence our sorrow,
thinking God can’t handle it?

But Lamentations tells a different story.
It invites the ache to speak.
It gives language to the weary.
It shows us that grief can belong in prayer —
not as something to hide,
but something to hold.

Lament doesn’t mean you’ve lost your faith.
It means you’re bringing your pain to the only One
who can sit with it fully.

You don’t have to explain it all.
You don’t have to tie it up in theology.
You’re allowed to simply say:
“This hurts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Where are You in this?”

And He listens.

So if you’re carrying questions too heavy for answers —
you’re not alone.
And you’re not faithless.

You’re lamenting.

And that… is still prayer.

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