WILD & GATHERED

By Brentlee Smith

I can recall attempting to pick up journaling as a hobby since I was a little girl. I would pick out a cute journal that I just knew would captivate my attention long enough to be consistent in my entries. I would write in it for about three days before it would sit unopened for months before the thought occurred to me that I needed to write in it again. This pattern carried on all throughout my high school and college years no matter how good my intentions were. Does this sound relatable to you? Well, God does seem to love a good plot twist, and it turns out that journaling is now a big part of my testimony. I rarely miss a day to break out my journal, and I’m here to encourage the women and girls around me to start their own book of entries.

In July of 2023 I released my first Heart of the Homeland journal titled A Daughter’s Prayer. When I received the author copy in the mail, I was surprised by the mix of emotions that welled up inside of me. There was sadness as some of the flashbacks of painful memories shot through my mind, and a sweetness and love that overwhelmed all those painful moments simultaneously. I was brought back to almost exactly 5 years prior, and this is where the A Daughter’s Prayer begins. I believed, as I’m sure a lot of children do, that my family was pretty perfect when I was growing up. It was all I knew, and I assumed it was just the way families were supposed to be. I look back and see just how innocent and naïve that mindset was, yet it was just that of a young girl who knew no different. Secrets, abuse, unhealthy emotions, and unhealed hurts surrounded me whether I was aware of it at the time or not, and all of it was about to come crumbling down around me. Looking back, I can see that God was beautifully bursting through those walls, but at the time I couldn’t see past the pain that seemed to surround me.

I was 23 and vividly remember the sickening feeling I had when my dad sat in front of my sister, brother, and I to tell us he was going to divorce my mom. Divorce seems so common in our culture that the devil even as I write this is trying to downplay the hurt. “So many people have watched their parents’ divorce, why is your pain so special that it should be talked about?”
I know God’s voice though, and His loving quiet voice whispers to me “I have other daughters who know this pain, I see them just as I saw you.” So if this is something you’ve walked through then please know that you are seen and you are not alone. During the next couple of weeks, I tried to adjust to the idea of divorced parents and just as I remember telling my husband “It hurts so bad, but I know I can accept it. God will work this out- I know He will,” the truth came to light. The dad I had trusted, believed the best of, and defended had been having an affair. The glass pedestal I should never have put him on came down quickly. He packed his bags while I was picking up the pieces of a shattered daughter’s heart.

I thought there were certainly no more tears that my body could have cried, but night after night I was proven wrong. I cried tears of pain for so many; my mom, my family, myself, and my dad. I had no words to cry out to God, but I knew He held me close those nights and words were not needed. Psalm 30:5 carried me through those first few months; Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning. 1 True to His word, my tears were always dry and there
was always joy to be found in the morning.

My husband and I moved that next year to a place I can only describe as a dream come true. It was a few towns away from where we had both grown up, and for the next two years it would be the place that I learned God in a completely new way. He was not only my Lord and Savior as He had always been, but He was now my good, good Father. I recall when we first turned off the highway onto the gravel road that led up a hillside and gasped as I said to my husband, Michael, “this is it!” He panicked a bit, and rightfully so, we had not even seen the house yet. My heart knew though, that this was where we would pick up our roots and settle down at. Once we crested the top of the hill, we were met with the most gorgeous view of an Oklahoma afternoon sun that covered hills and hills of cattle roaming beneath us. When we turned our eyes to the East our jaws dropped as we realized we were on our own hilltop that overlooked more miles than I could have fathomed. The views were breathtaking, and it turns
out the house might have been outdated in its style but was still beautiful in every way. We were home and signed the contract that very evening.

When I look back at that time, I can see that God was sweeping me away to a safe place. He could get me quiet and alone from the noise and voices that I felt like I was drowning in. Our home sat on 11 acres and in a two-year timespan we added cattle, goats, chickens, and grew our little family of four into five. Each evening we would carry a quilt to the front yard where we would soak up the sunset and talk about the colors, we could see in it before it sunk behind the
hills. We tilled up the biggest garden I had ever attempted, picked blackberries off the bushes, and set up our deer blind in the pasture. It was all my girlhood dream come true, and it was here on this hill that I began writing to my Heavenly Father from the overflow I experienced in my heart. Each evening after I tucked our three boys into bed for the night, I would snuggle up with my journal and a late-night cup of coffee and write letters to God. I poured out everything: hurts, dreams, praises, thanks, snippets of my day. I soaked up this new facet of our relationship I had never experienced before- not because He was absent, but because I had allowed my earthly father to take the place in my heart that should have only belonged to my Heavenly Father.

Life changed a lot for us a few months after I began journaling to Him. He was preparing us to move again, and I knew it. Our home on the hill was seemingly perfect, but there was a nagging in my heart that it was not where He would have us stay. One day as I walked out to my drought ridden garden, I saw the ground moving. At first, I thought maybe the heat was getting to me, but I quickly realized the ground was covered in thousands of blister beetles (your garden’s worst nightmare.) The amount of blister beetles present would devour my entire garden within a day. I had desperately tried to keep it alive during the historical drought that Oklahoma was in. I looked up to the sky ready to cry when I so gently heard Him say “There’s a time to plant, and a time to uproot.” The scripture comes from Ecclesiastes 1:2 and was a favorite of 1 (She Reads Truth, Christian Standard Bible, 2017, Psalms 30:5) mine. 2 It had never been applied so literally to my life until that moment. That very evening we
made the decision to get the house ready to sell. Six months after that day in the garden found us moving into our new house back in our old hometown. There is a grace that we feel here, and we know without a doubt this is where we
are supposed to be in this season. Our time on the hill was filled with rest, quiet and an outpouring of God’s overwhelming goodness, but now it’s time to get to work on some other dreams God has placed in my heart. A Daughter’s Prayer journal is a part of that. It was created to be a space where daughters can pour out their hearts to their Heavenly Father, and to allow Him the space to speak to them too. A place where you can get quiet with God and dream, heal,
rest, and soak in his love for you. It changed my life and my relationship with God for the better, and I cannot keep that to myself. My hope is that it sparks a desire in you to seek and pursue Him as your own Father for yourself, and I can confidently declare that He is just that: a good, good Father.