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USA250 Journal Project
Personal Chronicle: July 4, 2025 – July 5, 2026
A gift for reflection. A record of now. A story for what’s next.
✍️ Lilah Davis – “Who am I?”
I’m Lilah. And I ask a lot of questions.
Not because I’m trying to be annoying (though Mom says I’m very good at it), but because the world is weird and huge and full of stuff we don’t talk about enough.
Like:
Why are there dinosaurs in museums but not in the Bible?
Why are there more rules for girls at church than for boys?
Why can’t princesses fall in love with other princesses in our homeschool books?
I’m eleven, but sometimes I feel older. Like my brain’s racing ahead of where I’m supposed to be.
Mom says I’m bright. Dad says I’m mouthy. Maybe I’m both.
I love stories. Making up new ones, writing them down, drawing pictures in the margins. I write secret ones when no one’s looking. Some have dragons. Some have space ships. One has two princesses who fall in love and save the world with kindness and glitter swords.
I think maybe I’m someone who wants the truth—but also wants it to sparkle a little.
✍️ Lilah Davis – “How did I get here?”
I got here because Mom pulled us out of public school when I was in second grade.
She said it was to protect us, but I miss the library. I miss the smell of books and the art teacher who wore bracelets that clinked when she walked. I miss recess that was actual recess—not “Bible meditation time.”
Now we do homeschool with Bible math and creation science and these reading books where every girl is sweet and quiet and bakes bread. I bake, but I’m not quiet. And I’m not always sweet.
One day I asked a question in Sunday school about the Earth being 6,000 years old. Everyone got quiet. Really quiet. Mom’s face turned a shade I hadn’t seen before.
So I started sneaking library books home from when we stop by the public one “for errands.” I hide them in my pillowcase and read them with a flashlight.
Janelle—my aunt in Austin—sends me postcards with little poems on the back. She writes, “Keep asking. Keep shining.” I want to visit her so bad. I think she’d get me.
So, how did I get here?
I think I was born with my eyes wide open—and every day I learn a little more about what people don’t want me to see.
What has life taught me so far?
That curiosity is not a sin.
That stories can save people.
And that one day, I want to write the kind of books that made me brave.
Date: July 10, 2025
Entry Title: Secret Pages & Flashlight Feelings
I hid my journal under my pillow all week. Not because I’m scared, but because it feels like magic. Like the kind of thing a girl in a fantasy book would do before she saves the day.
I wrote about things I never say out loud. Like how I miss the library, and how sometimes I feel like I’m too much and not enough at the same time.
The part that surprised me is how writing made me feel powerful. Not in a loud way—but in a flashlight-under-the-blanket kind of way. Quiet power.
I felt most like myself when I wrote about the story I made up—about a dragon who’s tired of guarding treasure and just wants to be left alone to garden.
What I didn’t write (until now) is that I’m scared of forgetting how to imagine. This journal feels like my way of remembering.
I think the story I’m starting to tell is one where I get to decide who I am, even if the world keeps trying to tell me something else.
Family
Mark Davis – Father.
Rebecca Davis – Mother.
Caleb Davis – Brother.
Janelle Hartman – Aunt.
