Red Oak native pens novel

Red Oak native Misty Harris-Durst is a published author.
Harris-Durst penned “Beauty from Ashes: From Brokenness to Redemption.” Misty was in Red Oak July 13 during the White Sparrow re-grand opening where she signed books for visitors and took photos.
Harris-Durst was born and raised in Red Oak, graduated from Red Oak High School and remained in the area until around 2012. Misty then moved to North Carolina for three years, serving as a youth and children’s pastor as well as inner city missions pastor. Durst also spent some time in the Essex and Shenandoah area for a few years.
“Pretty much Southwest Iowa was home, When my mom got sick with brain cancer in 2015, I came back to take care of her until she passed away in 2016. In 2018 I got remarried, and moved to Morrowville, Kan.,” said Harris-Durst.
Last year, in Morrowville, Misty and her husband, John, founded Hills and Valleys Farm Ministries.
“It’s a 501c3, and we had our first Christian concert. It’s a Christian concert and outdoor event center. The concerts help us bring people together and then offer them salvation and baptism. We had four baptisms last year at our first concert, and about 325 people were in attendance, and then we just had our second one featuring an artist from Israel. We’re having our next one in August with five artists,” Harris-Durst commented. “We also are moving a church in the next week or so to our farm so that we can hold discipleship and addiction recovery programs, and serve our community for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter events and hold youth stuff inside as well.”
Harris-Durst said the inspiration to write “Beauty from Ashes” came about after the passing of her mom and a divorce in 2016, and the opportunity for her to travel to Israel in 2017.
“While I was there, I had a night where I woke up down by the Sea of Galilee in a kibbutz and I heard the Lord say I was supposed to go out in the courtyard to read the Book of Ruth from the Bible, which was my mom’s name, and I was thinking to myself, ‘am I hearing this right?’ Because I’ve read the book a lot of times, but the Lord really impressed on my heart that I needed to go out and read this, so about two o’clock in the morning, I went out in the courtyard, and I was reading the Book of Ruth, and the Lord told me at that time that He was sending a Boaz into my life,” explained Misty. “My current husband and I had met just about three weeks before I went to Israel on Christian Mingle. The Lord began to just share some things about my husband to me that only He could have known at that time. He told me that He was going to bring beauty from my ashes, and that I was going to be writing a book about it, and so that’s kind of where Beauty from Ashes was birthed, in 2017.”
Misty said she went back to Israel in 2019 with her husband, John, and the Lord continued to really impress on her that she needed to write this book, and her husband encouraged her over the next couple years to do so, and she did. Harris-Durst said the book examines her past.
“It goes back to my childhood, it touches on the patterns of abusive things that took place over the years, some knowingly, some unknowingly, by people, and it’s really about when you’re going through abuse, recognizing the signs, but also knowing that you can completely and totally rely upon the Lord in every situation, and He will always be there. You may not always have people, but you will always have the Lord if you lean into Him, and so He truly did bring beauty out of the ashes of what I went through over those years. My dad had some addictions, and there were different things that I grew up with, and that’s maybe why I made some of the decisions I made. It really helps people understand why they make some of the decisions they do, but then also encourages walking in forgiveness for the people that have hurt them. What I came to learn is we all have broken foundations in one shape, form, or another that have either happened to us, or things that we’ve done ourselves that have caused them, but if you don’t heal the foundation, it just creates a bigger problem down the road. If you choose to, you can help yourself and generations behind you by healing through your brokenness.”
Misty said numerous people have told her that they walked very similar roads in the church realm but didn’t feel like they had a voice because it was something that isn’t readily talked about in the church.
“Families tend to hide things sometimes because they just do. They don’t feel like they can really talk about it, and so I’ve gotten some great feedback. I’ve had a couple people message me from Red Oak that have already read it and said how much it really helped them to recognize some patterns in their life and to really seek the Lord and healing,” Harris-Durst stated.
White Sparrow’s new owner Missy Bierbaum and Misty are best friends who grew up together, living across a field from each other. Harris-Durst said she helped Bierbaum in preparation of her re-grand opening.
“When she was going to buy the White Sparrow, she had talked to me about it before anybody else really knew anything and asked when she purchased it if we could come up and paint it, because I also own a painting company, and my dad was a painter up in Red Oak. Most people know him still. I came up there and we actually painted it for her as she was closing on the sale. She had already read my book, knew I was doing book signings, and she said she thought we should do the re-grand opening and the book signing at the same time, and so that’s really where that came into play,” advised Harris-Durst.
She added that she really enjoyed the opportunity to return to the Red Oak community and reconnect with the people she knew, and meet new people.
“I actually had three of my old teachers from school, my speech teacher, one of my third grade teachers, and then my high school PE teacher who all came in and wanted a book, and it was good to just reconnect with some of my old classmates and friends, and people that I’ve known in the community a long time. It was really good to just see people that I haven’t seen in a long time. Many people didn’t necessarily know my story, and so I think that was kind of the bigger picture. You never know what somebody else is going through, and we need to be more present for people, and understand that everybody has stuff that they’re carrying,” Harris-Durst said.
Misty added the most rewarding part of writing the book was the healing that took place in her own life by writing it.
“I had gone through some pretty hard physical sickness when I wrote it, and I think it was my natural doctor who said, ‘you know, your body holds on to trauma.’ For me, personally, it was walking through that that really helped me heal my own body and mind and different things. The other rewarding part is having other people open up about things that they haven’t talked about to anyone before, and share that they’ve gone through very similar things. Now they’re sharing it with family members, and they’re able to have conversations that they’ve never had have been very healing for their own families, too,” commented Harris-Durst.
Now that she’s penned her first novel, Harris-Durst said she already has the title to her second one and plan on writing it in the next year.
To purchase a copy of the book, visit hillsandvalleysfarmministries.org, and it will take you to another site to order. It’s also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers, and just came out on audio, so it is also on iTunes, Audible and similar platforms. If ordering through Misty personally through messaging her, she can sign your copy. She said signed copies are also available for purchase at the White Sparrow as well.
Harris-Durst said Hills and Valleys Farm Ministries is hosting performers in August that have recovered from addiction and is looking to possibly promote doing a Christian concert in Red Oak with those featured artists.