by Merita Atherly Engen | Mar 19, 2019 | Creative, Points of Light, Shining on God's Character
March has hit a home run and is sliding into April. It even sprinkled a few early daffodils as it rounded second base. Sunshine ahead should get it well past third. It runs pell-mell down the last stretch toward spring. I must tag it now or it will be too late,...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Dec 23, 2018 | Points of Light
A lifetime of Christmas memories meld into a swirl of yearning that pulls at my heart like taffy and melts like chocolate into a puddle of longing. As though it were the glob of molten candy my mother used to drop into ice water, this holiday feels condensed. Stories...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Oct 5, 2018 | Healer, Points of Light, Shining on God's Character
Our pastures have been plundered. At least mine have. And it’s taken only a couple days of Supreme Court hearings to do it. Thursday—the day one terrified woman doctor and one emotional male judge testify. I carry my phone around so I can watch and listen while I...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Sep 12, 2018 | Divinity, Failings, Gentle, God of Our Ultimates, Points of Light, Salvation, Shining on God's Character, Success, Victor
Scraps of tune weave into my waking. What is that song? I reach for my phone and press Search on my app. I must need the music. Why else would the Spirit impress it on this coming-out-of-a-dream moment? Yes, it is Him. I’ve experienced enough dream-related moments to...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Feb 6, 2018 | Healer, Points of Light, Shining on God's Character, Teacher, Timely
If I had known all the arduous effort, attention to detail, and mind-and-heart-breaking labor my first literary work would take, I probably wouldn’t have started. It has been a labor of love from the first day, but I had no idea what a degree in creative writing...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Nov 23, 2017 | Points of Light
Today isn’t my traditional house and heart crammed to the brim with family, then emptied in a whoosh when they leave, kind of Thanksgiving Day. I’m not even cooking. Oh, I baked a couple pies—cherry, my husband’s favorite—but that hardly counts. There are no...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Aug 1, 2017 | Giver, Good, Healer, Points of Light, Praiseworthy, Shining on God's Character
Oranges… I see. I feel. I taste…. Oranges as a creative writing prompt? I could turn this into a blog. I’ve needed to blog for months. Fallen way behind, doing other writing and editing and living. Blogs are important for writers to keep up. Mine is particularly...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Sep 7, 2016 | Fatherly, God of Our Ultimates, Identity, Points of Light, Shining on God's Character
WooOUUUwooo! Dad’s cow horn, found at some tacky souvenir shop somewhere along a tourist trap, blasted down the hall past my bedroom door. I scrunched my pillow over my ears. Dad had decided this was the best way to wake his family. It was time for breakfast. Time...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Aug 16, 2016 | God of Our Ultimates, Points of Light, Survival
Having survived life in an Ozark cabin, the Bible, in its preponderance of size and weight, now adorned a coffee table inside a house surrounded by Arkansas cotton. “Sharecroppers. That’s who my grandparents were,” my soon-to-be husband explained the first time we...
by Merita Atherly Engen | Jul 28, 2016 | Creative, Healer, Points of Light, Shining on God's Character
Southern Appalachia isn’t the only place our ancestors eked out an existence clearing virgin timber and hauling rocks from new fields. Across our nation, across our world, survival usually depended on hardy folks with muscles hard. Folks in touch with nature and in...
