Merita Atherly Engen

“Come! Let me tell you stories!” I urged my baby brother and older sister, as I gathered my dolls around me.  My sister groaned. My brother crawled off his blanket. My dolls sat enraptured.

At ten, I eagerly took a class in story-telling. In my teen years, I collected stories.

“Momma, tell me a story, ’bout when you were a little girl,” my children begged, years later.

I began to write stories among the mountains and streams of western North Carolina that nurtured my soul most of my adult life. Currently, I find quiet writing time in the rolling horse country of historical, northern Virginia. I am a member of the Round Hill Writer’s Group and Pennwriters Inc.

I have been published in Guide, a weekly, Christian story periodical. My collection of meditations, Garden Surrender, is available through Amazon. The Heart of Rose-Marie, my full-length Christian women’s fiction is a manuscript seeking a publisher. My blog, Penpoints of Light — Stories that Shine on an Awesome God, provides opportunity for me to combine my passion for God with my passion for writing.

Teach me anything, but do it through story.

While I hold an Associate Degree in Fine Arts, I have gained most of my education by practicing the fine art of living my story. It’s a story line that includes everything from  giving birth to holding the dying, from nurturing relationships to destroying them, from living near penniless to living in plenty. I have failed at marriage and I have succeeded. I have not “finished the course,” but I am still “keeping the faith.” Faith in a God of  love, as revealed through Jesus Christ, is my story’s recurrent theme.

My passion is discovering new glimpses of truth about this loving God. My deepest pleasure is knowing others are blessed when I share those discoveries. I delight in finding how God’s way of love can work in every situation, in every personality, and through every culture. These are my favorite stories.

I believe that each one of us has a concept of God narrowed by our particular point of view. It’s as though all we can see of God is what one flashlight beam reveals. Yet, each believer may experience aha moments, simple occurrences, which enlarges the view, the flashlight beam for all of us. My dream is to pen and share the stories of those moments, to combine those points of light in order to offer all of us a broader view.

Pen Points of Light — Stories that Shine on an Awesome God was born to help fulfill that dream.

So come, let me tell you a story!