Published!

A piece of mine has been published in a real magazine! Hurrah! Sunstone Magazine's September 2006 issue includes a short memoir of mine in its "Touchstones" section (theme: Small Miracles). You can't see the text online, so I've pasted it below for those who don't have access to the magazine:

SMALL MIRACLES
by Skye Pixton Engstrom

When I was a little girl, my brother gave me two quarters so that I could use them to buy cotton candy at the fair the next day. I lived on a practical farm, and had never had cotton candy before (nor did it seem the type of thing my whole-grain mother was likely to buy me). I cherished those quarters with my stubby little four-year-old hands and heart in great anticipation.

It wasn’t long, of course, before I misplaced them, and was completely beside myself about it. I remembered a recent Primary lesson, that if I prayed in a private place, God would answer me. I went to the privatest place I knew – the small bathroom – and uttered my first little heartfelt prayer kneeling over the toilet.

After praying, I got up and wandered about wondering how God would tell me where the quarters were (my teacher hadn’t gotten to the part about how prayers are answered, and I didn’t know). Mind and heart open, within minutes I got a picture in my head, clear as day, of the quarters lying under the pillow on my bed. I went directly to the bed and looked under the pillow and, behold! Quarters.

I realize that it would be easy to explain away the spiritual significance of that event: I mean, maybe I just needed some focus and time to remember where I had put them. And it would be easy to think that I self-manufactured the idea that God had answered me, simply because I wanted it so bad. But almost all of my “spiritual experiences” to date are similarly simple: a feeling of peace, quiet assurances, wind at the right moment on a mountaintop, a bird stopping by for a significant moment – things that are unmiraculous and known only to me. Does my wanting the experience somehow create and therefore invalidate it? Our commonly used definition of faith (“things hoped for but not seen”) inherently implies, by the word “hope,” an actual desire, not just willingness. So the very ingredients of faith make it easy to dismiss.

I don’t remember the cotton candy I bought with the quarters anymore, nor do I remember the fair. But I have never forgotten my first answer to my first prayer. And while sometimes I think it’s a silly story – why would God answer such a trivial and insignificant request? – I also realize that the desires of our hearts, however simple, are of great interest to God. He lost nothing by reaching out to a four-year-old girl, in a four-year-old mindset, with four-year-old desires. He gained a lifelong friend in me. -|||-


A Story and a Brief Thanks: about 3 or 4 years ago Emily, Lumina, Michelle and I wrote "titles" on paper and stuck them on our bedroom doors. You know, like whatever you might put under your name on a business card: "Skye Pixton: songwriter, paralegal, salsa dancer," etc... I think we each boldly put at least one thing that we weren't really qualified to put there, but wished we were and hoped someday maybe we would be. I put "writer." And that month I started experimenting with writing occasional memoirs. I'm pretty sure every one of us has accomplished our title we weren't qualified for by now. Emily has a CD. Lumina is an art teacher. I can't say I know a ton about Michelle's doings at the moment, but I know we've all changed and grown and progressed in ways we probably thought nearly impossible at the time. Thanks, girls, for encouraging me!