valentines, or not!....

I know, I know... this doesn't apply to any of us, but in thinking about Valentine's Day, I saw these and got a chuckle out of them... Sometimes a little humor is a good teacher too!

Open 24-7....

OPEN
24-7...


always available...


night or day....



it's never 'after hours' ....



the lights are always on...




if we need to talk to Him, He's ALWAYS AVAILABLE...
24-7...



and not only that,



...but He is always wide awake and hears our prayers, 9 a.m. or 3 a.m... And many times, that's exactly what I need to know, when it's 3 a.m. , and I'm wide awake and needing to talk to Him...



One of my all time favorites is Heb.13:5 (in The Amplified)...



"For He (God) Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. (I will) not, (I will) not, (I will) not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake nor let (you) down, (relax My hold on you.)....Assuredly not!"He will never leave us or forsake us...



I think that just about covers it all, for today... and every day (and night!)

Their story... Chapter 2....

For the story from the beginning, here is chapter 1...

Chapter 2 of their story begins with my mother, now a young woman and living in Oslo, Norway, far south of her childhood home of Tromso, and in training to become a nurse...

During this time, a great revival was breaking out in Norway and people were coming from miles away to be a part of the outpouring of God in this country. My mother knew all about it, and wasn't a christian yet...

Her father phoned her and suggested she go and see what was happening in these meetings. (He was a christian). She went one night out of courtesy to him, and couldn't get close to the doors there was such a huge crowd. But even from down the road, she could hear the singing and said she felt like running away fast! She sensed that something was different here.... So she reported to her dad and hoped that would be the end of it. No... he phoned her again and said he had talked to a good friend who was one of the organizers of these meetings, and he had promised to get her in if she would come one more time, which of course, she did...

She said when they got inside the front door, the singing of the thousands of people gathered there absolutely overwhelmed her. She had never heard people sing like that and she just wanted to get out of there! Instead... her father's friend lead her right down to the front where they found a spare seat! God had already begun to prepare her heart for what was to come...

She left when the service ended, and went back to her dorm room and as she tried to sleep, she began to weep and was so full of fear that she was shaking. She said that even her bed was shaking. She was under deep conviction and she knew she had to do something. Finally, she told her room mate ( who was a christian) that she had to pray. They got on their knees, (Christina, her room mate told her later she had been praying all night for my mother...and my mother invited Jesus into her heart and her life... just like ours, was never the same again. She was filled with peace and a joy she had never experienced.

She immediately phoned her father who was way up in northern Norway and through her tears of joy told him, "I've done the same as my sister" ( her sister had been saved earlier.. Her dad said "Tell me one more time, Reidun, tell me one more time. So she bawled again and told him one more time.....

Her heart was changed that night, dramatically and instantly. One of the first things she began to notice was that 'the old and sour nurses didn't seem so old and sour anymore'... My mother felt a kindness toward them and she couldn't stop telling people what had happened. She said many of them just looked at her and rolled their eyes, as if to say 'oh no, another one who's gotten religion'... The whole country was talking about this revival. The evangelist's name was Frank Mangs. But, his name wasn't important, it was what God was doing that was different! People were ignoring the clock and were completely caught up in listening and wanting to obey God... These were not 'normal' services. When real revival comes, there is a desire for hearts to get right with God no matter what it takes. Thousands were saved during these great revival meetings that went on for months in Norway.

... after she completed nurses training, my mother went back home to Tromso, to help manage her father's general store in their town...

Tromso is built on a tree covered island, 70 degrees north of the arctic circle, on the coast line of Norway, with snow capped mountains which were the perfect challenge for skiers and climbers. Tromso is so far north that for 2 months of every year, they do not see the sun, so there are 2 months of 'darkness' in the winter, and then 2 months of sun that shines day and night in the summer. They call is 'the land of the midnight sun". During the dark months ('Morketiden') it could also be beautiful, with the northern lights, 'Aurora Borealis' that lit up the black sky. During these times, they often went skiing even during the night time, and the full moon added beauty to the snow white landscape. In Norway, they all ski... sometimes before they can walk... and my mother was a bronze medal winner in cross country skiing during the Norwegian Olympics, several times.

Their family home had a third floor, which they had named 'the prophet's chamber', since so many visiting ministers would stay there when they preached in her town. My mother began to go to that room every day, to read her Bible and pray. Her desire to know God was deep and growing. Her interests had changed, and she had a new joy and peace, and a love for the Lord that changed everything for her.

Those days in that third floor room, lead her to her life's verse: Matthew 6:6 "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly". (KJV)

She began to be challenged by God's commands as well as His promises.

... One day, shortly after arriving home, she had a letter from a friend in Oslo who wrote..."If you had been here now, you would have lost your heart"... and she went on to write about "a young American preacher' whom the Lord had used with such great blessing, and who had stayed in their family home. My mother quickly wrote back to her friend telling her how glad she was that she wasn't there, so she didn't have to 'lose her heart'. Furthermore, she added... she wasn't interested in any preacher. She had met so many preachers in their home, and she said "they were all poor, and they all wore such baggy pants"...

To be continued... (I promise, the next chapter won't be this long!)...

A few random thoughts ...

Sometimes I am guilty of too
much
processing
or
thinking...

I've found that...


Too much
instro-
spection
can become a slippery
slope...


I want my thinking to line up with His thinking, so...For every look around us, the last look should be to Jesus...

Keep it vertical! (One of my dad's one-liners)... always looking up!

...and here's what God says HE will do when we do that..."Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee"...

The quicker I get to the Lord with EVERYTHING... the better off I am. I end up there anyway... and the process is much less difficult when I go to Him FIRST!

That's it.... just random thoughts today...

Happy Birthday Crew... 5 years old!!!...

CREW:

Mischiev-

ous grin, always in place...

Loves to have fun, loves to laugh...

Always ready for the next challenge..

He is a dedicated and serious fisherman...

Pretty much thinks that EVERY day should be his birthday...

This boy LOVES chocolate...

He adores his big sister and brother, and doesn't know that he can't do anything they can do!

Sings JESUS LOVES ME with gusto, and knows it's true...

Makes all of us laugh... all the time!

He is original, creative and hilarious... he's the one we say has the 'funny gene'...

Happy 5th birthday Crew...

WE LOVE YOU TONS!!!

Then Sings my Soul Saturdays...Be still my soul...

I think this is my third or fourth listing of a song by Selah. Above the window in my office is a wood sign with the scripture so familiar to most of us... "Be still & know that I am God".

That is my song choice today... Be Still My Soul....

The reason this message hangs on my wall is because I need to read this and hear this... daily! It's a reminder that never gets old!

If you link over to Signs, Miracles and Wonders, you will enjoy some other great songs for your Saturday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

A million canaries...

"What's the price of two or three pet canaries? Some loose change, right? But God never overlooks a single one. And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries"...

Luke 12:6,7 (The Message)

This verse always blesses me! I read it again recently. He knows the exact number of the hairs on our head.... He said so!

And... He thinks I'm worth more than a million canaries!

That's a love that changes everything! And it has...

I am so thankful that I belong to the God who created the whole universe, He is the owner of everything! And HE cares about the very smallest details of my life... and yours...

Their story...Chapter 1...

THEIR story begins with HIS story, and HER story...

HIS STORY...

Both his father and his grandfather were ministers. When my dad finished seminary, he began as a pastor in a small church in Long Island, New York. It was here, during his own study and search for more of God, that he discovered the PRAYER MEETING in the Book of Acts. His church knew very little about prayer, they were very 'denominational', but not necessarily Biblical. He was deeply changed as he began to study what the Bible had to say about prayer. It lit a fire in his heart that never dimmed, and it changed his ministry then, and for the rest of his life...

When he began to teach about prayer, he held his first prayer meeting in this little church and a handful of people came... it began to spread through the church and the denomination that a 'prayer meeting' was being held in this church. It didn't sit well with most of them. It was a new thought, and 'radical' to many. Eventually, they would ask him to resign when he continued to preach about prayer...

Many, many years later, this same denomiation invited dad to come back to many of their churches, to teach them about prayer, and how to pray!

While he pastored this church, he lead a Confirmation class for young people. The group pictured here were in his first class, and he had the joy of leading every one of them to the Lord during this time.

While he was in Long Island, he was asked by a friend to take the place of a speaker who had become ill, at a large youth conference in the country of NORWAY...

Enter my mother...

HER STORY...

She was born in Tromso, Norway...way north of the arctic circle. She was one of 7 children, her father the mayor of their town. As a young woman, she moved to Oslo, to enter nurses training. She had read about Florence Nightingale and was so inspired to become a nurse and help others. She used to say that during the first months of nurses training...all dreams of Florence Nightingale faded fast! Instead, she carried bedpans, changed sheets, and worked harder than she had ever imagined.

During that time, a great revival broke out in Norway. People by the thousands were piling into the largest facilities they could find, drawn by what God was doing in hearts all over Norway....

Coming later....chapter 2, at some point in the weeks ahead.....

Then Sings My Soul Saturdays - "He Touched Me"...

It's time to join with Amy at Signs, Miracles and Wonders for another great selecion of songs. Check out the links and you will hear some great music!

I've posted an old favorite. I think there is some Southern gospel in me, as this one just makes me want to sing right along. Here is the Gaither trio with "He Touched Me." I remember hearing this many years ago, and the message was so real... it still is...

Enjoy the music and the message...

My California beach right here in Texas...

I married a Texan! This happened in California, where I grew up. If you fall in love with a Texan, chances are pretty good you will end up in Texas! We did... And now I've been in Texas longer than I was in California.

One of the first differences I noticed when we drove across the border for the first time, was

that not everyone wore a cowboy hat and rode a horse! The second thing I saw was how flat it was and how big the sky was. I asked my husband that first few weeks, 'what do people DO in Texas on the weekend? There are no mountains or ocean!

So... very soon I found a big lake just east of Dallas, where building was beginning. I saw boats and water, and I knew that was eventually where I hoped we would live. Well, it took 20 years, but now we have been here for over 15 years and we love it!I know the 'water and mountain' thing is from both California, and from my Norwegian heritage. My mother was born in Norway and always loved the water.We live a few blocks off of the water, and a few years ago, a local developer joined with the city, which used to be a really small town, and built an amazingly beautiful waterfront area, right around our corner! I called the builder and told him I thought he did it just for me! It was almost like God brought my Southern California beach front right to my doorstep. I really love walking by the water, and there are restaurants and even a great hotel. So, our small Texas town has grown up! Here are a few pictures of our waterfront.
I'm a Texan now, and I love it, but a part of my heart will always belong to California... and Norway...