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!)...
After sharing about Corrie Ten Boom last week, it reminded me of another story from my past... 
