Dedicated to the Lord for His service

I have thought of Hannah many times in the past year during my pregnancy and the birth of my beautiful twin girls. The specific references is "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him." 1 Samuel 1:27 In our case it should say "For these children we prayed!" :) Anyways I believe my girls are truly a gift of God. We had struggled through tears and disappointments for 2 years, and had given up on the thought that we would ever have children of our own. In fact last spring I had called about starting the foster care classes and we were thinking we would adopt (which let me stop here and say there is nothing at all wrong with, there are lots of children out there who need good homes with a good mom and dad who will teach them right from wrong and love them unconditionally, I don't want that to come off as a bad thing at all.) However, I guess God had other plans, it didn't work out for us to do the classes right then and we waited. In July of last year, I was with my mother helping her after she had injured her back pretty badly and kept getting the signal that I was possibly pregnant, so on July 4th I got a test from Dollar Tree (I was in PA at my grandparents, away from my hubby at the time) and I took it fully expecting a negative like all the times before, BUT.... this time it was positive and I began to shake and was nervous and palms were sweaty! At the time we didn't have good phone service at our house and really no way to contact each other unless we were out in town where we had cell service. But I tried anyhow and got a hold of my sis-in-law who was staying here while I was away and finally got ahold of Bud to tell him he WAS GOING TO BE A DADDY!!!!
   My pregnancy started out kind of rough, I had a lot of pain on one side and thought that maybe I was having a tubal and when I got back home, we went to the hospital to get checked as that is a very serious situation. Well they did an ultrasound and found one TWO sacs!!!! The ultrasound tech said that sometimes one disappears over time and so we knew that was a possibility. Well that was at about 5 1/2-6 weeks along. at 8-10 weeks I was still having some problems so I was able to get hurried into an OB doctor who did the ultrasound and definitely found TWO babies and TWO heartbeats and what looked like a 3rd baby who gained angel wings before we got to meet her (I say her because she would have been an identical twin to my daughter Elayna). So we have at least one baby awaiting our arrival in Heaven.
During the early days of my pregnancy I felt like God gave me the promise that He was going to take care of everything. I am a worrier and worried and prayed and one day I felt like He just said "I've got this!" (not in those exact words, but something similar)
Then came Valentine's day, I was 36 1/2 weeks along and planned on having another 2 weeks till the girls were born, but the doc called and said it was time, they HAD to come out that day, as I had some severe problems with Pre-eclampsia. So off we went to have the babies. I don't think I'll ever forget that day!
Since then I have looked into their crib at them and tears have welled up in my eyes, just thinking of the incredible gifts we were given and the incredibly, huge job it is of raising a child, especially in this day and time. But I've also been praying that God will save my girls early on. And that brings me to Mother's Day 2014.
On Mother's Day of this year we decided we were going to dedicate our girls. So we planned it all out, mom made their beautiful white dresses trimmed with lavender and teal and we had Pastor Grabill dedicate them. So why is dedication so important? I believe it's important because it is our commitment to teaching our children right from wrong and committing to pray for them and raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  It's like Hannah said in the very next verse: "Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord..." 1 Samuel 1:28 God blessed us with these beautiful daughters and I feel it is my duty as a mother and a Christian to let God know that I am giving them back to Him and that it is my full intention and duty to raise them to serve Him. Dedication isn't simply something nice to do, it's the taking of a vow before God that you are going to do everything you can humanly speaking to make sure that your children are brought up to serve God!

 Standing up front during the girls dedication with my mom.

 Bro. Grabill leading th dedication.

 Dedicating Elayna.

 Dedicating Elyssa.

 Our little family after service! :)

Mama and her girlies.

What are your feelings on dedications? I'd love to hear them!

The Paths that we take

This evening as I was scrolling through my facebook newsfeed I came across a friends post that really got me to thinking. There was a picture posted with this saying on it that came from www.faith.com

"Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us

 directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us."

After thinking a bit on that and writing this post:

How true this is. I've heard my husband Bud Kuhn say several times that if some of the awful things that have happened in his life (like losing his parents at a young age) hadn't happened, there's no telling where he would be today. In fact our paths may have never crossed and we may not have ever been able to share the love we have for each other and the love we share for our daughters. I know in my own life that if things hadn't happened the way they did especially with my gun accident, I doubt I would be where I am today. At that point in my life I was not a Christian, but I believe that God used that accident to shake me awake and make me realize just how fragile life is and how quickly things can change from one minute/second to the next. I'm also not saying that I've stayed on the right path since that time in my life. I don't believe I really got things settled that I was going to go with God until I was at least 19 and I struggled even after that. But I am determined, 10 years later, that I am still going through and that my path will be the one that God determines and He will be the one that guides me and holds my hand through the foggy times and the dark times and those thick forests that sometimes line the pathway of life.
Those are the things that are important to think about in your life. I would challenge each of my friends to look at the things that they've come through in their lives and mental make a path to see where it has put them today. I believe that God uses both circumstances and humans to alter the paths that we take and it's important to put/keep the right people in our lives that will put each of us on a path that would draw us closer to Him. I also do not believe that just because we've made bad choices or taken the wrong path that God just lets us go, there are constant turn offs or turn arounds that He uses to try to get us back on the right road and one that will offer us so much more happiness.

I just have to say that the paths that we choose in life do have an impact on not only us but those around us. If I had never become a Christian I would probably have never met my husband and definitely wouldn't be in ministry today and if his parents wouldn't have passed away and him go through what he did, he wouldn't have ever turned to God from the path that he was on. So today there might not be the Kuhn family that there is, yes there may have been a Kuhn family somewhere, but that family probably wouldn't not be in the ministry and trying their best to serve God. It's really amazing to me what God has to use to reach through to our dense heads sometimes. It took me losing a part of my finger, when I could quite possibly have even lost my life, in order to get me to think about where I would have ended up if I had died from that gun accident. Some might think something like that is very insignificant compared to what could have happened to me, but to a 15 year old girl, it was a very eye opening, scary experience.