The Adventures of a Twin Mama: 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!