Dear Anna

Dear Anna,

Oh, sweet girl, I am crazy about you.  I can't begin to tell you how very much I love you because there just aren't words for it.  You are an incredible blessing.

Right now we're in the middle of "just-Anna-and-me week."  The boys are all in Texas, and I'm loving every minute of my week with you.  I look at you and tear up because my heart is bursting with love.  You are the baby I longed for, the one I begged God for.  You are the answer to my prayers.

On June 25, 2008 I found out I was pregnant for the third time, but it wasn't until three years later to the day, June 25, 2011, that I had a healthy baby of mine in my arms.  In those three years we had two miscarriages, sweet Samuel, and a year of trying for you.  Though full of growth and God's faithfulness and presence, those three years were really, really hard and heartbreaking.  I wasn't sure we would ever be able to have another child, and how desperately I longed for one.  And then God gave us YOU.  You, Anna Patricia Apinis, are my answered prayer.

We have all been amazed at how you ease the ache in our souls, how you make life brighter, grief lighter, and hope more tangible.  You are a healing force in our family -- we can't help but experience healing when we look at you, hold you, and kiss you.  I've seen you transform all of us -- Daddy, Caleb, Joel, and me.  It's miraculous what God has done through you, and I can't thank Him enough.

But Anna, I want you to know that we don't just love you because you're Samuel's baby sister.  We love you because you are you.  We love YOU -- who you are, how you are, just the way you are.  I love your huge smile, the way you stop crying the instant you're in my arms, your deep, guttural laugh that seems to spring from the depths of your belly, your delight in your big brothers, your gorgeous big blue-brown eyes that strangers regularly compliment, your adoring looks at me and Daddy, your sweet turned up nose with its tiny divot, your love for your bunny, your cry that is impossible to ignore, and your heart-melting dimples.  Anna, I love the way God made you.

I pray for you every day, Anna Button, and I pray that your life would reflect the meaning of your name -- that you would be full of mercy, grace, and prayer.  I long for you to know and trust Jesus, to follow after Him all the days of your life.  I pray that you will be a woman of wisdom, love, kindness, compassion, honor, purity, and faith.  I pray that you will find your identity in the One who created you and not in what the world says of you, that you and I will have a great relationship through each stage of your life, and that your relationship with your dad will keep you grounded and confident of your worth.

Do you know you have the greatest daddy in the world?  It is impossible not to like him; he is funny, personable, and kind.  But more importantly, he loves Jesus with all his heart.  He is a man of truth, compassion, faith, integrity, honor, wisdom, courage, and generosity.  I pray that someday you will marry a man who will treasure you like your daddy treasures you and me, who will point you to God, who will shower you with love, who will make you feel beautiful even on the days when the mirror tells you otherwise, who will put you before himself and serve you willingly and joyfully, who will rejoice in you just the way God made you.  Your daddy does all those things for me, and I hope and pray your future marriage is as enjoyable, loving, and real as ours is.

Anna, I will love you all the days of your life and beyond no matter what -- regardless of who you become, what you do, what you believe, or what you think of me.  There's nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you.  You are my amazing and beautiful daughter, and you always will be.

I love you, Anna, and I always will.  No matter what.  And I will thank God for you all the days of my life.

Love, Momma