On the Eve of the Fourth Anniversary of Your Adoption

My precious baby girl,

On this night four years ago I wrote you a letter.  I spoke about my love for you.  I spoke about my hopes for you.  I spoke about how hard we fought for you.  For your life.  For your health.  For stability and consistency. 

I want you to know, I've not stopped fighting for you.  I've not stopped loving you.  I've not let go of any of my hopes for you.  And I would not take back choosing you for a daughter.

You have endured so much in your short life.  I often look at you and wonder how it is that you have survived.  I often wonder why God thought I was good enough to handle the force that is you.  I often worry that my strength could never outweigh yours.  I worry that one day the pain will overtake you and that I will loose you.  I worry that you will hate me for not protecting you when I could have... for being blind to the hurts that I unknowingly allowed.  I worry that my moments of sheer frustration, those times when I just don't know what to do...how to help you... how to save you from your own head...will cause you to see me as an enemy.  I worry that the medications we give you to help quiet the chaos will harm you and that one day you will resent me for it.  I worry that I'm missing something... that my gut is failing me...that I'm not the person who was meant to be your mom after all... that someone, somewhere, somehow... made a mistake, and that that mistake was me.     
But I want you to know, I've never stopped fighting for you.  I've not stopped loving you.  I've not let go of any of my hopes for you.  And I would not take back choosing you for a daughter.

You have an amazing sense of humor.  Your smile is infectious. I've never seen someone want so badly to understand and feel love.  Oh how so many take that for granted... being able to feel love.  How I wish that hadn't been taken from you.  How I wish that on the day we adopted you that piece that was broken so early on had been fully restored.  I know it will be, in time.  How I wish on the day we adopted you that you never would have to know hurt again.  But life doesn't work that way.    

I want you to know, I've never stopped fighting for you.  I've not stopped loving you.  I've not let go of any of my hopes for you.  And I would not take back choosing you for a daughter.

I have no doubt you were made for great things.  I know that no power of hell, or scheme of man, could ever pluck you from God's hand.

And on this night, on the eve of the fourth anniversary of your adoption into our family, I want you to know this:
   
I will never stop fighting for you.  I will never stop loving you.  I will never let go of my hopes for you.  And I would never take back choosing you for a daughter.

I love you.