{Adoption} She's so much like me

She is so much like me. She's stubborn, tells detailed stories, likes crafts, loves her friends, wants to have a plan, and has perfectionist tendencies.

And yet she's not like me, especially as a child. She's not afraid of most new things, speaking in front of people doesn't scare her, she laughs easily, and she wants to play sports. I'm more adventurous as an adult than I ever was a kid, but, still, she makes me proud in the ways she faces life.

I welcome some of our similarities, especially because I didn't expect them when we turned our attention to adoption from pregnancy. People say she looks like me, which, again, we didn't expect to happen through adoption. Perhaps it's the dark hair. Or maybe it's just because she often responds like me. She likes to make her friends cards. She likes to help me in the kitchen. She likes to take {and plan!} road trips. And each night before she goes to bed, she asks me what we're doing the next day.

But sometimes I scold her when her behavior is just like mine. I see my weaknesses in her and cringe, not because she disappoints me but because I disappoint myself. And I know she's watching. I get cranky when I'm tired. I can break when my plan breaks.

And then I watch her love her life and her brother and her daddy and school and writing and reading and games and playing and imagining, and I'm left knowing that even in my imperfect perfectionist ways mothering this girl is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

She's so much like me. And it leaves me to believe nurture trumps nature because biologically speaking she wasn't created from me. But I know without a doubt she was created for me to be her momma. I understand her. I yearned for her. I learn from her every day. Her story is my story because through it God rescued my heart.
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This is the second in a series of posts this month in honor of November being National Adoption Awareness Month. You can read my past adoption-related posts here. Want more? Subscribe to get "Insights" in your inbox. Or follow me on Twitter.