Heritage

I am my parent's daughter for sure. I have qualities that I love about them and that is something to celebrate. Like my Dad, I love to be up early before anyone else, I love order and it secretly makes me irritated when the driveway is covered in mess. I am a great mediator, and I am really good at solving OTHER people's problems. I love to exercise and I absolutely love the heat. Summer is my season and you will always find me outside working, sweating, with a great tan. Like my Mom, I am caring. I don't have a temper. I am a people pleaser. I want my family to be happy. I put other people before myself. I enjoy cooking for people I love. I give people the benefit of the doubt and can usually find good in every person.
I wonder what attributes our adopted child will have and I wonder if they will be identifiable to me. I'd like to think that many of the qualities that make up me are because of the environment I grew up in, not always genetics.
My Grandma Clark was always very good to me. Much like I see my mother being to my kids. She was funny and always made me feel like I was right. My favorite thing about her was her laugh. It was one of a kind. Also, the way she wiggled her shoulders up and down and the way she held her face in her hand. I see qualities in her are also in me. I count it as a blessing that my husband knew her and we lived with her as a newly married couple. Grandma loved Troy and Troy loved her. I felt like through their love, I had done something right and she would always watch over our marriage. (Sounds corny, but grandmothers make you think funny things.) Heritage wise, my grandma was Norwegian and we celebrated that often. She taught me Norwegian words, and rhymes and shared recipes. The summers I spent with her as a child and the time she spent with us at the end of her life was a real blessing to my life.
Sometimes I wonder if I am doing the right thing taking a child out of their culture and submerging them around people that not only don't look like them but don't act them either. After painting a picture of my childhood, I find this quite frightening to a little one. On the other hand, I wonder what life might look for this child if not adopted. What is the future for a child who ages out of the system? Prostitution, Disease, Starvation? It is very hard to believe in this American bubble that there are people/children out there struggling to survive. When is the last time you were in "survival mode"?
In this process, I've become more and more comfortable with this idea that there is somebody out there that belongs to me and it makes my heart hurt that they might be experiencing difficult times at this moment.
And then I remember, when we are in need, He sends hope. Let me be the hope of a child who is in need.