Standing on my Soap Box

Am I Insignificant? No…

  • Sheila Rempel, Author
  • Writer, Southeastern Manitoba

I’m in the midst of something that is really hard, and I don’t like it. I was feeling rather down and crappy the other night, and I came across a TikTok from someone name Hannah. She was talking about the assignment God has placed on my life, and all the things that Satan does to make sure we don’t get to the plans that God has for us. He wanted to take me out. It talked about how the angels that were at our birth. This made me think of all that had to happen for me to be here.

So, I am going to tell you the story of my mom. She grew up in an abusive home. At the age of 17 she married a man that would physically abuse her. While in that relationship she had my brother. The day her husband went after her son, my mom said to him “you can touch me, but don’t touch my son” and she left him. Her boyfriends after him were just as abusive, if not worse.

One evening she went to the Marchand Hotel with her cousin and aunt. As she walked in my (adoptive) dad looked at her and told his friend that one day he was going to married that woman (Paraphrased as I cannot use the word he used here) one day. They dated for a while, however he treated her well and she didn’t think that she deserved him, so she broke things off. Again, with the dating of men that did not treat her well, and at one point she conceived me.

I was not in her cards (or so she thought) so she gave me up for adoption. Funny thing, back 50+ years ago, the adoption agency would call her and tell her that someone was coming to meet me. They did those phone call and meetings 3 times, and finally my mom said to herself “she’s not a piece of meat for people to come and shop for”. So, she told them that she changed her mind and got me back. I was 3 months old at that time. She did whatever she had to do.

When I was 9 months old, Mom was at work and a car pulled up for gas. She looked at the driver and low and behold it was her ex boyfriend, and the man who was to become my dad. He had married and was with a woman who was not with the morals that he wanted in a wife. He went home, found a banana box packed up some clothes, move in with Mom and I and the rest is- as they say – is history. Dad brought God into our home and changed the trajectory of our lives.

As you can see through this story there are a number of things that happened before I was born and shortly after that could have changed my life story. My mom could have stayed with her ex husband. She wouldn’t have met my biological father. She could have stayed with the man who became my dad when they first started dating and she wouldn’t have met my biological father. I however was meant to be here, and those things didn’t happen as she was supposed to meet him and create me.

Then, she could have kept me with the adoption agency instead of getting me back, and I would have eventually been raised by someone else. But with that scenario I wouldn’t have the life I did. God put me in places that he wanted me to be to become the person I am.

I also believe that things happen for a reason. Here is a blog post I did a while ago on how going to one event and meeting one person also changed the trajectory of my life. Things happen for a purpose. My life is not insignificant. I‘ve had people reach out to me from some of the stories I’ve told here that have affected them. If the things that happened in my life hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be able to encourage people the way I can now.

So getting back to the events happening in my life right now, IT SUCKS, life feels really hard right now. I am praying that God would do whatever it is that he needs to do to either fix things, or he gives me healing during these circumstances. But one thing I do know, is that God will use my current story to be a comfort to someone else in time to come.