Category: Devotions

Today was not a Tuesday but a Monday. So okay, of course today is actually Tuesday but the way my day began and proceeded was like a Monday. It reminds me of the babies at my little love’s daycare — they had a case of the Mondays yesterday…All of them were crying. And that’s exactly what I felt like doing today. Actually I screamed in the car while my baby was sleeping. 😐😅

Why you say? Well… My baby was fussy this am and I was running behind, late for my morning conference call so I rushed downstairs. Getting to the car and almost out of the garage, I realized I forgot my wallet, or so I thought. I uttered a prayer to God saying I’m at my end and I desperately need Him. I ran back upstairs and could not find my wallet. I got back to my truck and it’s sitting in my baby’s stroller. 😩 And yes I missed the conference call. 😣

I got my baby to daycare safely after praying to make it to the nearby gas station after dropping him off since I was too tired to get gas the night before. Besides, I didn’t want to pay at the pump and it’s easier to go inside without my son. So I tried to get gas… Aggravated, I accepted the pumps weren’t working after trying to pay at the pump once and inside twice. 😭😭😡. I called my manager to let him know what’s going on and where I was and he just laughed and said it’s okay… It’s only my 3rd week back at work and I’m on a new team so I just didn’t want to be late let alone falling short (thank God for favor!!) So I prayed and asked God to let me make it safely to the gas station near my office/home and praise God!! The gas was like 50 cents cheaper a gallon (maybe error or since it just reopened they had a special 🙂) so I saved like almost $7-8.

The rest of the day wasn’t too bad…Well I almost fell because I misstepped on the end of the chair (just when I thought clumsy Quita was gone 🤣)…Someone almost walked in on me while I was pumping because I missed my scheduled time in the wellness room. After almost falling I made sure to take a mental health moment and thank God for my Apple Watch! They have an app called Breathe which helps you to practice mindfulness, one minute at a time. I took a minute where I focused on inhaling peace and exhaling stress and it helped me shift back into the right space. In that moment I truly thanked God that all that could go wrong didn’t and for keeping me in spite of what did.

Sometimes we get so stressed out by focusing on what is going wrong (myself included) that we forget to thank God for what is going right. Were it not for my practice of gratefulness and my watch today, I would have been cussing!! I had to keep going back to God in prayer because I know my human nature is prone to losing sight of everything in moments like these. God has reminded me countlessly that He has my back and is looking out for me and my little love, especially in the last few days. Today, or any day that your day goes like mine, take a minute to count your blessings and thank God for the peace He gave us through Jesus. Take your peace back!

Prayer works I tell you!!

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭26:3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I got pregnant because I was impatient.

I felt led to share this with y’all so I hope it blesses you. 😘

Today I was listening to “The Wait” (I’ve been reading it again and I’m not keeping up in my group so I figured I would listen to the audiobook since I had purchased it like 6 months ago. I’ve had the actual book for probably a year or two.) A line that struck a cord with me today was “God does not show your heart to everybody. He only shows it to people He can trust with it.”

So then it hit me. All the relationships I had been in failed largely because those men weren’t able to see my heart and I was being impatient. They were lessons yes, and I’m beyond grateful for what I learned but they didn’t work out because they weren’t supposed to. I definitely made mistakes in being impatient – by being impatient, I gave myself and of myself too freely and too quickly. I allowed my physical needs to influence my sight, and in doing so, I saw the potential of those men that they could quite possibly never achieve. I loved and loved with my whole heart, making the desire for marriage my god, which grieved God. I had been praying for patience, and to receive God’s love however He chose to manifest it and after this I completely understand why my life has taken the course it has and that these experiences were manifestations of God’s love.

Again, I got pregnant because I was impatient. It was not God’s intention that I be a single mother. My impatience caused it but God used it (like everything else in my life) and He will use my baby as He already is doing. And now that I look back, I’ve always been that way – impatient, that is. For a long time I thought when I prayed for or about something it had to happen immediately…but I forgot about my prayer for patience. I didn’t realize that maybe the delay was that prayer for patience itself coming for fruition. In college I wanted my then boyfriend to propose to me or have a plan for us by 9 months after my graduation so that I could move back to Atlanta. It never happened and we broke up with him saying that he planned to propose at the end of the year. Then a couple years later, I wanted the next person I loved to get serious with me but it did not happen that way…and of course in that situation I did not wait. After things fell apart for us, I listened to God and took a break from dating, and I took a vow of celibacy for almost a year and a half, and avoided men like the plague. During that time I moved to Louisiana for law school and realized that my journey to finishing law school would not be short and sweet when God spoke to me letting me know I would have to sit out for some time. Before long I was back to being impatient with men…overthinking every encounter with a man and planning our future. In 2015 I returned to celibacy and decided that I would spend that time removing all blocks to a lasting relationship and let go of the last blocks to my healing. God spoke to me and let me know that I would be moving and gave me insights to what would happen next. Then impatient resurfaced…the key here is that this process was mostly Marquita-driven versus completely God-led which is why I ended up compromising. I met a guy in December 2015 that I felt was God’s doing…but again I began planning our life in my head and when he wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted, I compromised with my son’s father. And voilà, I have a baby with someone I wasn’t married to or in love with. I think back now to all those plans I made and how my impatience could have forfeited what God wanted for me. Thank God for resurrection and restoration!!

My impatience even bled into my finishing law school to the point I broke down only a few weeks into this semester after realizing it was too much to be a new mom and with full time and go to school, so much that I see now that God was telling me to slow down and that waiting is not bad…that delays are not forever and in fact are sometimes a necessity…that all of this, all of my mistakes can and will be used. I admitted to myself that I am not superwoman and that I too have limits. I had to choose, and at the end of the day I will always choose my son. Fortunately my scholarship is waiting on me when I return and I trust God will give me the strategy for finishing in time. It finally dawned on me today: the lesson I was supposed to learn through all of this is to wait, to be patient, that waiting is NOT the end of the world. And it took a baby to bring that about. Haha, my biggest lesson came in the smallest package. I had to wait those long almost 10 months for his birth…I was in labor for 13 hours in pain and he was not ready to be born yet. I only had a c-section because his heart rate dropped and my blood pressure went up. And since he was born he has been moving fast…holding his head up only a few hours after birth. Even now, my son is moving wayyyyy too fast for me and I just want him to slow down… My baby has been the perfect mirror to show me myself. I want to see everything he does, experience every milestone, stare at him, hold him, hug him and squeeze him. My two and a half months home with him went by too fast and it broke my heart to go back to work but I had bills to pay and all hell broke loose at school…I had to trust God’s plan.

So I see now how much God loves me. He loves me so much that He made me go through the same lesson over and over and over in different areas until I got it. He’s held my hand through it all though, because patience is a painful prayer or at least the lessons have been painful for me. I don’t even remember when I first prayed for patience…but it’s been since I was in high school for sure!! Over 14 years!! I’m waiting now for some answers to prayers to manifest, but I can wait!! I’m worth it and God’s best for my life is worth it. Because there is beauty in waiting on God’s perfect time.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.”

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:11-13‬ ‭NLT‬‬