Falling into Place: My Journey to Find Purpose

By LaQuita Horace-Carter

Mrs. LaQuita Horace-Carter is an inspirational and influential orator who travels teaching and inspiring men and women to rediscover their original purpose and call to greatness. Mrs. Horace-Carter is a licensed clinician who combines contextual evidence and experience to enlighten her audiences on realigning with their destiny. She is committed to empowering persons of all ages to go beyond environmental barriers to live life to their greatest potential. Mrs. Horace-Carter inspires her audiences to create the world they desire to live in by pursuing a daily authentic existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477147931

LaQuita Horace-Carter

Mrs. LaQuita Horace-Carter is an inspirational and influential orator who travels teaching and inspiring men and women to rediscover their original purpose and call to greatness. Mrs. Horace-Carter is a licensed clinician who combines contextual evidence and experience to enlighten her audiences on realigning with their destiny. She is committed to empowering persons of all ages to go beyond environmental barriers to live life to their greatest potential. Mrs. Horace-Carter inspires her audiences to create the world they desire to live in by pursuing a daily authentic existence.

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Copyright © 2012 by LaQuita Horace-Carter.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Foreword

This is the Lord’s doing and

it’s marvelous in our eyes!

My Prayer for the Reader

Introduction

Chapter One    Complicated Beginnings

Chapter Two    Self-Inflicted Barriers

Chapter Three    The Climax

Chapter Four    The Unfolding

Chapter Five    Only In My Dreams

Chapter Six    Held Captive by Fear

Chapter Seven    Getting to the Root

Chapter Eight    From the Pit to Purpose

Suggested Readings

References

Credits

Dedication

This literary work is dedicated to the influential people in my life who support me, love me, and desire God’s best for me. Your authentic love fuels me to keep going higher in God and to love you all even the more.

I give honor and glory to my savior who makes all things possible to those who believe!

Yes Lord I Believe… .

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my husband and my children, my parents and my siblings for their strength, patience, encouragement and for believing in me. I would like to acknowledge my aunt who is priceless and far above rubies to me, all of my Morning Prayer partners, and my colleagues who share in the mission to help ‘protect the unprotected’, my friends and co-laborers in the Kingdom, and my best friend is who like no other friend. I am been blessed to know and love each of you!

Foreword

Quita,

God is good and I bless His holy name. May the God who blesses us and keeps us continue to bless you with overflow. The anointing of God rests upon your life. May your greatest desires and visions come to pass, and God get all the glory. I love you, stay in His will for your life. Keep trusting and believing in God and it is yours!

Love, Mama

Foreword

This is the Lord’s doing and

it’s marvelous in our eyes!

In African culture, the meaning of your name, LaQuita is fifth or favored grace. When I came to know this, I got so excited because I know that the number five is the number of God’s grace. It is evident that you are favored of God and walk in His grace because you have grown to become an awesome, dynamic, and anointed woman of God. I am honored to be able to call you niece, sister, and friend.

I thank God that you have taken the time to write about your journey to find purpose. I know that this has not been an easy task. Through many trials, tears, upsets and let downs, you have never stopped. Often misunderstood and overlooked, yet you have kept the faith and continued to press toward this great accomplishment.

So as you reveal your journey to purpose, it is my prayer that the readers of this book would be enlightened and empowered to find their own purposes in life. I encourage you to continue to reach for higher heights and deeper depths in Christ Jesus. The best is yet to come. Get ready! God is propelling you into your destiny.

Love you,

Ruby

My Prayer for the Reader

Dear Heavenly Father,

I pray that you bless each and every person who picks up this book to read my truth. I pray that the words within this book accomplish your will in each reader. I pray that the same spirit which freed me and delivered me from the trap of my past would do the same for every person who comes in contact with this book. I ask Father that you freely give forgiveness and restoration to every reader who receives your guidance to release those past pains, offences, and hurts that they have suppressed themselves deep within. I pray Father that you would give them a boost in their walk with you and to redeem their love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that every person who has been violated, abused, manipulated, and misused and the like would receive divine healing as they read this work. Father I know that you desire for all of your children to know you and live in the provision originally intended for their lives. I pray for every person who feels trapped, hopeless, and faint that you would send your angels to keep watch over them and help them to overcome the snares of their journey. I pray Father for you to reveal to every reader your love for them. Father please give to every reader a deeper relationship with you to understand the things of this natural world that they may help their neighbor and love as you love us. Protect the works and the hands of this writer. It is so, In Jesus Name. Amen… .

Introduction

How do you tell the truth without the world shattering all around you? How can you be your ‘real’ self when you do not even know who that is? How do you fix such an inconsistency within your own self? Who can you tell about such a dilemma that will not lead to scrutiny and persecution? You see, I feel my life has somehow been the effects of a broken mirror, but the true horror is that—it is my reflection in the mirror that is really broken.

I often think to myself, ‘what is wrong with me?’ I am a good person, I try to help others, I give, and I give, and I give always with a smile on my face. You see I only cry when I am by myself, you know when it is safe from the persecution and accusation of others who feel somehow they have the right to judge. No one can see me, judge me, blame me, or criticize me for being less than a savior in that moment when I am alone. Sometimes I wonder if my life is really all a lie. How do you explain to others what you really cannot put into words? How can you make sense out of brokenness and it not forever diminish your self worth? Or better yet, how do you trace down the precise and exact moment you became broken? Do you know anyone who has the map to get to the root of the matter? You see I have spent countless hours and days up to this point in life trying to be someone else’s god. It became my obsession for them to never hurt like I had. I somehow took on their agony and grief at the cost of my own soul and peace. I got so engulfed in others; I did not know how to help myself, I had no balance in my own affairs.

The adage that there is a thin line between love and hate is the truth like I never before realized. You see the thin line is so thin that only the imagination of the soul gives it definition, strength, and power to it. My mother would always tell me to pray about the things that bothered me or troubled me in life. Her answer to everything was ‘pray daughter’. As I listened to her instruction, I would often ponder to myself how do you pray away pain and it work for good? Everything I had ever done was for someone else to be free, to be happy, and to enjoy the fruits of this world. What in my life belonged to me other than the name given to me? Surprisingly so or maybe not, I had not been able to pinpoint or identify my authentic self until thirty years of age. Would someone tell me if the DSM-IV has any diagnostic criteria for shattered hope and dreams? Where do I pick up the pieces, in what order should I begin, will there be someone to help me and guide me along the way?

As I prayerfully share my story, it is my greatest hope that you understand that life will throw you some curve balls; some things that you feel you are not ready to deal with or want to deal with at all. Life is not designed to trip you up, but there are some lessons you must learn in order to get to the next phase in your life. This work is meant to encourage everyone who reads my truth. There may be some things that resonate with you, some things you do not want to admit, and some things that truly bother you, but remember it is my truth and as I release it unto you I pray you release your truth. As you read on, you will understand that everything you endure in your life plays a role in your journey to allow your life to fall into place and find your God-given purpose.

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Chapter One

Complicated Beginnings

Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I awake to screams, ‘stop’, ‘help me Lord’, ‘no’, ‘oh please stop’. The screams are saturated with tears, fear, and agony. I am so young, I have no power. My heart becomes overwhelmed with fear and terror and I share in the plea for help. The screams stop and now the house has become quiet. I am afraid to look out, but I want to see that all is well. I look over at my mother and she weeps and she is hurting. How do I take her pain away? I am so young and small; I am not big enough to defend her. Will someone tell me what to do, my mommy is not smiling and she is really hurting. Oh please tell me how to make my mommy smile again, I must make her happy but how? Why is she hurting so, oh no mommy has a bo-bo. Mommy you have a bo-bo on your arm and your neck, did you fall down? Tell me what to do mommy, I’m a big girl if you tell me what to do I can fix it. See, mommy watch me do a trick I can make you laugh again. Mommy watch me, I see your smile mommy, oh yes! Listen mommy, I can sing you a song. Oh you really like that mommy, I feel much better now, and you are smiling. As my mother hugs me, my sense of gratification is personified, and now I must keep on going. I must figure out something else that will keep the smile on her face and in her heart.

As I sleep I see horror! There are screams in my head, make them stop! I can’t sleep! I am scared; I see monsters when I close my eyes. Please somebody—God, make them go away. Is there something wrong with me, why do I see visions of monsters and scary faces when I close my eyes? On Sunday we go to church, everybody looks to be happy at church. I notice that some people are crying, but my mother explains to me that they are good cries, happy cries. My mommy says they are tears of joy because God has been so good to them. In my childish wisdom I wonder why must they cry to express joy, wouldn’t they feel just as good if they just smile or laugh? I ask this God who people cry to in church, why is it that when mommy cries I do not feel that it is joy, because her heart is not happy? As I sit on the back pew of the church, the church people all sing this song together. They chant, ‘Lord keep us day by day, in a pure and perfect way? All I want to know is how this God can keep you in a pure and perfect way? So I question God, and take note that when I cry and mommy cries I don’t think that it is joy. Is it? How? All I want to know is how can this God keep you pure and perfect? I really want to be a normal child, but somehow I feel that it just will not work out that way. I try and fit in with kids my age, but it just seems like where they are and what I am consumed with are nowhere near each other. There are some girls in the neighborhood that I talk to, but I do not feel that I can be myself around them. There is too much going on in my home, and God no they can never come inside my home, I just have to be careful to protect my family.

I remember being in junior high and being picked on by other girls. The funny thing about me is I desire to be liked so, I just do not understand why they do not like me. I remember a girl pulling my hair and pushing me weekly as I would board the school bus. She would tell me things like ‘you think you are pretty’, ‘you think you are smart’,’ I know you think you are better than everybody.’ The sad thing is those thoughts never crossed my mind. My mother never raised me to look down on people and think too highly of myself. My mother drilled in me to kill people with kindness; it just was not in me to be malicious towards anyone. I remember one day, getting so fed up with the attacks of this girl I decided that when she pushed me this time, I was going to push her back. I decided that I did not have to take being pushed around and threatened. That evening when the girl pushed me, she made the comment ‘I’m going to get you.’ I was so afraid I really did not want to ride the bus home, however I had no choice. The ride home was such a blur, I remember this girl pushing me and screaming profanities at me, and I snapped. I lost it. I just remember swinging and crying, not knowing who or what I was hitting. I had no idea of how to fight, so I just started swinging. The bus driver pulled over and she broke up the fight, and ironically she was upset with me. I got so angry, all I could think about was, you never say anything to this girl when she pushes me and verbally abuses me and you are upset with me! Boy did I think life was unfair. She made the comment, I expect better from you. I was so afraid to go home and face my parents, I had no idea what my punishment would have been for defending myself. My father yelled and told me I should not fight, and in my mind I am saying look who is talking. I mean I love my dad, but it seems like his response to everything was physical.

As the days go by and the pain intensifies, I ask myself… Is God really keeping me day by day, like the church people sang? You see although I am older now, my search for happiness is void, at least where I am concerned. I am coming to know that it is not about me, but if I can distract others from their pain, I have done a job well done, just like I used to as a little girl. Here I am a teenager now, I don’t really know what it feels like to play hop scotch and little sally walker, but I do know how to beg and plead for the pain to stop. I have now grown accustomed to a life without self fulfillment because as long as others are happy around me, what I want and need has now taken a back seat. That has been my philosophy for years and now I actually seek out persons who need me, I can help them, maybe even fix them. But when I lay my head down each night, crying and pleading with the God who can keep me pure and in a perfect way, I still feel that I am all alone. I lie in bed and ask this God, how can my life be pure, when all I do is for someone else? Is this what life really is, you appear to be one thing, but deep down on the inside reality looks nothing