Today we’d like to introduce you to Quanisha Bynum.
Hi Quanisha, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y and raised in a public housing complex, my developmental years were lived in a place where a sense of community was prominent, but dreaming beyond the circumference of my neighborhood was not. Determined not to allow myself to be limited by societal stereotypes, I drew inspiration from television families in my childhood. It would make a cute story to say I started at some pivotal moment of revelation later in life, but I believe that the start of who we are to become is already ingrained in us from the moment we’re born; It’s just waiting to be discovered, unlocked, cultivated, and birthed.
As a little girl being raised by my grandmother due to challenges that my parents were facing at the time, what inspired me about the families I used to watch was the complete household dynamic. It was something that I was lacking, longed for, and desired to one day provide to my own children. The shows displayed two parent households where the parents loved each other, had successful careers, were equally present in their children’s lives, their children had differences yet loved each other fiercely, and they lived in houses that at that time I could only dream of. Yet, all the while they remained relatable as they faced trials, ups, downs, and struggles that weren’t foreign to the average person and showed how they overcame them which made them relatable. From that time, young Quanisha’s dreams began to become prayers that turned into dream/visions and later plans that in time would begin to manifest.
My childhood dream was to become a doctor, which was later narrowed to a pediatrician, & then obstetric nurse, all influenced by various factors in my life. I have always been creative, extremely detailed, and intricate in everything that I do from my doll’s hair and clothing, to drawing, to school assignments, writing, playing with my cousins and friends, planning, etc. I’ve also always enjoyed sharing my love for God, fashion, and travel with others so I desired to go to college to establish my career via my major & to minor in the areas that would equip me to become an entrepreneur in the areas of my passions. The thing was, I lacked guidance. I didn’t have anyone pointing me in the direction of my dreams, telling me that I could make them happen, or instructing me on how to navigate beginning college.
There were two major rules in my household: 1. You better graduate High School (we all began working at the age of 14 so that was already established), and 2. You better not get pregnant before you do. So, I graduated High School and then my High School sweetheart turned husband, and I had our son at the age of 19. I was then perplexed because I’d followed the rules, but my pregnancy resulted in me being written off by many as a statistic, one who wouldn’t succeed, a lost cause, and those are just a few of the things that were spoken over me back then. What those “writers & speakers” didn’t understand; however, was that my destiny was solidified by God before I was born, so it couldn’t be thwarted and wasn’t reliant on their predictions or opinions. Would getting to it be a little more challenging? Sure. Was it going to require a great deal of resilience and determination? Of course. Was it going to be easy? Not at all. But my destiny wasn’t discarded. My son was my greatest blessing. Christ laid His life down for me over 2000 years prior and it was through my pregnancy with my son that I came to truly know God as my redeemer. 6 years later, we conceived a daughter, which was a pregnancy riddled with life threatening complications, confounding the minds of the medical teams who cared for us as they sought to understand how possibly my baby and I survived. It was through this pregnancy that I came to know God as my healer. The challenges faced while carrying and delivering my two children is what drove my passion for obstetric nursing.
I’ve been alive to witness technology progress from typewriters to computers, wired home & street pay phones to pagers to cellular devices, turn switch antennaed tv’s to box tv sets to 4k flat screens and so on. As a mid 80’s millennial who spent much of her formative years around her grand and great-grandmother, I was always a little more old-school and conservative than my peers, so it took me awhile to adapt to the idea of social media. Realizing now how much of a pertinent tool Social Media is when utilized properly and overcoming the fears fueled by lies that I’d formerly come into agreement with has driven my desire to share my passions as someone who was born a creative and has so much to share with the world. God gave me vision to utilize content creation to reach people by bridging my experience, knowledge, passions, and love for Him.
Mid-summer 2026, God led my family and I to relocate from our native home of NYC to Dallas, TX where we knew no one and nothing. We were obedient to His instruction, anticipated the journey, and were excited to be entering a new chapter of purpose and promise. What we didn’t realize was that there was much refining, pruning, and facing hard things in order to fully heal that would precede it. Receiving things without proper preparation and readiness can cause them to be mishandled and even lost so in hindsight, I have a new level of understanding for this season that I call “the middle”. The space of no longer being where we were but also not yet where we shall be.
I got to where I am today by the grace of God who wouldn’t allow me to give up although there are times when I couldn’t understand how possibly I’d be able to continue on. When we cast our cares on Him, He brings us through things in ways that we cannot make sense of or find the words to explain. I recognize that every dream, vision, and aspiration given to me by Him will come to pass so instead of attempting to control how or when they unfold, I’ve released it all to Him and decided to trust Him in the process.
It has taken a lot of hard work, perseverance, and silencing the limiting beliefs that had been imposed upon me to get here. I made many attempts to go to college when my son was young, but struggled to find balance as a teen figuring out how to be a mom, navigating my relationship, working full time, and going to school. I wanted to be as present as possible for my son to ensure that his developmental needs were met so I put school off. Later, due to lengthy hospitalizations during my pregnancy with my daughter, I was forced to resign from my city hospital job. After delivering her at full term, remaining home with her for a year so we could both recover, heal, and adjust, my husband had been blessed with a position that allowed him to solely financially support our family so I took that as an opportunity to go back to school and complete my nursing degree. I attended a college that had daycare services on campus, so my daughter essentially went through college with me. When I remained after class to partake in study groups (which was often) sometimes for many hours, she was right there with me in her stroller soaking in words beyond her level of learning so much so that my professors and classmates considered her a part of our cohort.
In December 2015, I graduated with my associate’s degree in nursing, passed my boards as a Registered Nurse, and completed an accelerated Bachelor of Science in nursing program 8 months later. From there, I worked on a medical/surgical unit for a little under 2 years to gain foundational experience and then transferred to labor & delivery as a specialty which remains my career role. I am currently in the process of working hard to build my personal brand and community as a creative who’s fairly new to the social media scene. I am also working towards starting a non-profit to make an impact on others who may be facing some of the challenges that I’ve had, writing my first book, and exploring business ventures that will create generational wealth and longevity for my family and taking my followers on the journey with me as I navigate it all.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been far from a smooth road for me! I would say it’s been more like a road in a construction zone where the streets have not yet been paved! What I can say is that I am truly grateful for it all. While my life’s process has not been easy, every intended obstacle, fiery dart, trial, tribulation, heartache, betrayal, and person set to discourage, derail, destroy, or deter me caused me to continually draw closer to God. It’s also allowed me recognize God’s greatness, sovereignty, faithfulness, healing power, and so many of His infinite attributes from experience as I can pinpoint His presence, protection, love, hand, and comfort every step of the way.
If I attempted to specify every struggle in this article, before long, a book publisher would be needed! I will however pinpoint just three of them as it relates to the current season that I’m in. It took me many years before I began seeing a Christian therapist to unpack the complexities of life and in doing so, I’ve been able to unpack, face, and begin to heal from things that I didn’t even realize had infiltrated and impacted various aspects of who I’d become. One of those struggles was layers of misaligned interactions activated by the wound of abandonment which began when I was just an infant. As I grew up, that wound manifested itself in my willingness to accept less from others than I deserved, people pleasing, and fear of not being loved, accepted, or appreciated by others for the long haul amongst many other things. Addressing abandonment is what allowed me to come to know God as my Father, the One who said He would never leave nor forsake me and has always kept His Word.
The second struggle was the weight of comparison which I hadn’t sought out, but was placed on me time and time again from various sources including peers, educators, family members, “friends”, and leaders whom I’d trusted and looked up to. I had been compared to others so much in being made to feel that I wasn’t as good, smart, talented, beautiful, or anointed as the next person that it I began to adopt comparison in the form of negative self-talk as a sport in my own life without realizing it until I began to do inner work. And comparison in my opinion is one of the greatest stagnation and discouragement tactics there is. In my healing process, I’ve come to the realization that because there is only one of every person on this earth, each with an individual purpose and plan according to God’s Word, no two people who were never meant to be the same can really be compared. Dismantling comparison is how I’ve come to know God as the God who sees me, not based on performative measures or impressive deeds but for who He says I am.
The third and final struggle I’ll share for now is an ongoing battle which has nothing to do with the external, but resides in the mind. Because each of our lives, paths, and journeys are uniquely fashioned, what is ingrained in the fibers of our minds from the moment that we begin to hear greatly differs. Those things then have the ability to impact us throughout the duration of our lives if we don’t take certain thoughts captive and replace them with truth. I was raised in the church and the “hood”, so mental conflict was almost inevitable much like the depiction of the devil on one shoulder speaking lies while an angel is simultaneously on the other speaking truth. It’s so easy to ascribe external factors, other people, or what we’ve gone through as the reasoning for why we haven’t fulfilled certain dreams, goals, or aspirations in our lives, but in reality, those things only have power to stop us from succeeding if we allow them to. We must first come to understand that our success isn’t to be measured by the world’s metrics or what anyone else is doing. Success is subjective and can look completely different in the lives of individuals so first defining what that looks like personally is key. It took me actually doing a deep dive into who God says I am and not only actualizing my identity in Him, but learning to accept and walk in it to begin to dismantle not only this one, but many of the struggles that I’ve encountered. Battles of the mind are how I’ve come to know God as my peace when my thoughts would become too loud & seem impossible to silence.
The commonality in getting through every struggle as well as facing those that I’m dealing with now is that God has been my rock. Without a relationship with Him, I honestly don’t know where I’d be. Although I’d grown up in church, it took learning that there is a difference between religiosity and relationship and it’s acting upon that knowledge that has allowed me to begin to handle life’s curveballs from a place of victory instead of defeat. Now does that mean that things became easy to go through? Not at all. But it means that although there are times when the weight gets so heavy that I feel like I’m being crushed and want to quit, His strength fortifies & carries me through.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
By way of my educational career, I am a labor & delivery RN, but for the purposes of this article, I will focus on my work as a creative. In a world where there are so many narratives, opinions, and trends based on what society deems as acceptable, I desire to be intentional with my content. I’m sharing my passions & journey to offer relatability, love, direction, and hope not based on what I feel or think, but based on the truth of God’s Word that will cause others to likewise grow, heal, and discover, unlock, cultivate, and birth the greatness on that’s the inside of them.
I find it difficult to digest when leaders, creators, or anyone for that matter offers words of encouragement or instruction without giving any glimpse of how they’ve applied those things themselves. For me, relatability is what causes me to pause and assess whether or not I should receive what’s being stated. In my opinion, advice on pushing through challenges to reach goals from someone who only portrays that they have always had it together is like taking marital advice from someone who’s never been married; How can we advise on something we haven’t experienced?.
I am here to take my followers on a journey with me as I pivot from profession to passion, not having all of the answers and being transparent as I figure it out so when I offer advice, they will see that I have been where they are. As I press my way through, they’ll have the ability to draw from my example to do the same. I not only want to provide influence for putting together nice outfits, travel destinations, irresistible fragrances, or the latest products; I want to simultaneously provide my community with wisdom, truth, and relatability that will aide in not just witnessing my growth but using my witness to help them to grow and evolve as well. It’s one thing to follow someone else’s story and watch them grow, succeeed and win, but something special when that person wants to aide in offering other tools to do the same as well. Covetous competition, crab barrel phenomenon of tearing others down, selfishness, pompous pride, and greed are a mess in this world. I believe that everyone was put here for a purpose, we are better together, and things would be a lot different if more people ascribed to the idea of wanting others to win. I have always been known for being caring, loving, and compassionate which can be abused if not carried with wisdom.
I am most proud of the fact that those who had written me off were proven wrong. That becoming a mother at 19 years old didn’t stop me from pursuing my dreams but instead created a greater desire to provide my baby with a life, experiences, and direction that I didn’t have. And the best part is, my story isn’t yet finished! There is so much more ahead so be sure to follow me as we take this journey together!
What sets me apart from others is everything! Just as sure as no two people have the same fingerprint, what I have to offer the world by way of the gifts & talents that God has placed on the inside of me differs from everyone else. We were all intricately and uniquely created to grace this earth with things that no one else can do exactly the way that we would.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson I’ve learned along my journey has that I am by no means in control. I mentioned earlier that I am an avid planner so I will map things out with great detail & ease, which is a great attribute to have, but the problem lies in then expecting that things are supposed to go according to how I planned them with no deviations. Upon relocating from NY to TX, God made it very clear to me that in order for me to fully be in His will and access the fruit of His plans, I had to release the control that I in essence thought I had. I had to lay down my plans for His AND allow Him to execute them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.quanishabynum.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quanishabynum/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@QuanishaBynum
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@quanishabynum
- Pinterest: https://pin.it/49e6ZLl78
- ShopMy: https://shopmy.us/quanishabynum
