Free Cover Girls by T. D. Jakes

and insulted her. There she was in the middle of the office yelling at me . . . calling me everything but a child of God.” An audible sob—not too loud, but just like a baby before it drifted off to sleep—came from Tonya’s throat. “And all those people were looking at me, Lord. Looking at both of us like we were crazy. I just don’t understand it, Lord. I don’t understand it.”
    The Lord said nothing.
    “She hates me. Michelle hates me for no reason. I try to be nice to her. I pray for her. I tried to smooth things over for her with Mrs. Judson—not to mention that I’m going to need someone to smooth things over for
me
with Mrs. Judson after this.” Tonya sighed as she checked her rearview mirror. “I’m tired, Lord. I can’t keep doing this and all the while Michelle just keeps kicking me in my face.”
    In her heart, Tonya heard the Lord speak.
Keep doing what you’ve been doing, daughter.
    “Lord?” Tears slipped from the corners of Tonya’s eyes and burned her face. “Lord, she hates me. You know she hates me. Michelle acts like I’m trying to hurt her. Like I’m trying to kill her. And, Lord, You know that I’ve been praying for her. You know that I’ve stuck up for her when Mrs. Judson has wanted me to let her go—even to the point where now Mrs. Judson is threatening both of us.
    “Lord, I just need peace. I just need peace somewhere—at home, at work, anywhere. Some place where there is peace. I’m so tired, God. I’m just tired.”
    It’s hard, my daughter, to kick against the pricks.
    Her tears dried quickly. Tonya took three deep breaths. The Lord never said a lot when He spoke to her heart. He was thrifty with words; He was efficient. But what He said always got the point across.
    Kicking against the pricks.
Tonya knew what it meant. It was what the Lord had said to Saul when he was having his Damascus Road experience. She knew the King James passage by heart.
    Kicking against the pricks.
It was those times when God was giving His people—a son or a daughter—information, or requiring one of His children to behave in a way that went against common sense, against experience, against book learning, even against home training. Tonya remembered when she had first read the passage. In the account, something unseen had caused Saul to fall from his horse. There was a great light around him, and he heard a voice.
    “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Saul had answered, “Who art thou, Lord?” and the Lord had said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Saul, trembling and astonished, had answered, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” And the Lord had said to him, “Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.” 2
    Paul, who had been Saul, had known the same struggle that educated men and women face when they wrestle in their minds with notions of God as superstition, while even in their hearts, minds, and spirits they witness that there is something greater, something infinite, that they cannot explain.
Kicking against the pricks.
It was those times when, like Paul, God was saying something that went against the teachings of friends, of family, even against one’s own mind.
    It was those times when God was leading in one direction and one of his stubborn children—like an ox in a yoke—tried to go in another. Tonya knew that the Lord was telling her that the pain she was feeling was the spiritual equivalent of the pain that oxen experience when they pull against the direction of the person leading them and are wounded by a yoke or collar of thorns—by the pricks. The Lord was telling her to stop causing her own pain, to surrender and stop fighting, to trust Him. He had a good plan, a plan to bless her and Michelle, not to cause them harm.
    Right now, though, it didn’t feel like it. It hurt.
Kicking against the pricks.
Tonya definitely felt like she was being knocked from her horse, or at