Read Online Cover Girls by T. D. Jakes - Free Book Online

head. She didn’t have to bear you into this world. Don’t forget that.”
    Michelle wanted to pull away. She would have pulled away from anyone else . . . but then, she wouldn’t have let any one else touch her in the first place. “You’re right, Miz Ida. My momma kept me clothed and fed, but where was she when I just needed someone to be there—someone to play with me, talk to me, or to hold me? Where was she when I was crying out?”
    “Someday, Michelle, I just pray that the Lord will help you understand.”
    “Oh, I understand, Miz Ida. She put that man first. She just didn’t care—she let that man treat her any kind of way. She let him use her. Then she let him use me.”
    Miz Ida nodded. “You’re right, you know. Cassandra wasn’t strong. But, you need to know that your momma did everything she knew to do. What’s wrong in her life didn’t start with her. It probably started way before she was born.”
    “Miz Ida, you sound like all those people on television. It’s not her fault? Well, you know what, Miz Ida? When does it get to be her fault?
She
left me out there open and unprotected.
She
let a man in her life—in my life—who used me and made me feel like nothing. I would never do that to a child.”
    Miz Ida shook her gray head. “No, you doing it to yourself.”
    Michelle pulled away from Miz Ida’s embrace at that.
    “I know you don’t like what I’m saying, but a true friend tells the truth. Now, your momma’s not in your life bringing men to hurt you. You took over that job yourself.”
    The old woman reached to touch one of Michelle’s hands. “Like I been trying to tell you, Michelle, you don’t want to deal with the past, so you just keep repeating it over and over again. Like some kind of pattern. But you can stop it. You got to see it clear and then you got to pray about it. Something bad probably happened to your mother, and she did the same thing to you without knowing it. She couldn’t see it. You
can
see what went wrong, that means you
can
change it. You don’t have to let that history repeat. You don’t have to let another child be hurt, and you don’t have to let yourself be hurt. The good man in your life, you can’t hardly stand. The bad man, you just let him right on in.” She shook her head. “You have to ask yourself what that means.”
    Michelle rolled her neck to release the tension and frustration. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, Miz Ida.”
    “No, I believe you do. You may not
want
to know, but I believe you do.”
    “So I guess this same conversation we have is always going to come back to the same old place—my momma, God, and church.”
    “Well, if you say so.”
    Michelle gritted her teeth. “Miz Ida, it’s going to be a cold day in . . . before I see my momma. Now that’s just that. As for God, He made me. He knows my heart and I don’t have to go to church and pay my money to some man in order for God to see me. He knows every hair on my head—you taught me that.”
    “He does know every hair. You were listening when I was talking to you, weren’t you, baby?” Miz Ida pinched Michelle’s cheek with one hand and put the other arm back around Michelle’s shoulders, but Michelle resisted. “Don’t you try to pull away from me.” Miz Ida held on until Michelle surrendered. “If you’re going to change your life, don’t just change it on the outside. Make the change through and through. The only one that I know of that can do a heart change is the Lord. If I knew somebody else, I would recommend him, but in all my time, it’s only the Lord I been able to see do it. If we could really sit at home and do what we need to do to find Him and learn about Him, I wouldn’t bug you so much.” She squeezed her. “I know you don’t like it. But tell the truth—you know the Lord by yourself, but when was the last time you opened a Bible to read anything about Him? All you know the Lord to be is what you’ve heard