Betty: What we’re working on are places where you and X get hooked. It sounds like your Perfectionist gets hurt when she’s around X, and X goes into, “I made a mistake…” She’s going on about it, and it’s like, “Get off of that. You are driving me nuts.” So, can you say, “Jesus, in this part of me where I’m like X, I get easily irritated when I do what I think are dumb things. I feel heavily judged in this area, and I get depressed. I don’t even want to deal with it. I want to run. It’s so much easier just to see it in X and not have to deal with it in myself. But I know you’re calling me to get freer and to deal with what is mine, and stop projecting it into others. I find that hard work and depressing. But I do want the freedom that truth will bring. So, help me to be strong enough to hang in there and not run.”

What we have here is a lot of disappointment. Give God your disappointment. Because I feel a lot of disappointment in the fact that this thing is getting destroyed. If you want to publish a book in the future, it’s going to take a lot of facing your own areas where you need to improve. This part is saying, “I don’t want to do that right now. I don’t want to go that way. I want something easy that will just fall into my lap.” But life isn’t easy. So, can you image yourself lifting up the book and giving it to Jesus? Say, “Lord, if you really want me to write the book, then help me to be willing to face areas where I need improvement in order to be able to do that. Help me be willing to go through the hard work if I’m really called to do that. But if You have another plan for me, help me to find what that plan is.” The ego finds it hard to take correction. But the ego would be super sensitive in your Perfectionist. She’s probably the one that’s not exactly happy. And all Jesus wants is for you to get to know who you really are in His sight. He’s seeking your good. 

AM: Yeah, but my inner kid is saying, “I just don’t want to do it anymore.”  

Betty: Well, it’s easier to be discouraged, than to do this work. It’s much easier to say, “I just give up. It’s too much work.” I understand the kid. I feel that way myself. But I find I can’t give into it and do God’s work. The difficult parts are all part of life, too. You can’t just do what you feel like. 

AM: I just have to keep waiting for God to open other doors. 

Betty: But God will open the doors as you grow, too. So, what you’re doing right now is all part of getting the doors open. Because the stuff I’ve done that’s good for people,  I have had to go through it myself. It really hurt at times to face my own brokenness and have people criticize me, and yet they were learning from me. I learned a lot, but it was painful. The ministry grows as you work through some of this stuff and grow yourself. God doesn’t always move as fast as we think He should. The hardest part of discernment is manner, timing and intensity. We want success right now. That’s very normal. But it doesn’t make it less painful knowing it’s normal. “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in you” is how we respond.