I wrote this at a time when a couple mentors had let me down.

Betty: “Oh, cool it.” You have to take charge of the dramatist in you whenever it shows itself.  Your mentors are still good role models for you, but they aren’t God and they will make mistakes.  Ok, that’s life.  Let’s move on.  Part of maturity is to realize that regardless what a gift a human being who God puts in our life turns out to be, we have to give them room to be human and make mistakes.  If we can’t handle that, it speaks more to our immaturity than to how terrible they are.  They’re just human.  

There’s a part of you that hates weakness, and you’re angry at the tears coming up. So, that’s the open door.  You’re projecting their anger of weakness out of your anger of weakness.  This is complicated.  So we have 3 people who are angry at weakness.  So, there’s your open door.  

You don’t want to make mistakes, but mistakes are all part of life.  We are creatures.  We aren’t God.  “Hello—that part that wants to be perfect.  I’m not God.  Can you lay off and cool it?”  Remember nobody gets your goat, unless you have a goat in there to get?  I think we’re dealing with where all your goats are kind of running into each other.  When you have a person on a pedestal, it’s hard, because you’d rather not think of them as having a goat, but we all have goats. 

The real world has a lot of blemishes.  You have a lot of people around you who aren’t perfect. It is not as lonely as the world of people who want to see everyone as perfect.  That’s kind of a lonely world, since none of us are perfect. 

We’ve learned that they’re not the only ones angry with imperfection.  You’ve discovered that you’re angry with yourself. Can you say, “Lord, help me get out of all these projections?  Help me to release others from my judgments.  I’m not perfect, so what gives me the right to insist others are perfect.”  We’re angry at our own imperfection, yet we’re demanding everyone else be perfect.  Accept yourself and then maybe you can accept them.

Can you say to the Lord, “Lord, please heal me in the area where I opened the door that I’m shamed.  Teach me how to handle that.”  With Jesus, they tried hard to shame him, but he never took it in.  Let Jesus be your role model on how to stay strong when you sense someone attempting to shame you.

If it applies, can you say, “Lord, please help me get out of any projections I have on another?  Help me to release them from my judgments.  I’m not perfect, so what gives me the right to insist others are perfect.”