Betty’s friend: Your friend asked you to join her in judgment. What she was actually asking of you was to let go of your dignity and the will of God and to join her in her sin. She’s out of God’s will.

Betty: Some people actually come to pastoral counseling to have you agree with them that their husband or whoever else is the culprit. I refused to do that, because there are always two sides to a story. And if you work with a family on let’s say a problem with the father, you’re going to find each kid has a different version of the father, according to where they are. But that’s their problem where they need to get in line with God’s will. So, you have to work differently according to where they’re hooked.

Sometimes people get very irritated if you don’t join them in their judgment. It sounds like the person you’re working with needs a bit of humility. As the person is humble enough, they’ll finally hear you. Remember the example I give you back when I was perfect and this other nun and I were given the assignment to set up chairs for a certain small group.?  And then other nuns were given an assignment to set up chairs for another group. My friend and I got the whole setup for our group. And then when we left, another group came in and took the chairs to set up their group. And we came back, because we got report our room was not ready and we knew we did it. We came back and I said, ” They had no right to undo what we just did and the other nun said to me, “Yes, but don’t be so angry.” And I heard myself say, “What do you mean angry? I am not angry?” And then I heard myself and I said, “Oh my gosh. I am angry.” And the other nun said, “Oh, yeah.”

But see, I was so perfect that I would never get angry, because I thought good people don’t get angry. And yet I had disrespectful anger. I had to face the fact that though I didn’t want to be aggressively assertive, the fact is I was. So, that was the hook. I had to hear myself, and then my anger management improved.