Alright. So like I said before, our first session was about counseling people who have physical illnesses. Dr. Hodges taught that it is not the job of the counselor to give a diagnosis to the counselee or try to get them off of a medication. However, it is the counselor's job to provide biblical help and hope for the counselee.

We also had a session today about forgiveness. That one really did give me a lot of thoughts to ponder. For instance, the speaker (Rob Green) said that forgiveness is commanded by God. Well, I knew that, but then he went on to say that forgiveness is actually an act of worship. I had never thought of it that way. Also, we talked about conditional forgiveness. Pastor Green said that forgiveness requires two people. You cannot forgive someone when they have not asked you for forgiveness. When he first said this, all these little alarms and bells were going off in my head saying "Whoa now... What is this? He's saying that we shouldn't forgive people? What have I gotten myself into? Where did this guy learn this?" But then he went on say that we can't be bitter or hold on to grudges against the people who have wronged us. So in a sense, we are forgiving them, but in another sense, we can't forgive them until they ask for forgiveness. It was a little hard for me to wrap my mind around. It still is I guess.

In that session Rob Green also talked about how we should ask for forgiveness. We need to

-State clearly what we did wrong

-Request the person's forgiveness

-Use simple, factual words

-Have a good attitude (and not destroy our good words with a bad attitude)

and lastly,

-We need to not confess accusingly (i.e. "Will you forgive me for yelling at you after you said that dumb thing?")