Unfortunately, we have ALL heard these words, in some way or another at some point in life. Or maybe you’ve heard another version of that statement, like “what are you trying to prove?” At its core, it is a question of RIGHT.

Every October for the last 6 or so years, I ask God for a word for the New Year. I have found that God often surprises me with His faithfulness to this word. So last year, the word I believed God had for 2019 was ‘FAVOUR’.

This morning I was up with my daughter wrapping my husband’s Christmas present. We were trying to get it finished whilst He was away on a work trip. Whilst she was sitting there lifting up her Dads present and checking it out, I spotted a little spider crawling across the table where the present had been.

A few people have commented to me lately about the acknowledgements in my new book (Ministry Stinks: One leader’s journey from despair to joy). I’ve had people remarking at the great job I did of honouring the various people listed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about memories. I’ve had a great year of relaxation, restoration and healing. But despite having coming so far, I have noticed myself wandering often toward two particular traumatic memories. Each time I recall them I find myself feeling rather low, often for several days.

Parents warn you that your kids’ will model your behaviour. Every parent has some unfortunate story of hearing or seeing their kids do something that they don’t really want them to do…but alas, they’ve learnt it from their parents when the parents weren’t aware of themselves. It’s kind of a parenting rite of passage.

My husband had to work on the public holiday last week, so we decided to all take the Friday off in lieu and go out for a well-deserved visit to Australia Zoo. We all love animals in my family. And of course, we heard that a new tiger cub had been born recently that we just had to see.

So, we are up to statement number 3; the halfway mark.

Today’s myth is going to be a bit sticky. Let’s talk about this: “A leader never gives up”.

Hi again! We are up to Leadership myth buster number 4, in this 6-part series. The purpose of this series is to coincide with the release of my new book “Ministry Stinks: One Leaders’ journey from despair to joy”.

Well we are certainly on the home stretch with this series of Leadership Myth Busters. For part 5, I want to face a big one:

Leaders Don’t Get tempted.

We are up to our final instalment of this 6-part blog series, of Leadership Myth Busters.

For our final statement, I want to tackle “Leaders are strong”.

To coincide with the release of my brand-new book: “Ministry Stinks: One Leaders’ Journey from Despair to Joy”, I thought I would give a preview of the kinds of topics you can expect to read about.

This is one point that I don’t even need to preface with a story. Every leader thinks they have to have it together. Or we think that ‘togetherness’ is a prerequisite for being a leader. Some of my closest friends have heard me say this remark, usually following a down right stupid action: “Whose idea was it to let me be a Pastor?”

The last trip I had to the USA ended kind of strangely. It was many years ago now before my daughter was born. We’d had this epic 4-week holiday, visiting New York, San Francisco, and were finally ending the trip in LA. In the middle of the night on our last night, my husband got a call from the airline we were flying with.