Do I Need a Spiritual Director, Coach, Counselor or Pastor?

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast and video episode. Today’s topic is designed to help you as a leader when you feel stuck or if you’re struggling personally or in your ministry. We want to help you, and to do that we have invited two special guests to be with us, Jodie Niznik and Julie Pierce.

Welcome.

Jodie >> Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Kay >> Well, thank you for giving us your time and being here to help leaders in this situation.

And we’re really reaching out to you as leaders. You may not even need this right now. You may not need it right this moment, but you may need it later, so this episode is very important. It will help you if you need some support just because you’re not sure what to do next in your ministry, or how to deal with a problem—whether it’s that you have burned out or whether you just need some emotional support, whatever it is.

We are here to help direct you to the right person because there are choices. And we’re going to talk about the choices of going to a spiritual director, a counselor, coach, or just a pastor. What are the differences? And when would you go to one and not the other? We’ll talk about their areas of expertise to help you make that decision.

So let’s talk about you, Jodie, for just a minute. Jodie has a scripture meditation podcast, So Much More that is excellent. Jodie has been on a church staff, and she understands what it’s like to have that kind of pressure on you to be a spiritual leader.

And we’ve had some great previous conversations with Jodie. We’ve talked about leadership lessons from the life of Moses. We’ve talked about taking a personal retreat. We’ve talked about spiritual practices that can help us.

So look at her full bio on our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and learn more about her. So, Jodie, we’re just thrilled that you were able to be with us again.

Jodie >> Thanks, Kay. It’s always so, so good to be here.

Kay >> And Julie, we are delighted to have you come for the first time—and hopefully it won’t be for the last that you’ll be able to join us. Julie and I first met years ago. We were on the same church staff. I believe your title was church Communications Director.

Julie >> Yes. Good memory, Kay. It feels like a long time ago.

Kay >> Yeah, I started thinking that was probably it. Julie has a whole list of churches where she has served and also helped with their leadership situation. And she just has had a lot of leadership development roles, I know, Jodie is the one that suggested that Julie come on here as well because of her expertise with coaching and working with leaders.

So thank you for being here. I think your input is going to be crucial.

Julie >> Well, thank you for inviting me. I’m just thrilled to get to be a part of that conversation.

Kay >> Well, great. Well, what are the reasons? Well, really, the main reason I thought of this topic is because I was that person some years ago. I was that person, and I wasn’t okay. I was working on a church staff. I’d been a volunteer leader for most of my life. And then I ended up on two church staffs over a total of ten years that I worked on church staffs, and I found myself just not okay, and I wasn’t even really sure what was wrong. So I took some time off that didn’t really fix it, so I did some reading. I eventually decided that I’d burned out, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I really needed some help, but I didn’t know who to go to.

And eventually I ended up with a counselor and a spiritual director. But the spiritual director didn’t work out. We just didn’t really seem to click, and I’m still not sure where I should have gone. So I’m hoping that y’all will help me decide. Then if I ever have these problems again, I will have a better idea of where to go.

So let’s start in here by talking about counselors first, because people know more about counseling than they do about spiritual directors and coaches. Pastors they know a little more about, but they may be expecting too much of their pastors. So, Jodie, do you want to start and talk some about counseling and how that has impacted you and what you know about the expertise we would get there.

Jodie >> Yeah, I would love to. And I love your example of burnout because I think that is a very common something that leaders, ministry leaders, especially female ministry leaders, face. And we’re not sure. We’re experiencing a symptom. And what we need to do is get down to the root of what’s really going on. And part of that is trial and error. Part of it is trying different sources of help.

Counseling may be a great first stop for people because counseling, especially a good license professional counselor, will help you start to dig down into what are the roots of what’s really going on deep in our soul. Usually counseling is kind of going back to go forward. So we’re kind of uncovering what are some patterns maybe I’ve picked up along the way, some unhealthy messages even that I’ve received all through childhood that just kind of started to get embedded into my life.

And a trained counselor will just start to know the questions to ask and the places to go to help you start to discern what those messages were and and replace them with good things. And like you with burnout, there’s usually some sort of inciting incident that makes us think, I need help for me.

I’ve been to counseling a couple of times. One was for ministry burnout, and another time was for a toxic relationship that I found myself in. And I was really confused by how I had wandered into such an emotionally unhealthy relationship when all the other parts of my life seemed to be okay.

And the counselor really helped me start going back and looking at my childhood and things that I had picked up along the way that I needed to heal from. So for me, counseling brought me healing, and she was a Christian counselor, which I also highly recommend. Definitely, if you’re going to go to counseling, try to find a trusted Christian counselor because you want somebody that is also informed about Scripture, about who our God is, who’s speaking that truth into your life as well.

So for me, it was uncovering some of those things to help me move forward. But there’s a lot of reasons why you might want to see a counselor for anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma. If you are experiencing significant relationship stress with people that you love in your life, that is a pretty good sign that there’s something going on below the surface.

It may be both of you. It may just be you that needs to do some work. But as most good counselors will say, there’s things on your side of the street and there’s things on their side of the street. But we’re going to deal with your side of the street because that’s all we can do. But we can become healthier through good counseling.

So that’s that would be my advice for someone looking to know if they should need a counselor.

Julie >> Jodie, I would just add to that. The truth is, trained professional counselors have tools in their toolbox that the rest of us do not have because of their training. There’s a lot that emotional help, that mental help, that relational help, that we need to lead in a sustainable, healthy way. And when those things are off and not quite working well, or when we’re stuck in a cycle or a pattern that is not healthy for us, we need those experts with their tools to come and help us unlock that and find that help that we need to move forward.

Like you were saying earlier.

Jodie >> Yeah. And another thing, Julie and I are also friends outside of this. And one of the things that we’ve said to each other is you always need to have a good counselor in your back pocket. You need to know somebody that you can go to because things like this, you know, it’s not on schedule. We don’t get to schedule our crisis.

Julie >> Right.

Jodie >> Right? We don’t. We they just happen at unexpected times. And all of this stuff seems to start to come out at once. And so it is helpful to have a place to know that you can go someone you trust. And like you said, Kay, somebody that you do click with right?

Kay >> Right. And I definitely applaud your suggestion that it be a Christian counselor because that’s who I went to. And really, the help that she gave me was all centered on the fact of her being a Christian counselor. I don’t think another kind of counselor would have given me the same advice that she did. It was it was very good.

So let’s talk about that. Our second area of coaching and Julie, let’s let you talk about coaching.

Julie >> Yes. So I’m not going to say this one is my favorite because I think they’re all super valuable. It’s just the one that I am living in the most right now as a leadership coach. And like Jodie was talking about, counseling is really looking, you know, to our past to unravel and heal up some things so that we can move forward.

Coaching is very forward focused. Coaching is very action oriented. The great gift that I see comes from coaching is clarity: clarity around what all I’m facing, what I need to do next and confidence—confidence in who I am and what I bring to the table, confidence in that decision, confidence in my plan, and then the encouragement and coaching to just keep moving forward.

So often in our leadership, we just get stuck because we’re overwhelmed by all the stuff, all the demands, all the pressures, all the decisions, all the things. And what coaching does is—really with a great coach—they sit across from you and they help bring that fresh perspective and a path forward. And so, like I said, it’s very action oriented.

A great coach also has some training in that particular expertise. So like I work with leaders, my expertise is leadership coaching. I have some certifications in that space. And so any coach that you’re going to, you want to make sure that they have the kind of training and equipping to help you in that specific area. Just like you would go to a trainer that has all kinds of certifications in how to lift weights and all those kinds of things if you’re wanting a physical coach.

So making sure that you have the right kind of coach who has the certifications and training you need.

And I’m passionate about coaching. The reason why I chose to stay in there and invest my life in coaching leaders is because of the difference that a leadership coach made for me when I was just at this crossroads in my leadership and my career, and I just wasn’t sure. Everything felt like too much. I just found myself stuck for a while.

And I’m usually able to kind of just like, grin and bear it and suck it up and push my way through. And I was not able to push through and figure out the path forward. And she just asked me such powerful questions in our sessions that just unlocked that fresh perspective that I needed to make a plan forward.

So that’s the distinction between counseling and coaching and how it can really serve the leaders listening to your podcast.

Kay >> That’s great. Really, really great. Insights into coaching. And I feel like a lot of leaders in the church, a lot of ministry leaders, don’t really tap into coaching very often.

I know very few that have gone to a coach. Do you think that’s true?

Julie >> I would agree with that. I think often times it has to do with—we feel like we should already know all the answers. We feel like we should have already figured this out by now and that somehow going to an outside resource feels like some kind of admission of weakness or I’m not quite up to the job or whatever, when it actually couldn’t be further from the truth.

You know, a coach like I am is not an expert on your leadership situation, Kay, you are. You’re the expert. And so a good coach really just helps ask those powerful questions to unlock that fresh perspective that you need, and then to help you develop that plan. Right? And I think we get stuck a lot of times because we feel like to ask for that support in whatever area it is.

We feel like—oh, well, am I really just admitting that I’m really not up to the task they really should have asked somebody else. I’m just not a good enough leader. Really good leaders would know how to handle this. And that’s just baloney. Like, none of that is true. We all need people around us to provide support and help so that we can lead in a healthy, sustainable way.

Just like going to a good counselor helps us unlock some of those things we need for our help. A good coach can help unlock those things. We need to make a path forward.

Jodie >> Yeah, and I think even what we’re touching on right now is any time we ask for help, we have to humble ourselves a little bit. And that is I mean, that’s something that God calls us to do. It is not an admission of failure. It is not an admission of, you know, being a total hot mess or whatever.

It’s an admission of being human and needing and needing support of people. For me, coaching has been so, so helpful in that they’ve also including what everything Julie has said. They’ve also provided accountability for me because I know I’m getting back on the call and they’re going to ask me these questions about how I’m doing with that thing I was working on.

And you know, what? What have I done to make progress on that? How am I not living in this chaotic way? Because a lot of times I would go to coaching because there was too much all at once, and I needed to figure out what are the things that only I should be doing and how can I do those in a way that God is calling me to do them and not in a way that’s going to lead me to burnout.

Kay >> Yeah, that’s really great. Back to what you said, Julie, that the term imposter syndrome has a lot to do with this because we already feel like we’re sort of imposters in these roles because how in the world could I be the person that God would put here? And so that makes it harder because if you’re really an imposter, everybody’s going to find out if you have a coach or a counselor or a spiritual director. It just confirms that you’re an imposter.

Julie >> Yes. The truth is, a lot of times we find ourselves in situations that we have never been in before. So how in the world would we automatically know everything we’re supposed to do in that situation? Like we would never expect that of somebody else, but we expect that of ourselves. Right? Yeah. And so going to that outside resource for help and support and guidance and coaching sometimes is just what we need so again, build that confidence that we have what it takes and to figure out the path forward.

Yeah.

Kay >> Those are good words.

Well, listen, I never knew spiritual directors. I think that, I mean, years ago I’d never even heard of one, and it wasn’t that long before I went to the spiritual director that I hadn’t even first heard that there was such a person and there seemed to be a lot of question about how biblical they were.

And now I know many spiritual directors, but at the time that I burned out and was trying to go to someone, I really had to just use someone else’s suggestion. And she just didn’t end up being right, so I just gave up. I do think I would have been benefited a great deal from a spiritual director at the time.

So tell us what that means. What is a spiritual director, Jodie, and how has that helped you?

Jodie >> Yeah. Spiritual directors are on the rise, so likely you have heard of that term now and perhaps you’ve gone to one or you’re curious about one. But in a nutshell, a spiritual director is someone that holds sacred space with you to help you discover God’s presence in your life and how you’re responding to him. So let me break that down and what that kind of means.

Unlike coaching, you’re not looking for the goals of how to do your job better. And unlike counseling, you’re not going back into your past to kind of unearth some things to help you live healthier. Spiritual directors are about listening with you, creating space for you to see what God is doing in your life. And then look at how are you listening to his voice, how are you heeding his voice?

The spiritual director that I meet with, she even creates sacred space in the middle of our meeting. We just stop and we listen to God together. And then she says, “Tell me what you’re hearing. Tell me what God is saying into your heart.” And we talk about that. And it becomes this place of prayerful listening together. I wish so much that I had had a spiritual director when I was pastoring and when I was leading because I was so busy about doing the work for God that I was having trouble listening to him for me and listening to what he was guiding and leading.

Now, I was earnestly trying. I mean, I deeply wanted to have a very intimate relationship with God, but because there was so much busyness and so many things churning, it was hard to really settle my soul enough that I could start to hear and discern God’s voice in leading specifically for how I was supposed to be leading in ministry, or how I was supposed to even just be taking care of my own soul.

So I do think it is something that you have to maybe try one or two before you find somebody that you really can settle in with because you need to feel really safe with a spiritual director because you’re going to be quiet with them. And that could be awkward. It can be awkward to sit in silence with somebody whether that’s in person or over zoom.

I meet with a spiritual director over Zoom, and thankfully I felt instantly connected to her. And so there was something like it was the time was right, the person was right. But if you don’t feel that, do keep trying because I think this is a really incredibly helpful tool for us. This especially as ministry leaders.

Julie >> Jodie, I 100% agree with you. And I just want to echo what you shared about they help you hold the sacred space. They help you turn down that noise. I mean, there’s so much coming at us as leaders all the time that it gets so hard to hear his still small voice, which seems crazy and yet we all know that’s exactly true.

And so a spiritual director really does help you turn down that noise, helps you listen, helps you hear the echoes of what he has been saying over and over. Oftentimes, I found that my director just affirmed what I was hearing from the Lord. And I’m thinking, oh, that’s just me or oh, no, you know, maybe I’m making that up.

And she’s like, no, I heard that loud and clear as well. And, you know, like, they help you just listen and create that space. I love how you shared that.

Jodie >> Yeah. And spiritual directors will listen to you over time. And because they’re getting these little snapshots into your life, they can hear themes that maybe get lost in the muddiness of our daily life. And so they’ll point that out. And another thing I want to say about spiritual direction is a good spiritual director will not give you advice, but they will ask you good questions, open-ended questions to help you lean more in, okay?

Yeah, you’re right. I am. I have said that three times in the last couple of meetings. Okay, well, what does that mean? Let’s look at that a little closer— that type of a question instead of, you know what I think? So that’s perhaps a counselor and there is room for that. But this is really you and the Lord together, figuring that out.

Kay >> That’s great. Well, let’s move on to pastoral counseling. Julie, help us understand how pastoral counseling is different from all of these others.

Julie >> Yeah, I often think another term could be pastoral care. You know, we hear that term a lot as well. And when I think about pastoral care, pastoral counseling, it really is to provide that spiritual support or the short term. And that’s important because most of our pastors could not walk with us in the weeds eight hours a day for six months.

You know, like they just do not have the capacity for that. And what they, what their specialty is, is providing that spiritual guidance sitting with us and being the physical presence of Jesus with us in the middle of those really hard situations and those hard seasons. They point us to the Scriptures. They remind us of where God has been present, how he is present, and how he will be present in the future in the middle of this.

And they oftentimes, too, will be able to rally the resources in the church that can further support us in that season or point us to those outside resources that we may not have even had a chance to even think about. And so it really is that presence reminding us that God is with us, reminding us of his care and his goodness and his love in the middle of all the hard and then again, that rallying of resources that might be available in the church or even outside that can support us and our loved ones when we’re in the middle of that.

Jodie, how else would you describe pastoral care?

Jodie >> You know, one of the things I was thinking about that pastoral care offers us is help within community and help within relationship already. So hopefully if you are calling a pastor for care, you already have a relationship with them. The benefit (and I think why a lot of us might turn to pastoral counseling first) is that it doesn’t cost money.

And all of these other resources that we’re talking about cost money because this is this is somebody’s vocation. And so they, you know, a workman deserves her wages. But a pastor is paid through their vocation as a pastor. So that is attractive.

And and yet the other thing I just would say as a caution for us, as especially the women listening to this as ministry leaders, getting pastoral care in your church, if you are leading in your church, may not be the best place for you to go because you may not feel completely safe to be as vulnerable as you need to be about what you’re really struggling with.

And if you know, it just it may not yeah. It just may not be safe.

Julie >> Just complicated. Well, just.

Jodie >> Yep, sometimes it’s complicated, period. That’s you all know that. I don’t need to tell you that going to your boss and telling him you’re really struggling—or her that you’re really struggling may not be the best idea. So I would also take that into consideration as you’re praying through what kind of support and help you need.

Kay >> And the other part of that is sometimes you are struggling with somebody else in the church.

Jodie >> Right.

Kay >> So you don’t want to, you don’t want to be, you know, ratting on this other person by going to the pastor. And even if you don’t use a name there, you can accidentally tell enough about the person that you are basically revealing who the person is. So I do think that’s another reason that you need to be cautious if you are on this staff.

Now, it may be that other staff members need to help you with this person and that’s a different situation. But you need to be more cautious about those things, I think. Anything else to add to that?

Jodie >> And you know, one other thing I would add is a lot of times we go to pastors expecting them to give us counsel and care that they’re actually not really equipped to deal. And we shouldn’t be expecting a licensed professional counselor type relationship from our pastor and so I would just I think there should be a baseline of general health, right?

There’s a, there’s a crisis that’s happened in your life. Maybe a death or something that has come in that’s kind of just causing you some turmoil and some some pain. And I think that is where a pastor can really help you. If if after a few times with that pastor and just being listened to and prayed over brings healing and relief, then that probably was good.

But if it starts churning up, you know, because somebody died that you love and all of a sudden you realize you have all these abandonment issues, it’s time to go to a counselor. So you need to just make sure that you’re expecting you have the right expectation level from each of these people that are helpers.

Julie >> Yeah. Jodie, I love what you’re highlighting there of recognizing what expertise and capacity each one of these roles have to provide support for you. And you know, anybody who is a great pastor is going to recognize whenever they’re in a conversation with someone and they need actually oh, actually, you need counseling or actually I think you need to go sit with a spiritual director, right?

Like all of us in all of these helping professions, want to make sure you get the help that you need. So, you know, I’m real quick to point people to a different resource if I think that’s going to be better than them sitting in a coaching session. Right. But recognizing, hey, what expertise do I need and then putting the right expectations on that person.

Am I going to the right source and are they quick to refer me to someone else if it’s beyond their scope of care?

Jodie >> Mm hmm.

Kay >> And so how do you as a ministry leader help someone discern where they need to go.

Jodie >> I think, so I look at it this way. If you’ve got some things coming up from your past counseling is probably the next direction. If you’re feeling stuck on forward movement, especially in regards to career or how you’re living your life, I would say coaching is a great next step. If you were wrestling in your relationship with God, hearing his voice, understanding what he’s asking you to do, or you want to just go deeper, you feel this longing to go deeper with God in prayer or just in communion with him that I would say go to a spiritual director. I think a pastor is a great place to go, like I said, for just a few times.

So I think that would be how I would help somebody discern where to go.

Julie >> That was such a great synopsis. Every leader needs to just save that right there or whenever we need to figure out who to send someone to. That was a great synopsis.

Kay >> Jodie, that was very good and works for whether we’re trying to discern where to go or whether we’re helping someone else decide somewhere to go. And if if you learn that or decide that you need a counselor or a coach or a spiritual director—whatever, how do you find out where the qualified people are?

How do you know whether this is really an expert who can help you?

Julie >> Well, I always read through their bio to see where they’ve received their training. So that’s always important to me. And if that training source is a qualified source and one with a great reputation. I also, you know, word of mouth is a great way to find out about other resources, trusted resources, especially leaders on a church staff like asking other leaders, asking your peers, hey, I’m just I used to do this all the time.

I’m building a list of counselors that I trust. Who do you know that you’ve either had a great experience with or someone that you have sent to them, has had an amazing experience. And tell me why. I’ve also gone and done a lot of interviews with people. Hey, tell me about you. Tell me what you would do with this person who brought this situation to you.

And that works for any of the helpers. We just walked through going and just spending about 15 minutes with them, 30 minutes with them, asking them questions around their story, their approach, their experience and expertise. All of that will help you get a better sense. And it also gives you a sense of, you know, do I click with this person? Do I like the approach that they just outlined?

Does that, you know, match up with kind of the approach that I think would be beneficial to me or those that I serve? And so I think looking through those qualifications, asking peers that you trust for their recommendations and then having those conversations and asking questions around their expertise, their approach, all of that is a great way to kind of build that list of trusted resources that would not only be good for you, but for those that you serve.

Jodie >> Mhm. Yeah. And I would add to that that most people, perhaps not counselors, but for sure the other three, will give you a short call (they might call it a discovery call or an introduction conversation) to start thinking through together. Are we a good fit? I know I’ve done that with coaches. I’ve done that with my spiritual director.

I did meet with a counselor before I met with her in person and we just had a brief conversation to for me to say, “Hey, this is what I’m dealing with. Do you have expertise there?” And for me to hear her kind of talk through that and, and to know, yes, I think you’re the right person, so you should be able to do that without you know, feeling like every time you turn around you’re giving money to a question mark. Is this the right thing or is this the right thing?
And so that’ll at least help a little bit.

Kay >> I think that’s really good suggestion. I think if I had sat down with this spiritual director that I went to for just a short time and if I had known of any questions to ask her, I think I would have figured out pretty quickly that we were not going to be on the same page because we just weren’t.

So that would have been really, really helpful because she was recommended by people. And I’m sure she’s a wonderful spiritual director. She just was not what I needed.

Julie >> And yeah.

Kay >> So I think your suggestion of questioning people before you really commit to some long term coaching situation or counseling situation or spiritual direction or situation. Really those are great suggestions.

So as we sort of end our discussion do you have some encouragement to our listeners on this topic? What would you say to them?

Jodie >> You know, one thing that comes to mind for me is that when we know that we need help, it’s usually because we’re in pain in some way and we’ve hit some sort of roadblock that’s causing us pain. And usually what we want is relief. This is something that I as a pastor witnessed a lot, is that as soon as we would get just a little bit of relief, we then walk away from the process.

And what I really want to encourage people to do is not just find relief to where, you know, that the hemorrhaging has stopped but the wound is still there because this is the perfect time for you to start digging. And pain always points to something, and so God is using that as a signal in our life to show us something that he wants to heal.

And so take the time and do the work to go deeper. Because what is going to happen is you will get faced with another pain point, another crisis, and you’ll either repeat the pattern or you’ll move back into burnout or you’ll get stuck again or whatever it is. And so use this as an opportunity to really do the work because there is good, good healing on the other side of it.

And that is what God wants for us. He wants us to be as whole as we can be so that we can serve Him in better ways.

Kay >> And He wants that deep healing, not just you know, dealing with the scar.

Jodie >> Yes.

Kay >> Julie, what would you say?

Julie >> I just figured that was such a good word. I’m just letting that sink in for a second. Okay, much to like what we were discussing earlier, I think we are hesitant to get the help we need oftentimes because we do not think we have time for it.

I don’t have time to slow down. I don’t have time for another appointment on my calendar. I got meetings, too many meetings as it is. I don’t have time for six months. What in the world can we fix this, you know, in 5 minutes? If so, we think we do not have time for this business of slowing down and getting the help we need and that as we all three of us have experienced.

Well, you either slow it down now or you get shut down completely in a hot second when you’re burned out and you can’t do anything. So which would you rather do? Right? Would you rather be in the emergency room.

Would you rather have a few doctor visits down? I just think we have got to take off this myth we’ve got to stop believing this lie that we just do not have time for that. The world will stop spinning. If I take that extra meeting once a week or whatever, that’s just a lie that Satan would love to use against us, to keep us on the sideline, to keep us stuck and unhealthy, to keep us stuck, not knowing which way is up, to keep us from hearing the voice of God.

All of those are just lies. And we have got to slow down, take the time we need so that we can live and lead in a healthy, sustainable way and still be in the game next year, ten years from now, and not be taken out by one of these things. That we didn’t have time to address right now.

So that would be a word I would share. Obviously, I’m passionate about it.

Kay >> And I guess I would just add to that, that our problem Is that we think we’re so essential is a lie because.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> God has it, God has it. And so we’re not trusting God. We’re trusting in our own abilities and our own necessity to be in charge of whatever it is that we have to take care of it.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> You can trust God.

Julie >> I remember Kay. I was staring down a sabbatical one time and as the days ticked off and we got closer, I was just like looked at my husband one day. I was like, well, I can’t take the sabbatical because we’ve got this going on and this is about to start. And two weeks later this is going to launch.

So I guess I just have to cancel it. And he looked at me and he said, Do you think the Lord is on his throne? I think he can handle this for you to take three months off. Oh, well, when you put it that way, I guess we can trust the King of the universe, all of this.

Well, I go to a counseling session or well, I take a little time off so I don’t end up out of the game forever. Okay, when you put it that way.

Kay >> Yeah. Sometimes our husbands have wisdom that we don’t have.

Julie >> Oh.

Kay >> And we’re thankful for that.

Well, thank you so much, both of you. You’ve just really given us a great idea of the differences in where to go for help. And I hope that the women out there will take advantage of them and remember this conversation if later on they’re in need, if later on they’re stuck, if later on they’re struggling in that don’t even really know what’s wrong.

Get some help. Get some advice from people who’ve been to some of these different types of experts. And if the first one doesn’t work, go somewhere else, but don’t just leave it alone. And I think that’s what we all agree about.

And let me invite all of you out there to browse our other resources on similar topics that might help you if you go to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and on the pull down menu, to to leadership development. And that will open another menu. Pick general leadership, and that will open another menu that is You As a Leader.

And so going in that on that page, on that topic, we talk about things like burnout. We talk about things like, in fact, Jodie’s conversation with me about taking a personal retreat is on there and is very helpful. We have other people. Jodie also did one on pacing our lives so that we are following God and doing what he wants us to do.

So we have many resources there as well as other resources for you as a leader. And we’d love to have you browse those and take advantage of those. And you can always contact us at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org if you have further questions. So let me thank you both once again for taking the time for being with us.

I’m really excited about this conversation that we’ve had and the help that it will be to women out there.

Jodie >> Thank you, Kay.

Julie >> Thanks for your invitation, Kay. And thanks for all that you’re doing to serve women leaders. What a gift to the kingdom. We’re thankful for you.

Kay >> Well, you’re sweet to say so, and it’s been my honor to be able to do that. This ministry has been a real gift.