I Was Fired For My Testimony

“We believe in the redeeming power of Christ, but we believe as Pastors that you are not healed
enough to work in this ministry.” This was the opening statement of the letter that an Executive
Pastor read to me as I was getting fired from my ministerial position. When I received Jesus as
my Lord and Savior in the summer of 2019, I knew that God had a call of ministry on my life. In
my early years of walking with the Lord, I idolized ministry positions. I thought they were
“perfect” jobs with no inward conflict (insert eye roll lol) I truly believed that once I made into a
full time ministry position then that was the “I made it” moment.

In the spring of 2023 my husband and I moved back home to St. Louis, MO after spending a
year working in youth ministry at an International Christian Academy in Utah. We were so
excited that the Lord was bringing us back home but I was coming back home with no job lined
up. I started prayerfully searching for any open ministry positions in my area. I landed on
applying for a position at a church that I spent a lot of my childhood attending. I went through
the nerve wracking interviewing process and had complete peace of the Lord about this entire
thing. I got offered the position and started working right away. I absolutely loved my job, I loved
my boss and loved being back working in a full time position in ministry. I was back in the “I
made it moment.”

For this church they prioritized the orientation process, which meant taking the time to meet
every single person in all the ministries. I LOVED this part! I am such an extrovert so going
around all the locations, meeting everyone on staff and talking about their jobs was so fun! After
one of the orientation meetings, I joined the ladies of the staff to sit for lunch. They proceeded to
ask me many questions, where I was from, what I was up to in ministry in the last year and what
my testimony was. I believe God gives us a boldness to share our testimony because it brings
people back to Him. When I tell my testimony, I tell EVERYTHING. So I told my testimony to the
table of ladies, including the part that before I found the Lord, I was a sugar baby. Sugar baby is
a casual term used nowadays for a young lady, or young man who goes into a physical and
sexual relationship with usually an older and married man or woman, and receives gifts and or
payment. My fellow women employees were stunned and appreciative for my transparency of
my testimony. One of the Executive Pastors looked at me and said “you should really tell the
story to another one of our Executive Pastors on staff.” Of course I have learned to not be
ashamed of my testimony, so I really had no reservations of telling another woman my story.

Within the next couple days, I did meet with that Executive Pastor. She was only interested in
the sugar baby part of my testimony. I was very honest of my sinful past, and how I was truly
saved by the love, mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. After I shared my story with her with an
open heart, she looked at me and said, “While we were interviewing you, why didn’t you share
this part of your testimony with us?” At that moment, I wanted the chair that I was sitting in to
swallow me whole, because I feel like I’ve done something terribly wrong. I looked over at her, a
Pastor that I have only met twice by this time, and shared my deepest apologies if she felt I was
leading them astray or withholding information to receive this job. At this time I was still a
chronic people pleaser, so I never stood up for myself, or said to her that I have been forgiven
by the blood of Jesus, and I have received His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love from Him.
By this point of the conversation, I am sobbing trying to reestablish my love for this job and how appreciative I am to be in this ministry. The Pastor explains that she must go to HR with this
new information, and that we will come back together to discuss this at a later date. She then
prays for me and rushes out of our meeting leaving me stunned, worried about my future at this
job, and completely judged for my past. About a week later, I was reassured by my boss,
friends, and my husband that the situation was not a fireable offense, that I will be able to do my
job well and move on. However, that was so far from the case, when the HR representative
asked me to join her in her office. When I walked in there, my boss was nowhere to be found,
and that same Executive Pastor that I previously spoke with, was sitting there with a letter she
then began to read, firing me from my position. After she reads the letter, she takes my hand
and says “ Please, we want you to stay in the community.” She then left the room, probably
unaware that she left behind a broken hearted and completely embarrassed young woman.

“I can’t believe I’m getting fired because of my testimony.” That is all that I kept saying out loud
through the tears. And just like in the movies, I was given a box of my things and escorted to my
car. Those 48 hours after I was let go was filled with grief and confusion. I was very honest with
the Lord in my prayer time asking, “Why would you even allow me to get this job if I was going
to be fired from it!?” Looking back at those moments of grief, I learned that God is OK with
vulnerable and emotion filled prayers, because that is how I began to heal. Through those
vulnerable prayer moments that is when I began to forgive that Pastor and that church. I had to
surrender control and my pride to be able to receive what God has in store for me. During one
of those prayer closet moments, the Lord reminded me of something that I started back in 2020.
During Covid I started filming little videos and posting it to my Instagram and I called it “Monday
Moments.” I heard the Lord say, “Remember that idea I gave you back in 2020, that is what you
will do. You will not work under anyone else’s ministry, you will start your own.”

On August 21, 2023 I posted the first episode of Monday Moment. It’s so crazy when these life-
changing moments happen when we realize we serve a constant God. His goodness,
faithfulness and love towards me never went away when I got fired. He met me where I was,
and He carried me out of it. Our circumstances do not reflect God’s character. On the mountain
tops God is good and faithful. In the deepest valleys, God is good and faithful. I’ve never been
so thankful to be let go of a job, because God had so much more for me than I could’ve ever
imagined for myself.

“Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power
that works in us — ”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭3‬:‭20‬ ‭