[This is a bit long, so be forewarned!  It's my way of summarizing everything I've learned so far, and sharing some EXCITING news with all of you: I may have found a job!!]

I am no longer at my previous church. I am on the brink of being hired by a new one, and throughout the process of applying for jobs, following up my resume with phonecalls, and one or two interviews, I've learned something valuable along the way: Go somewhere where you've celebrated, not just tolerated.

My self-esteem took a beating in my last church, because I was tolerated. Barely. In a market where children's pastors are sought after, paid exorbitant amounts of money, and given a place of honor in churches, I was working for peanuts for people who really didn't want me there. Those who tolerated me did so through tired, weary spirits - too tired to fight for the children's ministry anymore. It wasn't that they were angry with me, or didn't like me; they were just exhausted from years and years of caring, of running in circles getting nowhere, because they were in a place that didn't really value children's ministry.

I was also tolerated through gritted teeth, by people who, to be totally honest, were allowing the devil to use them to accomplish his work - that is, running me out of the church and out of children's ministry altogether. While it is flattering that I am that dangerous to the devil that he'd go to that much trouble to get rid of me, it is also wearying and damaging to go to that type of environment, day after day, when some of those very people are in leadership in the church. And those same people are beating down the other staff members day after day, too. So I left. A damaged, weakened soul, probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And I started the application process. And I found churches that wouldn't call me back. Senior pastors who kept putting off the inevitable, "We've decided that someone else is a better fit." Telling me that they'd get back to me, but never really doing so. I was still being tolerated. My dearest friend in the world told me last weekend, "I don't like all this runaround you're getting. You're better than that. Cut them loose!" But I was still so shaky, so run down from my last church, that I still felt like it would be them doing me a favor by hiring me, not me doing them a favor by agreeing to work for them.

So I committed to prayer and fasting. I spent time just saturating myself with God and His Word, asking him to help me shake the dust off my feet from my former ministry.

And lo and behold, I got a call. This senior pastor was calling me the day he got back in the office after returning from a missions trip. We talked for an hour. He called one of my references. He called me back the next day to tell me that he thought I'd be a good fit for them, and unless my other reference had something horrible to say about me (not gonna happen!), to start checking my calendar for a date to come for a weekend and interview. He spent about 3/4 of the time selling the church to me, not demanding that I prove to him that I am, indeed, called to be a children's pastor. He barely knows me, and yet he was celebrating me in a way that, in the entire 2.5 years I was at my previous church, no one ever had. Even if I don't get this job, I now know the difference between being celebrated and being tolerated, and I will no longer stand for being just tolerated.

If you're looking for a job, I would encourage you to spend some intense time with God, asking Him for direction. Apply everywhere, because it is so true: God will close every door other than the one you're supposed to walk through. And don't sell yourself short. As a wise, red-haired youth pastor/radio D.J. in Wisconsin told me, "You're better than that."