The Pregnant Pastor, Part 2

Join Aimee as she talks about the birth of her youngest 2 sons and how pregnancy impacts her ministry as a pastor.  How do you give birth, nurse, keep babies alive and still work as a pastor?  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

All glory to God. It's Topic Thursday, and we're continuing our journey on The Pregnant Pastor, which would be me, Amy Cobley Mulder, The Pregnant Pastor Part Two. All glory to God coming now.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Doesn't matter if you're young or alive. All that matters if you answer the door when Jesus comes to change your life. Give it up to God. All the glory to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

It felt like I was continually pregnant. I had one child, which was my oldest child, Ford. And I gotta tell you, after the baby came, Ford was an incredibly easy kid toddler. I would literally be on the computer doing stuff for church. And Ford would be playing with blocks on the floor, just entertaining himself. I remember cleaning out the baptistry, and he was just in the car seat, just sleeping as nap, and I was watching him, and it was just an easy thing. And I remember thinking during that time, people are really complaining a lot when they're talking about being a working mother. This is easy. You just take your kid with you. He's on your hip, and you just go do everything, and then you just make sure he's alive and life is good. My arrogance is astounding when I think back. And God, in his infinite wisdom, gave me the wonderful second child that I had when Ford was a little over two years old, which was Cooper David Moulter. And Cooper did none of the things that Ford did. I was pregnant with Cooper, and it was a pretty easy pregnancy, but I had an incredibly rough delivery with Cooper, and I was incredibly sick. When I look at the pictures of when he was born, I just look incredibly ill. So what I want to say is I had a different experience this time. Cooper also had like extreme acid reflux. He would spit up a lot and just projectile vomit over, you know, the spit up, not vomit, but just all the whatever he was eating or drinking. And so in my office at church, I had three blazers every week. And sometimes I would go through all three because there's nothing that's grosser than just trying to preach a message while you have spit up on your shoulder and you can smell it. And because of that lovely like projectile exorcist baby kind of situation, um, people didn't want to hold Cooper because they didn't want to get spit up on. And so it was a different experience having this, having this toddler and having a baby. Um Cooper could was an extremely fast crawler, extremely fast everything. And when he was started to get around and become more of a toddler, he thought anything in a container was offensive. So he would dump everything out. He would, he would just, he was a constant blur. Every picture of Cooper has him be um a blur. He looks like the kid on The Incredibles Dash. I mean, he just is a blur. There's no picture where his his hands or his legs are are still because he just moved all the time. And so thankfully, I got a reality check in. It's kind of hard to do life and to do and take care of these kiddos. But I couldn't afford childcare, so I had to take the kids everywhere. And this was before, you know, school. So you had to, okay, are we doing preschool? What can I do? I did have family help and getting my kid to preschool. And so there was this sense that I was in over my head because I was. And so, as a pregnant pastor who was very arrogant when I had one, then God gives me this wonderful other one. And I legitimately could get nothing accomplished that I used to be able to get accomplished. And so this shifting and pivoting on what that means. How do how are you gonna get stuff done? How are you going to make sure everyone doesn't just eat McDonald's? How are you going to do that? What am I gonna do? And my husband and I, with these two young boys running around, we were thinking, boy, this is pretty sweet. We have these two boys, life is good. And my husband was going on a mission trip to Haiti, and it must have been the send-off because he came back from Haiti. I had a three-year-old son, I had an eight-month-old Cooper, and then I was pregnant again with Tucker. And I want to tell you, I was completely freaked out. I couldn't be open with my freaked-outness, however, because everybody in my church was dealing with infertility and wanted to have a baby and couldn't have one. And here I was just pregnant on accident. It was so different than when I wanted a baby. I had seven pregnancy tests out on the counter, and Devin said, Oh, he said, could you could it be a mistake? I said, Oh, let me see. And I called the doctor and they said, Congratulations. And to make matters more fun and more interesting, is that we we really felt the call of God for us to come up to Michigan from Texas in the middle of that birth of that baby. So we moved to Michigan October 1st, and Tucker's birthday is November 5th. I really don't recommend moving when you're that pregnant. Plus, our church in Texas was kind of mad at us for moving, so they didn't really help us get everything packed. It was a huge move. We couldn't afford movers, so we just had to, you know, bucket up and deal with it. It was a challenging moment, the challenging day. It was just all of those things. And what I really, I really couldn't fathom or get in my head. What I couldn't get in my head is how this was gonna work. I was already overwhelmed with two kids, and now I was gonna have a third, and it felt like I was drowning, and then somebody handed me a baby. And I was, I just said, God, I I can't do this. And I was really worried, because it actually took me four months to admit that Tucker was coming and I was pregnant. I was really worried that I wouldn't have love for him because the circumstances were so incredibly overwhelming. You know, grandparents are useless in a situation, they're just happy a baby's coming no matter what. And I felt like, oh no, what am I gonna do? And the incredible thing that happens, and it's gotta be divine. I mean, it comes from the Lord, is that when they handed this gorgeous baby, because Tucker was born with a plan C section, so he just looked like, hello, I'm in the world, and I'm beautiful, my most beautiful baby. And they handed Tucker to me. And I remember thinking, Well, you're here. It was incredible to have three boys under four. It was difficult, it was challenging, and I was so worried that I was gonna resent one of them when I held the third one. And I'm just so grateful that God gave me this overwhelming wash of love. But I still was just woefully out of my depth. I uh sometimes Devin would come home from work and I would just get right in the van and go keep the babies alive, and I would just drive, just drive, looking out in the window. I made sure I went to a mom's group right away, even when I got to Michigan, even pregnant, just so that I could find other friends. I needed other friends. And what's incredible is I have some of those same friends today that I started having 15 years ago that helped me on this momhood journey. It's just difficult to really realize that being a pregnant pastor was just so, it's just so hard to realize that being a pregnant pastor is full of balance. It's full of needing help, it's full of begging older people that maybe should be watching your kids just to watch them for an hour so that you can go to the store. It's it's going, it's going, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna figure this out? Who can I ask for help? And then, like the monetary thing, just having everybody, the two kids and diapers, and how are we gonna pay for that? And I mean, this was the challenge of my life. And I'm gonna tell you right now that having three teenagers, having a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, and a 15-year-old is still challenging. They need you when you have to kind of wait until they ask you a question. You're ready to answer the question. They need you a lot. Um, it's an incredible situation to be in again. I think the things I've learned as a pregnant pastor, someone who had to do my vocation and was trying so desperately hard to prove something. Like I'm gonna show you that I deserve to be in ministry. I have let all of that go. What I started with with when I was pregnant with Ford, I no longer feel like I have to prove anything. What I learned was how to get very efficient at certain things and do them very quickly. And that was a brilliant thing because there wasn't a lot of time. I learned that if I could stay up an hour later when everybody was in bed, I could get a lot done. I learned that I did not need to stress about little things. And one of those little things in my life as a pregnant pastor was if my house is picked up, I have in my head how I'd love my house to look. And maybe someday that's how I deal with it. Because I don't want my legacy to be look at how neatly the towels were folded or wasn't her house decorated. I want it to be that we were able to play together as a family, that we that we served together, that we found time for each other. I just hated this pressure that I was going to show people that you could be pregnant and be a pastor as well. Of course you can. Mary, the mother of Jesus, bore Jesus and she was still serving God. She was serving God by being pregnant and giving birth to the word. So I don't know why pregnancy is somehow seen in the world as a weakness. It's pretty, it's a pretty incredible situation that your body grows a human and you can give birth to it. And, you know, the mental load of being a pregnant pastor was really high. So here's what I'd like to tell people that are in ministry and are pregnant or have small children and are feeling like they are drowning and someone's handing them a baby. Or if you're just interested in the experience, here's what I'd like to tell you. First of all, find grace for yourself. If you know you are doing the best you can, God is there to lift you up and help you. And you are not to be condemned. Secondly, there's help. Only I am the only one that knows anything about having a baby. I am the only one that my ideas are completely unique. No one's ever experienced life like me. That's a lie from the enemy. Because although your babies are your babies and no one's been you, and you have a singular experience, the enemy wants you to never ask for help because no one knows what it's like to be you. The enemy wants you to isolate you. And there is beautiful community when we share our struggles together and we realize we need help along the way. And the other thing you need to know is that God does not leave you when you're in the middle of struggle. I think motherhood comes with a side dish or a main course of help of guilt. It's a helping of guilt. You're not doing this right, and you should do this, and everybody else does this right. And that comparison game can lead to the death of your soul. So stand firm in who God has created you to be. Stand firm as you give birth to those babies, and stand firm when you're taking care of those babies. Because having a kid is a beautiful gift from the Lord, and it's also incredibly difficult. So, what are you doing with God's gift and babies if you just try to do it all on your own without strength from Him? You need the Holy Spirit, you need help. It's okay. And I don't know, my boys are teenagers yet, so maybe they'll grow up and feel like their lives were less because we were pastors. I don't really have a lot to do with how they perceive our lives to be. What I hope they see is that we were able, because Devon works so hard at UPS, we were able to pay for their health insurance and pay for their life. We had flexibility because we are pastors, we're able to go to most of the games and and go and be a part of things. So we did not have to uh miss anything. I don't think we tried to make everything. And the other thing that church life and their mom being a pastor gave them was they got to hear my heart and faith and my heartbreak when people's heart broke. They got to see a lot of the other thing they got to see was this beautiful thing that happens when you walk life with a congregation and you try to help people and you try to be as close to God as you can. They got to see us be serve God. And every time we served God and they saw us serve it together, they saw a partnership at work, and they got to be on my hip while I heard people's stories, and I just was able to serve the God that I know. So listen, I'm not sure what it's gonna be like for my boys as they go. I don't know what they're gonna choose differently so that they don't have the life we had. I don't know. I'm going to tell you though, being a pregnant pastor showed me this radical dependence upon God that I have to surrender every day. I don't know if you're gripping on to the way things should be. Your life should be differently. Maybe you're grasping on to perception of yourself. Maybe you're grasping on, I have to do it all, I have to prove something. But can I just encourage you to let go of your hands today, unclench what you're holding on to, and just surrender to God. Just decide that the goal of this life is not to try to think you have control over everything. The goal of this life is to look into the eyes of the one who created you and see yourself as he sees you. And then that love that you've received should overflow out of your every action and every word. I was a pregnant pastor, I'm now a mommy pastor. And in this life as a preaching mom, the one thing I'm gonna tell you that I hope all of you do, surrender. Surrender. Unclench the grasp on how you want life to be. And look at what life is. Surrender your need to have everything figured out and lean into the thankfulness that you can have. Because even in your darkest day, we can all be thankful that God is there. And we know that God gives us the opportunity to serve Him and to surrender every single day. Before I got pregnant with Tucker, I had this theme song. It was an old song um from my Nana. It was an old song, and this song became my theme song when I was up in the middle of the night or when I was overwhelmed. And here it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

For whatever it takes to draw closer to you, Lord, that's what I'll be willing to do, for whatever it takes to be more like you. Oh that's what I'll be willing to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Let go and remember we find holiness on the other side of surrender. All glory to God.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

It's like that's done. So it's done. It's the back time. Give it up. So that's all the glory to God.