Motherhood In The Middle Of Ministry

Three months ago, the ground beneath me shifted. Before my son was born, I thought that life with children would mostly continue as it was, just with a baby in tow. But the moment I held him, everything familiar began to move. The rhythms of life, the pace of my days, even the way I prayed, all of it changed. Motherhood hasn’t been something I could simply add to my life; it’s something that has reshaped it.

For a little while, it felt like everything else paused. The world kept moving, but my world slowed to the rhythm of feedings and naps and slow recovery. My days were quiet and tender and holy in their own way. But when I came back to ministry after maternity leave, everything felt different. I was the same pastor walking into the same building, but my heart wasn’t the same. My body was still healing, my sleep was scattered, and my mind was learning how to hold two worlds at once: the pull toward both motherhood and ministry.

I felt the same desire to pour myself fully into the work of the church, but I didn’t have the same capacity. My heart longed to do more, but my hands were already full. For the first time, I had to face the truth that more responsibility doesn’t always leave room for the same availability, and that’s not a surrender of calling, it’s an invitation to depend on grace.

My first Sunday back, I stood in front of the room with my Bible open and notes ready. But if I’m honest, part of me was somewhere else. My thoughts kept drifting downstairs to the nursery. Was Ronan crying? Was he content? Did they need me? I was teaching while trying to listen for a sound I couldn’t even hear.

I’ve learned that motherhood does that, it stretches your heart in two directions at once. It’s not that I love ministry less; it’s that my heart has made more room. And instead of scolding me for distraction, God has been gentle, reminding me that He is present in both places.

There have been moments I’ve wondered if I can really do both well. Some weeks it feels like I’m giving half of myself to everything and fully to nothing. The nights run long, the mornings come early, and sometimes the guilt feels heavier than the work itself. Guilt that I’m not giving Jesus enough. Guilt that I’m not giving my son enough. Guilt that I’m not giving myself any room to breathe.

These last few months have had a way of revealing the cracks in me. But I’m learning that those cracks aren’t proof of failure, they’re places where grace gets in. God’s strength doesn’t meet me when I have it all together. It meets me when I show up tired, stretched thin, and still willing. I have never been more dependent on God than in these moments. And in those cracks, I’ve come to know Him, and even myself, in a deeper way. I have learned more than ever that the Lord doesn't do His best work in me in the big ministry moments but in the still quiet of my every day life.

Over the course of the last three months, God has met me most in the ordinary. In the hush of a 3 a.m. feeding, when the world is dark and my arms and back ache from holding a sleeping baby, I have felt His nearness. In the sink full of bottles, I hear His invitation to servanthood. In the rhythm of rocking a baby, I find the heartbeat of prayer.

I have come to find that this is the new rhythm of ministry for me. Ministry to my family in the midst of ministry to my church.

Sometimes motherhood in the middle of ministry looks like sitting in the back room, feeding your baby, listening to the laughter, worship, or conversations happening just beyond the door. The sounds remind you of what you’re missing, the ministry moments you used to be in the middle of. But slowly, I’ve begun to realize I’m not missing out on God. He’s here too, in the quiet room, in the steady rhythm of feeding, in the stillness where no one else sees. This too is ministry. This too is holy ground.

In the beginning, it often brought tears to my eyes. I had such a fear of missing out on what was happening around me. But slowly, I’m coming to see that I’m right where God has called me to be. What once felt like interruptions now feel like invitations, altars where I meet Him. Not polished. Not scheduled. Not public. But personal invitations to be with the Lord and to be with my son, praying that he continues on the legacy of faith in our family.

This is the way of Christ. God has always chosen the ordinary as His dwelling place. Bread and wine. A teenage girl. A manger. Clay jars that carry His treasure. The kingdom is not revealed in polished places but in everyday lives that are surrendered to Him.

If God made Himself present in those simple things, why wouldn’t He meet me in the rocking chair? Why wouldn’t He make holy the sound of lullabies?

The ground has shifted beneath me these past three months, but it has not crumbled. Every shift, every cry, every sleepless night has reminded me that God is not just found in the spectacular. He is here, in the ordinary.

And if He is here, then this ground, the ground of motherhood in the middle of ministry, has turned holy too.