Mother and pastor discover astounding connection
By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff
“God is all over this thing,” is the response most people offer when they hear the story about the Rev. Meredith Wilkens-Arnold and the speaker at Calvary UMC’s Stephen Ministry celebration.
They also marvel at the wonderfully coincidental connectional system that is The United Methodist Church. But mostly, they come back to talking about God, who never ceases to amaze.
The story begins when the Rev.
Amy Maynard, a former member of Calvary, had a powerful testimony of how Stephen Ministers had changed her and her husband’s lives 24 years ago, following the death of their 4-month-old son from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Because of her experiences, Maynard, who had moved to North Carolina, became a Stephen Minister and, after being invited by Torres, was happy to return on Oct. 23 to share her story.
Maynard spoke about redemption, about how Stephen Ministers helped her re-discover hope and purpose, but she also shared the story of Ryan, her little boy.
As she spoke, Wilkens-Arnold began to feel an odd sensation creeping over her as she realized she was connected to Maynard in a way only God could design.
In 1992, Wilkens-Arnold was in seminary, doing her clinical pastoral education in the emergency room of Anne Arundel Medical Center. She was alerted that a “non-responsive” infant was coming in.
When he got there, the emergency room doctor and pediatrician told Wilkens-Arnold that there was “no hope for this baby.”
“They looked at me, as the chaplain, saying ‘do your thing,’” she said. “They handed me the baby while they worked on him. I kept asking, ‘Where’s his mother?’ and was told, ‘She’s on the way.’ I prayed for her and prayed for the baby.”
The baby was Ryan Maynard. Amy was his mother.
As Ryan’s life slipped away, Wilkens-Arnold was instructed to take him to a helicopter for transport to a neo-natal intensive care unit.
“I was profoundly frightened,” she said. “The medical staff was relying on me
“I absolutely felt the presence of God,” she remembers. “On the way to the helicopter the medical staff wanted to put Ryan in an
Part of Ryan Maynard’s legacy to give cradle crosses as baptism gifts.
“You have to hold him,” she insisted.
Over the years as a pastor, that’s a lesson Wilkens-Arnold has learned time and again. “We have to be held,” she said. “I knew that. As people of God, we have to be held.”
Wilkens-Arnold and Amy Maynard marveled when they realized the connection – as did others around them.
As part of Ryan’s legacy, the Maynards had set up a fund to provide cradle crosses for any child baptized at Calvary UMC. The nursery at the church is also named after him. Wilkens-Arnold had recently written Maynard a note in September thanking her for three crosses that were given out, and she wrote a note a short while ago informing Maynard that cross had been given to a couple who experienced a miscarriage.
When she wrote, she had no idea of their connection. She was only aware of the beautiful legacy created in Ryan’s name and the way it blessed people who never knew him.
The story of the coincidental connection between the two women has spread through the church. Wilkens-Arnold prays that Maynard and her husband will continue to know that they are held through every place and space of their lives and that they recognize how much love Ryan was able to bring to the world.”
“This is what God can do and what God does in the lives of people,” Wilkens-Arnold said. “This is not my story. It’s definitely God’s story.”