Culture Making

Twenty-four years ago today my first born arrived on the scene. The ultrasound showed a healthy baby, but not the sex of the baby until my son was born. I told my husband when we found out we were expecting I wanted our first child to be a boy. I am the oldest of three girls and thought it would be great for our children to have a 'big brother!' Rob's response: 'Jody, he won't be your brother!' Ha, very funny. I cannot remember ever wanting to be anything else but a wife and mother...in the span of 4 1/2 years I was mother to three, with our fourth child coming eight years later after a miscarriage.
There was no job description, my mom was five hundred miles away, and Rob was a busy pastor, although a very involved, helpful father. Now that I was a mother...I didn't want to be. I wanted to lead women's Bible studies(which I did), I wanted to direct women's ministries, I wanted to counsel women who needed me, I wanted to...
I committed myself to loving God by loving, nurturing, and training up the children he had given me. I was raising the next generation. Would I raise them for Jesus?
Jesus has been my teacher through His Word applied to my heart everyday, day in and day out. Maybe only a few verses when the babies were small.  He taught me to die to self, to be patient, loving and kind.
He who is patient, loving and kind to me demonstrated what it looks like to be a mother.

This quote encouraged me to press on in motherhood"
"I wrote Culture Making with two groups in mind: women who don't work outside the home,.."

I also wanted mothers to realize the basic unit of culture is the family, and what happens in those first five years shapes people for the rest of their lives.
That's as much culture making as anything that happens in the White House or on Fifth Avenue."Andy Crouch, rare author of an excellent book—Culture Making (IVP 2008)—