Frani Fox Part 2
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
FRANI FOX
PART 2
KELLY
On the last episode of Qavah, we left off where Frani Fox and her husband had a thriving youth ministry. It was a sweet time in their life and they were full of joy.
Welcome back to Qavah the Podcast.
Building a Thriving Youth Ministry
KA And you were married
FF We were married we did not have children we had our first son in 1993 and such a blessing he was such a blessing and such a big part of that youth group by the time we were he was too have been to Mexico 10 times
KA oh how fun
FF He had got everywhere those kids loved him and some of those kids name their kids after him
KA oh my goodness
FF yeah
KA It’s amazing how little people can impact teenagers
FF Really wonderful wonderful years of ministry
KA That’s awesome so you Bible college and then you came back and then
FF He actually went to a junior college and I went and got my nursing degree so both of us were still doing school and ministry and working hard and those things were a huge blessing and then because of his Degree that he received from a junior college and our Bible college and seminary actually contacted him will put that together and move to LA and you can come to LA and will put you in seminary which was kind of a miracle in and of itself and then we have miracle after miracle of how God provided during those years but I always felt that we were a unit and that his successes were also my successes
What It’s Like to Be Young, Married, and Poor
KELLY
So off they went to Los Angeles to build their life together. But the City of Angels turned out to not be as glamorous as they expected.
KA Right absolutely and so when you were in when he was in seminary and you have a little one and you’re in school how’s living
FF Well that was challenging those were really tough years we had work nights midnight to six at work days 7 to 3 so he would stay up all night and stay up all day watching the little one or he would stay up all night and go to seminary the next day so we we did a lot of really really hard things
KA oh my goodness
FF To achieve the goals that we were trying to achieve we did a lot of really hard things financially those year we couldn’t afford diapers we couldn’t afford food we really worked very very hard and you know I can remember going to work and hiding all the knives in the house because I didn’t want to have fall asleep and have the little two-year-old find stuff he couldn’t so so those who are trying times but the Lord provided a really great job in a miraculous way as he always did for us everything was a miracle and I don’t mean that cliché he really provided for us in miraculous ways we go to the park and we’d meet somebody who had a great job on and on
FF So many times throughout our ministry in our life God would provide to the exact dollar amount and he was so faithful I can remember being in Bible college and we lived on $25 a week I’m not exaggerating we had our dorm paid for
KA And this is not the 40s
FF This is not the 40s this is the late 80s early 90s and so we would we would spend $20 on groceries and five dollars on gas and we became great big walkers because we had no money to go anywhere so he started walking and we walked for 30 something years based on that beginning but I needed at that time I needed some medical testing and a little old lady from a church that we were at previously wrote a check to us for an obscure amount like $481 so I got to the doctor and the test is $481 and it seem that God just kept doing things like that for us the whole way he always provided like that and he gave us a sweetness and that simplicity and that’s why I love simplicity so much because in simplicity you can see him there’s not a lot that he’s competing with
Stories of God’s Provision and Miracles
KELLY
This God that they had dedicated their lives to was coming through for them. As they walked in faith, they walked in miracles.
But Frani was still seeking truth. Even with her husband, her son, and another one on the way, she felt like she was drifting along in doubt.
KA wow and so it happened after that
FF He became a youth pastor again and we worked at another church and I had another son another wonderful wonderful son this sweet little family was going along but Do you know still we had never had like counseling for the things we’ve been through and ministry can take over a family easily and probably at 10 or 11 years in there were some issues with work and reality because as much as we want to serve the Lord we have to be real with our own limitations
KA. And so you’re home with two little
FF Home with two little kids and he’s working in seminary at this time you know we don’t have there’s no times where I didn’t have a car you know even if the kids were sick or whatever it was just again very challenging but I never felt that it wasn’t worth it and there’s so much scripture that I felt you know God’s loving kindness is better than life like I felt the choice to choose the Lord over and over and over again And the Temptations were a resentment probably you know that was a big temptation I was I was successful with that but that the things of our heart are the real things that were challenged with and so like the physical and real challenges were there but the heart challenges were bigger and at the time you know the Internet hadn’t happened yet and said it was really no way to seek counsel and I felt as a youth pastor’s wife and a pastor’s wife they had to be perfect and that was a great big issue that the Lord is showing me now that is so false
The Pressure of Perfectionism in Ministry
But in that perfectionism my I hid my feelings and in that I didn’t feel like that I had a right to take up space because other people‘s needs are more important than mine and that’s kind of the belief system that I had adopted is if you want to be great in God‘s kingdom and learn to be the servant of all and we were brave servants like we witnessed would go street witnessing in Palm Springs we we did a lot of great ministry I really want to keep saying that just amazing let a lot of people to Christ disciples a lot of people loved a lot of people but in doing that None of that’s wrong it’s all right I wasn’t loving myself and I didn’t even really know how so one of the ways I could tent myself with Christian radio because it’s free so I listen from seven in the morning to 1 o’clock every single day and I would seek and listen and listen and listen trying to find answers that I couldn’t find and I also would go to the public library and check out books even because I couldn’t afford books so I read all kinds of books the best I could get at the public library
KA so what were you thinking
FF I was seeking wisdom I was seeking how to have successful relationships because I would say getting married at 18 and 19 out of trouble homes you really don’t have the skills even with all of the biblical training there’s still an element of not knowing how to respect somebody else
KA OK so you were seeking wisdom
FF And he did give me wisdom he taught me so much and I would apply what I could learn so that I could have success I wanted to be successful for my kids I wanted to create stability for my kids and I love the Lord and I love my husband and I wanted to create what I could I wanted a different life than what I had experienced
WHAT ARE HEALTHY FOOD ITEMS
KELLY
Frani’s oldest son, Isaac, who had traveled to Mexico with them 10 times before the age of two, remembers how his mother cared for their family by providing healthy meals. She did the best she could on their shoestring budget.
IF I think anybody who knows my mom unable to use the sees podcast, who knows really, really well knows that she always wants to take care of people the best way she can. Like if there's something that she can do for them, even if they're not asking, she's going to do that for them. And, and I experienced this at a really early age, like probably around the age of four or five, where one time she had made me a quesadilla It wasn't any ordinary case. It was a quesadilla that most of them are flat. This one had a huge lump in it. And we're trying to figure out what it was at the time. prefaces for all the listeners. My mom is a health food freak and she has been for years. Her breakfast is an avocado and almond butter and chocolate milk all the same time. And so we cut it in the case of dia, and as soon as we get about halfway through Kelly, I'm not even messing around now. We get halfway through and it folds in on itself and we pick it up of time pouring out, but it's flaxseed, flaxseed, and flaxseed and flaxseed. Keep in mind, we didn't know that was on the menu.
HOW FLAX SEED SHOULD BE EATEN
KELLY
Frani loved her family with everything she had. Sometimes all she had was flaxseed.
She poured everything into her family and her husband’s ministry, but during these years, she struggled to stay anchored in truth. She kept hearing whispers that she wasn’t enough for her family, that she wasn’t good enough to be a pastor’s wife. These lies only grew stronger when Frani’s husband encountered Francis Chan, a well-known pastor of a church in Simi Valley, California. The two hit it off, and Frani was thrust into the spotlight.
Francis Chan, Cornerstone, and the Spotlight of Ministry
For the next few years, Francis Chan and Frani’s husband worked side by side.
FF Well he spoke at a camp and Francis Chan was there and he became very good friends with him and they we in it going to Cornerstone Simi and working in that capacity where he became and executive pastor and a speaking pastor and ministry grew even from there and still I am not I’m not thinking about myself at all I’m thinking about him in ministry and my kids and I’m still not recognizing my own needs and I’m denying them and denying them
FRANI
FF it’s very easy to lose your way even in Christian circles but it doesn’t make it not real
KELLY
As Frani stepped into the complicated beauty of public Christian life, God began a new chapter in his story with her. Because her husband’s new boss was a well-known author and speaker, and Frani was still healing from abuse and loss, she had to trust the real God in order to overcome her insecurities.
WHAT CAUSES A PERSON TO BE CONTROLLING
FF in in that denial you become kind of controlling because something has to matter so even in that denial your you find something you can control so for me I was very controlling about my food and exercise and cleaning and things that I could control and perform well in which is a common struggle for women but it doesn’t lead to freedom and I Could hear the Lord calling me a lot and while we were still in that ministry I remember spending time with the Lord reading the new living translation for the first time loving it and the Lord just enveloped me and I could feel his presence all around me on a deeper level almost like another dimension and I thought Lord why would you bless me so much with your presence why would you do that for me
FF I do want to say being home with little kids alone with not we didn’t have family around us or our finances so it was pretty lonely it was great training ground interest in spending time alone with God and I don’t regret those years being with my kids being in the word I don’t regret it because it created a deeper level of truth in me that is worth everything
WHAT IS BETTER TRUTH OR LIE
KELLY
God showed Frani that he was real, and his truth was more powerful than the lies she was living under. She bravely trusted him as he led her family away from their home state of California.
Shortly after that my husband and I moved to Texas and started a church here
KA Right exactly so you moved to Texas which is hot sorry
FF I got to meet you here We moved to Texas it was very hot but there there’s great thanks here fire flies really green oaks there’s a lot of beauty in Texas the California doesn’t have but California has some pretty too and we started a little church and that again another miracle story 30 families came with us to start that church in that little group of people raise $100,000 to start that church and you know we were taking a big risk not knowing if we would have a salary nothing and God never missed a beat for us we lived on 36,000 for the whole time we were raising our kids which is challenging but we were used to that challenge and we were good at that challenge and God gave us a wonderful home it was a great place to raise our kids and the little church grew and grew and grew and grew and became a really wonderful church and giving church at church that supported missionaries and had great goals of giving away 50% and it was an unselfish church and it met a lot of people‘s needs and I don’t regret that at all
KA So you started at church and you went to work
FF When we got here I was a nurse and that was a provision I feel from the Lord
KELLY
Frani’s son, Isaac, came to appreciate her flaxseed quesadillas as he grew older. He saw his mother’s determination to provide for her family, even in a strange new state. This revealed itself yet again when she was getting her nursing license.
How do I get a nursing license in Texas?
IF when she was getting her nursing license, right? We were at Eastfield. College and for the listeners Eastfield is like it's an it's an Tucholsky, right, which looks like the end of the world. It looks like n times. And essentially, the college does the skeet sparring if you have there, it's nice. But when we were there, when we were there in the school, the school is in the middle of a lockdown where somebody had brought a firearm on the campus. And we all have a fear of where we're going. And I was using my iPod at the time, I had to hear the alarm going off. So I was walking around and found me and got me to work for class for about a class at the same time. It was really good. But the nice thing about that is, there's three of us going to college at the same time, none of us went back and Frani continued to go back. And also got our nursing license from the same school where there was a lockdown just 24 hours, where some people I don't think would have done that. It wasn't that she made similar decisions. She really just didn't get it that much attention when they got her job done
FF always every good thing is from the Lord I do believe that but I worked at a local hospital here the whole time the whole time we were here so I worked at the hospital for 14 years God allowed me to meet a lot of people and to grow up a lot in my own world in my own capacity and I see every single thing God doesn’t my life as a steppingstone to learning something more about myself and about him
KA Yes yes I know that you in your work life you impacted a lot of people and were able to even baptize some women
FF Well it was it was so great because again the Lord is so amazing and I’ve had some great experiences at work even talking with doctors about their faith and patience coming out of anesthesia and talking during as were talking about the Lord but some of the women that I’ve met there I’ve been able to direct toward Christ and then I ended at the end of coming to our church and I was able to baptize two women from the hospital one had cancer and she became a sweet friend of mine and God use that relationship for provision for this time in my life and he does that every time every time I have if I need something one of my life versus is the Lord is my shepherd I have all that I need it and everyone that knows that is the first that I I don’t just say I can’t that is true so if I’m going to need some thing he’s going to bring it and I can’t see it on for but he does that and if I don’t have it I don’t need it and that is really what I believe in my heart if I could say how strongly I believe that it’s my core that is my core belief
KA Yes absolutely so church that has been a huge part of your life in the past however many years
FF I would say nursing church teaching discipleship those are the things that I’ve done with my life
KA Yeah yeah and you impacted many many people with your life
FF Thank you they’ve impacted me too
KELLY
With her husband starting a church in a new state, and her heart still struggling with insecurity and doubt, Frani wondered if she was enough for her family and her church. This battle against lies got even more challenging in the next chapter of her life, when she experienced a loss she would never have imagined. Join us next time for episode 3 of Frani Fox’s story.
(Music: Qavah theme music)
