A memoir of God's care

"Today I am living on borrowed time," writes Frank Fox. "If an average person's life span is seventy years, then I have borrowed over a decade and continue to borrow. I have been given this time to contemplate the highs and lows of my life. ... Throughout my life I have been surrounded by God's bubble of protection. The Holy Spirit has always been with me ... even though I have felt unsure or depressed, He has been with me."

Fox' life is played out in a series of vignettes (many of which reflect his sense of humor as well as his Christian faith) in "My Life Inside The Bubble" ($16.99 in paperback from Xulon Press; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats). Written with the assistance of Bonnie Tyler, the book contains family photos, a sampling of the author's poetry, and a series of letters written to Fox from various family members. And there are family members aplenty: a "loving wife, four children, twenty nine grand-children, twenty-two great-grandchildren. ..."

A child of the Great Depression, Frank was born Lester Lloyd Potter in 1928. By 1932 the family was living in Oklahoma, the children malnourished. A sister dies, and then his mother. His father is unable to care for the family, and the children are placed in an orphanage. Four-year-old Frank is adopted by Clarence and Olive Fox, farmers from Beaver County, Oklahoma, who give him his new name. ("It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy being 'frank,' which has gotten me into a lot of trouble as well as all the girls thinking I'm a 'fox.'")

Much later came a stint in the Navy and then, in 1949, Frank married Juanita, whom he had met when she was a first grader and he was nine. The union has lasted. "I am proud to say we have only had one family fight. Of course it has lasted for sixty-three years." Frank and Juanita and their growing family moved to California, eventually settling in Orland where Frank went into the antiques business.

"I've had many trials and troubles," he writes. "I have tried to do thing my way many times. Each time, God gently caught me as I fell." At Easter, it's an especially fitting acknowledgment.