Meet Jennifer

I'm so glad you're here!

So, I realize that the purpose of an "About Page," is to share a Professional Bio of sorts, listing my formal education and credentials to ensure someone who may want to work with me that I am qualified to walk alongside them in some of the most important areas of their lives.

| believe that has a place and is important, however "Professional Bios," make me a little uncomfortable. They essentially make me sound far more sophisticated than | really am; and given a choice, I'd rather be relatable and share the lessons I've learned through the "School of Hard Knocks" and then share the finer details like qualifications after | introduce you to who | REALLY am!

And since this is my little space on the worldwide web, I'm choosing to break the rules and share all that makes me an unlikely candidate to be used by God for anything meaningful before | read you my resume. | mean who likes to meet someone for the first time and have their professional resume recited? Not me!

So, if you would like to just skip to that part, you can do so by simply clicking the little pink box below this box that says, "Professional Bio." Otherwise, | would love for you to stick around on this page for a few more moments and get to know me a little more personally.

PROFESSIONAL BIO

When I was asked as a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, I faithfully responded that I wanted to be "a bride and a mom." And that is exactly who I am at the core; a wife and a mom, and now also a grammie. Every aspect of my life revolves around my family and my faith.

Yes, I'm an entrepreneur and business women, but even those "titles" evolved from the center of my world revolving around my family and my faith. And although I absolutely LOVE what I do professionally, what I love most, is that my career allows me the flexibility I need to be the kind of wife, mother, and grammie I truly desire to be.

Although people assume I'm an extrovert, and I do love people, I recharge in solitude. I'm a homebody. I always have been. As a child, my family referred to me as a "houseplant" because while my brothers played outside with the neighborhood kids and our cousins, I could always be found inside, not far from my mother or grandmother, usually in the kitchen watching them cook, or hang wallpaper, and eavesdropping on their conversations.

That is still very much who I am today. I love being in the sanctity of my home, when I'm not working (which is also in my home office), doing domestic goddess things like cooking, decorating and making our family home a place where love, laughter and life abound.

I find great purpose and joy in homemaking, dating my husband, and spending time with our four children and three grandchildren. I'll tell you a little more about all of them down below. They are so significant to me that they get an entire section of their own on here.

Ironically, home is also where I’ve been broken open and put back together over my near 50 years on earth. Marriage, parenting, life struggles, tragedy, loss, grief, lots of growing, stretching and change. My pillow has seen its fair share of tears.

But I’ve also seen God move in astounding ways… not always in the ways I thought or desired that He would, but He's always been faithful, has always been good, has never abandon me, and has always worked all things for my own good and His own glory. I guess that’s why we are called to follow Him with faith and trust Him in all things. And that is exactly what you will find me doing in my everyday, day to day life — following Him the best I can and trying to live out His Design for my life.

I come from very humble beginnings. I was born in Upstate New York and was raised in a very small, rural town there where I lived until I was 23 years old. When most people think of New York, they envision New York City. However, Upstate New York is an entirely different world. My grandparents were dairy farmers and I very much grew up spending plenty of days on the farm. My parents were high school sweethearts and married shortly after graduation. My father enlisted in the Air Force and we were very much a military family during my infant and early childhood years. I am the only daughter and first born and I have three younger brothers. One of those brothers is in Heaven. We'll get to him in a moment.

My parents officially separated and divorced when I was in my teen years, after near 20 years of marriage. Although I do have very fond memories of my childhood, I also have memories of quite a bit of turmoil and dysfunction. My parents did the best they could with what they knew and had capacity for at the time and although they had a tumultuous marriage, they loved my brothers and I very much. Years ago, I would have told my story very differently. I would have shared all of the ways that my childhood made me a victim of circumstance. But that really accomplished nothing more than keeping me stuck in a prison of victim mentality and hurt my parents by sharing their story that was not mine to share. So, I no longer do that. I only share what little I do because I believe it is important for whoever may be reading along to understand that it really doesn't matter where or what you come from. You don't have to be defined by all of the ways life handed you a raw deal. The past doesn't have to determine your future.

I graduated and left home for college just a few months prior to my 18th birthday. A year or so into college, I became an unwed, 19 year old, single mother to my son, who is now 29 years old, as the result of a failed high school/college relationship that was abusive and toxic. So, I did what I had to do. I withdrew from my classes, moved back to my home town, worked 2-3 jobs at a time to make ends meet, and raised my son on my own for the first year of his life.

I met my husband, Harry, shortly after my son's first birthday. I worked with his mom at the local hospital where I worked as the front desk switchboard operator. I had found happiness at last. However, 8 months into our relationship, my 19 year old brother was struck and killed by an Amtrak train. I don't suppose anyone ever plans on becoming "that" family plastered all over the local news. Yet, there we were. It's quite an incredible story - tragic, yet redemptive. So much so, that I wrote a book about it, called "The Track: A Journey From Tragedy To Triumph."You can get it here on this site or at anyplace books are sold.

As life unraveled, so did my relationship with my now husband. To complicate matters further, in the chaos of trying to just survive tragedy, I learned was pregnant with our first daughter who is now 27 years old. It wasn't that I didn't want another child. I very much did and in fact had dreamed about all of the ways I would dress my little girl in pink and ruffles and bows, under the right circumstances. However, the shame of becoming the 23 year old girl who had 2 children, by 2 different men and still no husband was a hard one to announce to my very religious grandparents. It was certainly not quite the love story I had imagined for myself since I was a little girl, when I daydreamed of the day that I would get to be a princess for a day and be escorted down a rose petal adorned isle to my prince charming awaiting to sweep me off of my feet, put me up on a white horse and we would ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after in a beautiful home, complete with a white picket fence. Yet, it's where I found myself.

Harry and I did the "right thing," eventually. We got married about a year later and I did have my dream wedding after all. We were passionately in love with one another. After Harry graduated from college, he accepted a career opportunity that would relocate us to Richmond, VA, where we bought our first home, and I stayed home full time with our children by day and attended evening classes one course at a time to finish my degree. | think it took me nearly 10 years to do SO, but I was determined to complete what I had not been able to finish years before. Upon graduating from college, | accepted an internship which led to a position as a Trial Paralegal, in the Civil Litigation Division of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia.

Things were finally starting to come together; until they fell apart. My husband was downsized from his company, and after a season of joblessness, he accepted a position with another company, that would require a relocation to Atlanta, GA. To complicate matters further, my son's father filed for custody of him and after a long grueling court battle, the judge made a ruling that | could not relocate my son out of state and | lost custody of my 9 year old little boy, who was 1/3 of my whole entire world. An 8 year court battle ensued as nearly $100,000 in legal fees mounted to regain custody. It was a season of our lives that nearly cost us everything, as a family, financially, and maritally.

The toll it all had on our marriage led to a separation shortly after celebrating our 7 year wedding anniversary. During that brief time of separation for about 3 months, and upon hitting a rock bottom of sorts, we both gave our lives fully to the Lord, got involved in a sound Bible teaching church with a strong emphasis on marriage and family ministry, and started attending a small group. Within that small group, we found community, family and saints who were willing to invest in our lives and mentor us. They taught us, and modeled for us by example, what it looked like to live according to GOD'S DESIGN for our lives. During that time, | also started going to professional, individual therapy and began a healing journey from all of the past trauma | had experienced. My husband and | started attending Christian Marriage Counseling together with both a professional Marriage Counselor, as well as a Pastoral Counselor to heal from the things we had gone through as a couple and if there was a Marriage or Parenting Conference in our area (and even out of our immediate area), we were there! Between putting God at the center of our lives and allowing Him to lead us and learning to live according to His design, along with mentoring, counseling, and conferences, we started living differently, doing marriage and parenting differently and our lives were absolutely transformed as a result.

And that is why we are who we are and why we do what we do to this day; because it absolutely matters and works. It's the ONLY solution that ever worked for us. Hence, our passion behind all that we do - to offer practical, sound Biblical teaching, mentoring, counseling, coaching, classes, workshops, conferences - all the things that made a difference in our story - and can make a difference in YOUR STORY too! If you would like to read about how we ended up here, you can keep scrolling down below and read OUR JOURNEY.

So how did | end up here? It was all very unexpected! Had you told me many years ago that God would use me or my testimony for anything that would make a difference in anyone's life, | would have very literally laughed out loud. | am living proof that God absolutely CAN and WILL use ANYONE! Life Coaching, Pastoral Counseling, and Marriage & Family Ministry was NOTHING | ever planned for or could have imagined. It has been a 20+ year long journey of evolving, saying yes to unexpected opportunities, doing the next thing, and desiring to make a difference in the world. And more than that, | am passionate about doing for others what has been done for me.

So, here's the gist of how | ended up here. After baby number 3 (of 4), | left my Paralegal career to become a full-time, stay-at-home mom, again.had also started homeschooling sometime shortly thereafter. | LOVED writing and needed a social outlet after long days at home with a quiver full of young children. So | started a Blog. That's what other stay-at-home moms were doing. So | joined the trend.

I started writing mostly about funny mommy moments, how | was managing my time, schedule and stress, what | was making for dinner, along with the recipes, and occasionally | shared about more serious topics that God was teaching me. | started with 3 faithful subscribers; my mom, my cousin, and my best friend. Eventually those 3 faithful readers became a few more, and a few more, until eventually | had a pretty decent sized group of women following along on my journey.

Around that same time, | started attending a Mommy and Me Group through our local church. It was there that | met some women who invited me to their Wednesday morning Women's Bible Study. They eventually invited me to join the Women's Ministry Leadership Team, where | assisted in the planning of Women's Conferences and other events.

Hence came the Spring Women's Conference. As we planned and prepared, there was a need for women to teach the various workshops being offered throughout the weekend long conference. | was asked and reluctantly said yes; not because | felt confident in my ability to teach or speak, but more so because | was terrible at saying, "no" to things. | cried and carried on with panic and anxiety to my husband as the conference date approached. | would have rather scrubbed all of the toilets in the church in preparation for the conference than public speaking.

| can recall even now the hot pink and blotchy hives that covered my neck and chest due to anxiety. But | somehow managed to get through my outline that took me weeks to prepare entitled, "Dancing In The Rain & Splashing In Mud Puddles." When | finished, | headed to the back of the room where my husband stood as my biggest fan to report to him how awful | did. What happened next was nothing | could have expected. |turned around to find a line of women, waiting to speak to me and thank me for sharing my story. | heard countless reports of changed perspectives and changed lives as a result of hearing my testimony. What? On? Earth?! Tears of shame became tears of humility and gratitude for the opportunity!

That's literally how it began for me! | am not kidding! | just kept not being able to say no to every opportunity that came my way, and before | knew it, | was not only speaking and teaching at other Women's, Youth, Marriage, and Parenting Workshops, Conferences, Retreats, Camps, etc., but |actually started to enjoy doing so. | still get hives to this day, but somehow, by the grace of God, | get by, and find great purpose and joy in how this has all turned out for me.

As if that were not all an unlikely enough path to stumble upon, it only gets better. Several years later, God used some things that we were going through as a family to lead us to an Outreach Ministry in the city we lived in. While there, our eyes were opened to an entirely new world we had not experienced before and because of what we were personally going through at the time, we could relate in a new way. We jumped in and started serving within many of the various ministries available, including an Inner City Children's Bus Program, as well as the Homeless Ministry and serving as mentors and tutors for at risk youth.

Around the same time, a couple of hours away, my younger brother had recently started a homeless outreach ministry. As we shared stories, we realized that we both had a growing desire to reach the poor, weary, and broken. We arranged a meeting with the Pastors at the Outreach Ministry we were attending, shared our passion and vision and made a decision to partner with them to plant a similar ministry. There was one stipulation - one of us had to attend their School Of Ministry to be trained and equipped. Since | was the stay-at-home mom and my brother and husband were both the breadwinners, | was the best candidate to make the commitment.

So we did what any other crazy family in the thick of married life with 4 children, a home, a dog and a cat would do. We put everything we owned in storage for a year, and moved our family into 3 dorm rooms on the ministry school campus located in the heart of the city. | spent that year of my life in Seminary classes all day, interning in the ministry afternoons, evenings and weekends, and most nights of the week writing New Testament Survey Commentaries along with other boatloads of homework on the regular until 4 am, while also managing being a wife and mother of 4. It was hard; like SO hard! But one thing | was accustomed to was doing hard things. Which leads me to believe that everything God had allowed in my life up to that point was to prepare me for the unexpected journey He knew in advance He was going to call me to.

Somehow, our family survived that year of our lives, and upon completion, we left 18 years of our lives living in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, to relocate back to our hometown in rural Upstate New York to partner with my brother and his wife in a ministry they had planted a year prior. | served as the Women's Ministry Leader and my husband led a Small Group in our home as well as a Men's Group. Within the context of my role in Women's Ministry in a church plant that served an area with great needs, | found myself doing a fair amount of "counseling" and mentoring women in all walks of life and felt unequipped to do so.

So | enrolled in an Online Ministry School and began taking classes to earn a Certification in Pastoral Counseling. | had become a Certified Life Coach a couple of years prior after Bible College, however, | was limited within the scope of what | could do as a Life Coach with women who needed more. | started counseling, coaching and mentoring women within the context of my role as the Women's Ministry Leader, and things evolved from there. A fair amount of women were struggling within the contexts of their marriages. So, | began meeting with couples and families.

A couple of years later, my husband's company expanded their Upstate NY office to New York City and he was assigned to run that office. For the next 2 years, we spent half of our time in NYC in a corporate apartment there and half of our time in our home in a rural Upstate NY.

While we were in NYC, we started attending Hillsong Church's New York City campus. We eventually got involved and started serving within the Marriage Ministry. Once the Marriage Ministry Leaders learned of our prior ministry background, they invited us to join the Marriage Ministry Leadership Team. We started by serving food and welcoming couples at the registration table at conferences and eventually joined in alongside the leaders in teaching some of the sessions.

Fast forward to 2018. My husband accepted a job opportunity in Los Angeles, CA. There happened to be a Hillsong Church campus located in Los Angeles. So we started attending there. As we began meeting the Pastors and leadership there and upon learning of our ministry background, specifically that we had served on the Marriage Ministry Leadership team at their NYC Campus, and upon their recent circumstances that the couple who had been leading Marriage Ministry had requested a season of taking a break, we were asked to serve as the Marriage Ministry Leaders of the Hillsong LA Campus. Out of that role, we started counseling couples regularly and further opportunities arose to guest speak at various Marriage Events at other churches.

During the Covid 19 Pandemic in 2020, while the church transitioned to solely online services, we became aware of growing needs within marriages and families. After much prayer, and some other transitions and revelations that 2020 brought, we made a decision to launch our own Ministry focused on serving Marriages and Families.

Shortly thereafter, we learned of a large, well-known and reputable organization that partnered with, supported, trained up and equipped those with a similar mission. We reached out and corresponded with a representative about our vision for Marriage and Family Ministry. She connected us to a Board Member who was the Superintendent of the District in which we resided. We interviewed, the Board loved our vision and expressed a desire to partner with us. And the rest is history. My husband is currently enrolled in their Ministry School and we are walking through the process of becoming licensed and ordained through their network of churches.

Although we still don't know exactly what it all looks like, we are in full faith that just as God has orchestrated and ordained every unexpected twist and turn of our journey to this point, He will continue doing so until He completes the good work He has begun in and through these unlikely and willing vessels.

It is our prayer that some of you reading this right now will be led to be a part of what God is up to!

I've been married to my best friend, Harry, who is also a saint, for over 26 years. We've been together for over 28 years. We have a great marriage and have built an incredible life together.

It hasn't always been this way. As you may have read above in the "My Story" section, we had an extremely unhealthy marriage at one time, even separating for a brief time. God used that separation to bring us to true salvation which led us to faith based counseling, as well as to a church and small group where amazing couples came alongside us and mentored us into everything we are today. That's how we know it works. We learned first hand. And we are passionate about paying it forward and doing for other couples and families what was done for us.

​ Harry and I are both originally from Upstate New York, where we met in 1993 at the local hospital where I worked at the front desk at the time. When Harry graduated from college the 2nd time around in 1996, he took a job in Richmond, VA and that is primarily where we raised our family on and off for about 18 years.

Harry has provided a wonderful life for our family over the years through his career within the Commercial Construction and Development industry. That same career has involved quite a bit of relocating and traveling over the years. Much like a military family, every few years when one project was completed, moving to the next big project was sometimes necessary. It hasn't always been easy, but we have never regretted exposing our children to all different types of cultures. They have seen and experienced more than most children as a result, have friendships all over the world, and for that we are grateful and blessed. ​

Harry is currently a Senior Project Manager for a Construction Management Company that primarily works with the Los Angeles school district, Los Angeles airport, as well as the Los Angeles subway and public transit system. He also serves at our ministry we launched together as a family, By Design Ministries, as the Vice President, CFO, Marriage and Family Pastor and Men's Pastor. Together, he assists me with a fair amount of Pastoral Marriage Counseling, as well as speaks at Marriage and Parenting Conferences alongside me and mentors and disciples men on a regular basis.

We currently call Los Angeles, CA home. We love traveling together, road trips, hiking, picnics, and beach days. We still enjoy dating one another and have made doing so a priority over the years. My favorite date night is at the movie theater with a big bucket of buttery popcorn and diet coke. But I am equally fond of dinner dates and coffee dates. Recently, we enjoy a bottle of wine and a charcuterie board on a blanket by the ocean or park.

This pretty much sums up my entire world in a picture!

This picture was taken at our oldest daughter's wedding in June 2021. She is the beautiful bride pictured in the middle. Her name is Brittany and she is 27 years old. She is a stay at home mom to our amazing grandchildren and works at By Design Ministries as the Executive Assistant. She is also working on her Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education online. She is married to Jerry, the groom standing next to her. Jerry is also 27 years old. He is a Foreman for a Telecommunications Contractor, and is an amazing provider, husband and father. They live in Upstate New York, however are transferring with Jerry's company to Raleigh, NC in the Summer of 2022.

They have two beautiful children, my grand-joys, Luke Gregory, age 6 and Ella Rose, age 2 and a third on the way, scheduled to debut in April 2022. You can read more about them down below. Yes, they get a section of their own! ​

Our son Zachary, (pictured to the right and behind the bride), is 29 years old. Zachary is a gifted artist, loves tattoos, has a large spider and reptile collection, and works for a large residential Painting Contractor. He has a girlfriend, Nikki, whom we adore. They have the absolute cutest dog, named Bandit and a cat named Mia. They live in Richmond, VA. ​

​ Our middle daughter Belle, (pictured to the left of the bride), is 19 years old. She is all things creative and has been that way since she exited the womb. We always knew she would be a performer. She has been since she was just a toddler. She has been a student at a Conservatory for Dramatic Arts for many years and has professionally trained and worked as an actor, model, and dancer since she was a small child. She also is enrolled in college majoring in Marketing and Communications and works part time for a clothing designer. She lives at home with us in Los Angeles, CA.

​ Our youngest daughter, Lola Grace, (pictured all the way on the left) is 16 years old. Lola was on a similar path to her big sister in the performing arts and did some professional acting, modeling and dancing when she was younger. However, after a pretty serious medical journey, she has taken an interest in the medical field and aspires to be a Pediatric Oncology or Pediatric Cardiology Nurse and dreams of working as a Missionary Nurse in third world countries. She is home-schooled but also attends a Learning Center through her Homeschooling Charter school. She is in 10th grade this year and also lives at home with us in Los Angeles, CA.

Meet my Grand-Joys. One of my clients who has become a dear friend calls her grandchildren, "Grand-Joys" and I love it so much, I told her I was stealing the concept. So I did. And here we are.

Meet Luke, our very first grandchild. He is 6 years old and in first grade and absolutely stole our hearts from the moment he took his first breath. I was there for it. As a Doula, I had the honor of being present in the delivery room for the births of all of our grandchildren. Luke is very much a Grampie's boy, but has a special bond with Grammie as well. He is all boy, has endless energy, turns any piece of furniture into an obstacle course or fort, loves watching YouTube, playing Nerf guns and action figures with friends and is quite an athlete. He wants to be a police officer or a "famous You Tuber" when he grows up and wants to drive a green Lamborghini.

And then there is our precious Ella Rose. She is 2 years old and she is literally joy and sunshine to all my cloudy days. It is difficult to have a phone conversation with my daughter when Ella is in the room. She loves to talk to Grammie on the phone and loves Face Time even more. Ella is a girly girl, just like her mommy. She loves to look "pretty" and wear sparkly dresses and shoes and bows in her hair. She enjoys playing with her baby dolls and kitchen set and is obsessed with animals - real or stuffed.

Grand Joy number 3; Abby LeeAnn is my little namesake (her middle name is a combination of my middle name and my son-in-law's mom's middle name). She is brand new; born in April of 2022 and we are absolutely in love with her already.

Jennifer Fox is a Licensed and Ordained Marriage, Family, and Women's Pastor. She is the Founder, President, and CEO of By Design Ministries and By Design Christian Counseling & Life Coaching.

Jennifer is a Board Certified Biblical Counselor and a Board Certified Mental Health Coach through the American Association of Christian Counselors, (AACC) where she is also a member in good standing. She is a Master Certified Life Coach and Board Certified Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coaching Federation (ICF), where she is also a member in good standing. Additionally, Jennifer is a published Author.

Known as “Coach Jenn” or “Mama Fox” in her private practice, Jennifer specializes in Individual, Marriage, and Family Nouthetic Counseling and Life Coaching, as well as issues that effect men, women, marriages, and families, such as parenting, infidelity, addiction, etc.

As a leader of leaders, Jennifer is an ICF Board Certified Instructor at the Institute Of Health By Faith; an ICF Accredited, faith-based Leadership Institute where students are educated and trained to be leaders within their organizations or churches and can also earn a certification in Life, Health & Wellness, Business, Executive Coaching, etc. If you would like to learn more about The Institute of Health By Faith, click on the link below.

Jennifer, has an Associate's of Applied Science Degree in Legal Studies and had a successful career in the Political realm as a Trial Paralegal for the Civil Litigation Division of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia in her earlier career.

In supporting her husband's career as a Project Manager in the Commercial Construction and Development Industry, which required a fair amount of travel and relocation, along with the needs of their growing family, Jennifer and her husband made a decision that she would leave her career for a season to focus full time on motherhood.

An entrepreneur by nature, Jennifer always had her hands in something during the years that she was raising children full time; homeschooling, direct sales, Foster Care, writing, blogging, leading Bible Studies and serving within the Women's Ministry of her church. Through a series of events, which you can read more about in detail above in her "My Story" and "My Journey" sections of this page, Jennifer began to sense a calling on her life.

As a result, she enrolled in Seminary, and eventually earned a Baccalaureate in Theology and Biblical Doctrine. Shortly thereafter, Jennifer continued her education at a Life Coaching Institute, as well as a Biblical Counseling school to become Board Certified in Life Coaching and Biblical Counseling.

Since that time, she has served in multiple ministry roles as a Women's Pastor and Women's Ministry Leader. She, alongside her husband of 26 years has served in ministry together over the years as Small Group Leaders and Children's Ministry Leaders, and most recently served as the Marriage Ministry Leaders and Pastoral Care Team Leaders at Hillsong Church in both New York and Los Angeles.

Jennifer and her husband Harry are both Licensed and Ordained Pastors through the Association of Foursquare Churches. Together, Jennifer and Harry founded By Design Ministries, a registered 501c3 Non-Profit Organization, that provides support to men, women, and children through Programs, Counseling, Coaching, Resources, Classes, Workshops, Conferences, and Events, with a primary focus on strengthening and equipping Marriages and Families according to God's Design and Biblical principles. You can learn more about By Design Ministries, as well as programs, and upcoming events by clicking on the By Design Ministries tab at the top of any page on this website.

Together as a couple, Jennifer and her husband speak and teach at various churches, Marriage and Family Events and Conferences, as well as host their own classes, workshops, and conferences. Jennifer speaks and teaches at various Women's Events and Conferences as well.

To inquire about booking Jennifer and Harry at an event or conference or to find out where they are speaking next, you can follow along on the social media links at the top or bottom of any page on this site, or click on the "Book Now" tab below.

Jennifer and her husband are both originally from Upstate New York and have lived all over most of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast throughout the course of their 26 years of marriage, however they currently call Los Angeles, CA home. They have 4 children and 3 grandchildren. You can read more about their family above.