Francena H. Arnold

Francena H. Arnold was an American novelist and schoolteacher whose Christian fiction centers family responsibility, faith, and difficult moral choices. Raised in rural Illinois, she lived in the Chicago area with her husband, Frank, and their four children. Not My Will began as a story intended for her family before Moody Press first issued it in 1946. Eleanor Stewart faces competing futures as love, inheritance, and religious commitment pull her in different directions. Its continuing readership made it Arnold's best-known work, with Moody reporting more than half a million copies sold. Later editions used the subtitle How Much Will Surrender Cost? and kept the book in print alongside her other novels, including Then Am I Strong, Three Shall Be One, Brother Beloved, and Light in My Window. Arnold ultimately wrote ten novels. Her storytelling joins domestic situations with explicitly Christian questions, using relationships and consequences to examine what surrender, loyalty, and conviction demand in ordinary life.