Everyone has a past, things they're not proud of. We all have commas after our name. Sally, the slut. Bobby, the thief. Kathryn, the woman with the TBI. Katie, the girl with psychosis. Kat, the angel from hell or Sally, the sex offender. Wan, the murderer. Eric, the rapist. Whatever it is that comes after your name, it's just a prison. A lie telling you that you're not enough. Blocking your miracle. Limiting God's power.
Kathryn grew up strong, a two-time varsity athlete in eleventh grade at Hayfield Secondary. A gymnast, power tumbler, and musician outside of high school. A lover of the world around her. At sixteen, she met the devil and ended up paralyzed for over a month with psychosis and a TBI among other disabilities. In therapies, she learned how to use a walker and one day walked without it on sand. Holding on to lockers her senior year of high school, she was walking by graduation and got a standing ovation.
Three months later, Kathryn ventured out into the collegiate scene at CNU. She was highly involved in campus life, a class representative, a proud member of the poetry club, a chair on the Student Government Association, joint architect of the university's first official library. She's found a playful way to rock the boat in all areas of her life, in some ways out of her control. With a communication studies bachelor's degree, she became an unpaid intern at Operation Smile's headquarters, and her passion with helping people with disabilities ignited. Found the love of her life over and over until she finally settled down with her husband Kevin Crawford and her shih tzu Chubs. She finally landed her first full-time job at New Editions Consulting Inc. in Falls Church, where she is an alumni of six years. Mental illness of psychosis out of her control reduced her to part-time.
Loved by family, friends, and greeted by a smile anywhere she goes, she never owns an excuse to be lonely. Her life is structured and full (she likes it that way) after coming back from hell in March of 2004. Hard work, dedication, and faith is the only way she knows how to win, and doing it every day has helped her to see every moment that was meant to be. Her understanding is that the universe, God, and anything anyone chooses to believe in, they allow people to go through things to prove their glory and who they are in them. This book is her testimony. It's how she found her identity and how she learned to live in a world so foreign.
