It’s about living a better story.
That’s the motto that author Kristi Fowler lives by. After years spent as a counselor listening to people share their stories – good, bad and downright unimaginable – she knows that what a person chooses to believe about their past story frames exactly how a person chooses to live out the rest of their story.
Those beliefs can make you bitter.
Or, they can make you better.
She knows because she’s lived it herself. There was the tragic fire in 8th grade at a family barbeque that left her older sister severely burned to the point of near death. Kristi, standing right next to her sister, escaped with just a few scars. “Why wasn’t I the one hurt?” was the guilt-ridden message of her junior high mindset. There was the car accident in college (through no fault of her own) that left Kristi, the record-setting volleyball player, lying in a hospital bed with a broken neck, wondering if she would ever walk again. There is the pain she lives with everyday, now twenty years later, as if to remind her that tragedy can define her life negatively if she so chooses.
Kristi Fowler
“I experience it all the time with people,” Fowler said. “Too often, the difficult times in our life convince us that we deserve trouble, that we deserve pain, that we deserve heartache. Because we believe those messages, we actually create more of it in our lives.”
It’s the reason Kristi has spent so much of her adult life caring for those who are seeking to “find a way through” the tough times that have come their way. Born and raised in Lynden, Washington, Kristi moved to Southern Idaho eight years ago with her husband, Sam, and two children to pursue her career as a Marriage and Family Therapist. A graduate of Northwest Nazarene University and owner of two Master’s degrees, Kristi wanted to put the knowledge she learned –through education and by experience– to work helping others in a personal and practical way.
“I have loved living in Southern Idaho. This is home. I have met so many wonderful people who have some amazing stories,” Kristi says. Those stories and her own experience motivated her to recently write a book, “How Could This Happen?” Finding Your Way When Tragedy Strikes. The book, a practical account for people experiencing tough times, is the culmination of a goal to give people an inspiring message of hope. “I want people to know that, even though something difficult has taken place in their lives, that there is hope. There is a way through and ultimately – even if they can’t imagine this – their life can be better – even great as a result.”
Kristi is taking that message beyond Southern Idaho with her book and resulting speaking opportunities that are opening up for her from those who want to hear a message of transformation. Just recently, she spoke to several burn survivors at the annual World Burn Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. “It breaks your heart to see and hear what people have been through,” she said. “But time and time again, people who choose to believe that their story really does matter find a way to be even better than who they were before tragedy struck.”
Because it’s about living a better story, for Kristi, it always has been…
To read more about Kristi and her book “How Could This Happen?” go to www.find-my-way.com
