What does it look like when God takes one of the most painful chapters of your life and gives you the courage to use it for someone else?

My dear friend Kayleigh Kozak is one of the strongest women I know. She is a wife, a mother of five, a survivor, an advocate, and a member of our incredible team at the America First Policy Institute. But what I admire most about Kaylee isn’t simply what she has accomplished. It’s the courage, grace, and faith with which she has chosen to keep showing up—even when showing up means revisiting the most painful parts of her own story.

Kayleigh was just a child when she was sexually abused by a teacher and coach she should have been able to trust. Her abuser was eventually convicted, and Kaylee and her family believed the “lifetime” probation attached to his sentence meant exactly that: lifetime.

Thirteen years later, Kayleigh learned that it didn’t.

She received word that her abuser was seeking to have his probation terminated—and with it, the protections that had prevented him from contacting her. Suddenly, Kayleigh was back in a courtroom, facing the man who had abused her and discovering gaps in the justice system she never knew existed.

But Kayleigh did something extraordinary with that knowledge. She asked a simple question: If this can happen to me, how many other survivors are facing the same thing?

That question became a mission. And that mission became Kayleigh’s Law.

In this episode of Truth Be Told, Kayleigh and I talk about the fight to create lasting protections for survivors, the journey that took her from an Arizona courtroom to testifying before Congress, and what she has learned about a justice system that can force survivors to keep returning to court long after a conviction. We also talk about the myths surrounding “lifetime” sentences, why laws differ so dramatically from state to state, and why Kayleigh believes survivors deserve protection that does not come with an expiration date.

But this conversation is about so much more than a law.

Kayleigh opens her heart about the parts of this journey people don’t always see—the trauma that doesn’t simply disappear, the exhaustion of continuing to fight, the husband and five beautiful children who walk through it with her, and the faith that carries her on the days when she wonders how she can possibly keep going. She talks about asking God “why?” and trusting that He can still use her story to protect someone else.

That is what stays with me most about Kayleigh. She never asked for this story. But she has chosen, again and again, to use her voice so another survivor might be safer, stronger, and better protected because she did.

Sometimes purpose is found in the places we never would have chosen for ourselves. Sometimes courage is simply deciding that what happened to you will not be the end of the story.

And sometimes God takes our deepest pain and uses it to become protection for someone we may never even meet.

Thank you for watching!
OXO,
Stacey