Author • Memoirist • Woman of Faith
LaShawnda writes from lived experience, bringing honesty, faith, and hard-won perspective to stories of brokenness, recovery, and restoration. Her writing does not look away from difficult realities—mental illness, addiction, loss, accountability, and the complicated work of rebuilding a life.
Her book, Had I Known, is deeply personal, but its purpose reaches beyond telling her story. It is testimony—an account of where she has been, what she has survived, and the grace of God she believes carried her through it.
LaShawnda writes about faith without separating it from treatment, personal responsibility, perseverance, and the choices required for lasting change. At the center of her work is redemption—not as an easy ending, but as something lived out through grace, growth, and the decision to keep moving forward.
Had I Known
“Sometimes grace doesn’t keep us from breaking. Sometimes it meets us there—and leads us home.”
In Had I Known, LaShawnda Manson shares a deeply personal testimony of mental illness, addiction, homelessness, loss, and the difficult road toward recovery and restoration.
With honesty about both setbacks and choices, LaShawnda explores the role of treatment, accountability, perseverance, and faith in rebuilding a life after everything has fallen apart. Her story does not present healing as instant or easy, but as a continuing journey shaped by difficult decisions, grace, and the willingness to keep moving forward.
Had I Known is ultimately a testimony of redemption and the belief that even in life’s deepest brokenness, God can meet us there and lead us toward restoration.