Singing Through Fire

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. A worship-centered life helps us persevere through suffering. Shifting our focus from temporal, earthly things to the permanent, eternal gifts and love that God has in store for us.

In Acts 16, we find Paul and Silas falsely accused and in prison. But verse 25 says, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Beaten and chained, they worshipped through the fire. and even their jailer wanted to be baptized after witnessing their faith. In times of distress and grief, worship helps us persevere and encourages others in surprising ways.

Never forget how God can turn your test. into a testimony. These are the beautiful words penned by my very special guest today, Laura Silverman, and it's from her book entitled Singing Through Fire. Laura, thank you for joining me today. Thank you so much.

It's such an honor to be on the show today. I have to tell you that as a homeschooling mom of four running a nonprofit, when I got your book in the mail, I was very excited to read your book. But when I got it, I was like, oh my goodness, this is a big book. And so, my initial thought: I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to have to kind of like peruse it, you know, and be able to come up with stuff for the interview. As soon as I started reading probably the first two paragraphs, I was hooked and I I read every single word.

In this book of yours, and pretty much, I mean, it's well loved now. It has markings on it, and this is such a beautifully written book, Laura, because. You so wonderfully took The immense trials that God put you through, that we're going to dive into. And you did exactly what you just wrote about. You turned your trial into a testimony and a beautiful one, and one that I know challenged me and my faith as I was reading it.

And I really think that our listeners are going to be very blessed to hear your story.

So, I want to start by saying that you went to law school at Stanford, and you were a full-on attorney. You were a lawyer getting ready to practice. And can you pick up where your story starts right there? Yeah, sure. First of all, thank you so much.

It's funny because people have been telling me that, but when they get the book, it's so thick. And then once they dive in, the prologue hooks them.

So I'm like, yes, the prologue accomplished what I wanted. Yes, the whole thing was great. Yeah. I told my mom, I said, you know, I think it's about, what, 500, almost 500 pages. And I told my mom, I said, I would have read another, another 200 pages.

It's just, you did such a great job. It's a very beautiful memoir.

So I think it will encourage many and honor the Lord through and through. I was, I had just turned age 30, eight years ago, and I had just, I had practiced law for five years at that point. And I was very type A. You know, I'd always wanted to be a lawyer. And my dream job was to be a federal criminal prosecutor.

And lo and behold, the Lord opened the door. I was hired at the United States Attorney's Office, which in the legal world is like a, I mean, I don't want to sound pompous, but it's like a big deal. It's like kind of like a nice career check. It's like, and for me, it wasn't about the gold stars. I genuinely wanted to work in criminal justice.

So On the second week of the job, though, in downtown San Francisco, you know, I was just hired one out of three new hires. I fell mysteriously ill with this rare neurological illness, and we had no idea what was going on. At first, I thought I had the flu. And then, basically, the next 10 months, the U.S. Attorney's Office graciously gave me a leave for some time, and I tried, you know.

Maybe, I don't know, that first 10 months, maybe 10 different therapies, drugs, different kinds of treatments, CAT scans, MRIs, you name it, nothing helped. And just to give your audience a summary of my illness. Basically, it stems from the connection between my ear and my brain, such that my brain cannot process where I am in space.

So, you can't tell right now because the neurological illness is silent. It's something you can't see, but the whole world is spinning around me right now. And after this podcast, I'm just going to slam back down on that bed behind me just to rest. Because, as you can imagine, it's extremely exhausting and, in many cases, debilitating. You know, it depends how much I try to push myself.

But essentially, 10 months in, after I had not healed. It was very confusing, but I had to tell the U.S. Attorney's Office: Am I going to go back or am I going to resign? And the whole thing was so confusing, Emily. It was like, I don't understand, Lord, why you opened this door.

I had even asked you not to open this door if it's not your will. And so, but I will tell you that the Holy Spirit was with me very powerfully during that resignation time. In fact, I think it was like two days before I had to hand in my resignation or not. But I think I opened my daily streams devotional app. It's like a Christian app I use.

And the words were something to the effect of, Does it appear like God opened a door only to close it? Are the circumstances in your life completely confusing and it seems like God is changing his will? You know, and then it said, keep trusting blindly when his path doesn't seem to make earthly sense and he will walk you through the most severe of testings. And I was in tears. I just knew that the Holy Spirit was, you know, guiding me, you know, to show me he's with me and this is not arbitrary and he has a plan for this.

And so I quit the next day. And from there, you know, that sort of kicked off my journey. I don't know if you want to ask any questions or I can just keep going into it. Yeah, I'm going to say one thing that I think is very interesting and really good for the listeners to know about your book. And something I really loved about your book is that you can tell throughout your book that you are really.

listening for the voice of God and you're listening through God's word. You know, it's not like God audibly spoke to me and it's through God's word, but it's this beautiful, like this, this dependence between God's word and your devotionals that you were listening to and how the Lord would kind of weave these things together. And it's so neat to see how the Lord laid different convictions on your heart or gave you different comforts or affirmations kind of woven together in all of these different apps. And one of the things I would like to ask you based on what you just told us with your journey as an attorney is that was obviously a big part of your identity. Identity at that point.

You know, our career is a huge part of our identity. And no doubt you worked tirelessly for many years to achieve that grand accomplishment, which it was. What did you learn about biblical identity? Because not only in the shift from being Laura the lawyer to No longer Laura the lawyer, but as our listeners will hear, later on, your identity shifted again when you became Laura the wife to Laura the widow. What did you learn about biblical identity in your journey?

Oh man, I mean, you're preaching to the choir. I love the way you're framing this because before we all suffer, I think we are told and instructed, as the Bible, you know, obviously teaches, that our identity is in Christ. And yet, until you kind of have something taken away that is, you know, maybe an idol, right, or maybe something too closely integral to your personal identity, you don't realize what it actually means that Christ is A, you're all in all, and B, that's where your worth. I mean, when we talk about identity, it's mostly about like self-esteem and worth issues. At least it is for me, right?

It's like, where am I putting my basket of eggs in terms of, do I have worth? Am I, you know, someone who's accomplishing something in this world? Am I worthy of, you know, maybe God's love, which is obviously bad theology, or other people's love and admiration?

So, yeah, I mean, having been stripped away from my health, my career, and eventually my husband, I have just been. Through the ringer, but like in a good way. I think there's a verse, is it Corinthians, where Paul says, I do not allow myself to be judged by any human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself. And that verse is very freeing for me because it's finally kind of releases you of this.

No, like I am just in Christ to live as Christ and to die as gain, and everything stems from the Lord's. You know, gracious, you know, grant of salvation, and obviously his love for us rather than our own self-made identities, if you will. Yeah, yeah. And part of that, too, that I think we all. Anyone that has gone through a major identity shift like that, whether it is You know, you were a mother, and now you're no longer a mother, or a wife, and you're no longer a wife, or you had this career that you loved, and you no longer have that career.

There is a mourning that goes along with that because it is, it's, In a sense, it's the dying of identity. And I think you actually touched on that toward the end of your book, which I loved, is that it's talking about how we do, we make those sacrifices in order to live in Christ, to where we are no longer what's most important. And oftentimes, and you again, you brought this up, is that We as Christians are often nervous. To even pray, God, may your will be done because we know that God does permit suffering and that God also. Requires that we allow him and make him number one in our lives.

And that requires dying to self, which is never pleasant. Um But you did such a great job of not only really authentically talking about your journey, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. You know, I mean, it really is. There were very funny moments in there. I love how your personality comes through, but also you're very just transparent about what it was.

You don't sugarcoat it. Which again, as believers, is something like we can't make that spiritual growth. And you talk about how the Lord has brought you so far in your journey. That's because you were very transparent with Him, just like Job was. You know, I mean, Job didn't go to the Lord and say, Not my will, but yours be done.

I don't really care what's happening here. You know, he went to the Lord and was like, What are you doing? I don't understand all this. And God says, Well, were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth? And there is this moment where we have to be humbled before the hand of the Lord, right?

So, going bringing Matt in, your precious Matt, which what a neat binding together, how the Lord brought him into your life. Can you touch on that about how the Lord brought him in your life and how the Lord used him in your life? Sure.

So let me give explain for the audience kind of the journey just to give a backdrop before Matt entered my life.

So basically, I quit the job, Emily. And then what followed right after that was I was, I mean, this isn't even a joke. I was strictly bedridden for three years on a bed with my mother nursing me on a bedpan without being able to move my head one inch to the left, right, up, or down.

So, in other words, I was being bathed on a bed. I couldn't go to the bathroom. I mean, and this was for three years. I was hospitalized twice. It was completely debilitating because the minute that I lifted my head off of a pillow about one inch, the world would spin harder.

And in fact, even today, it's still like that, but I'll explain what happened.

So, for three years, we're hospitalized, consulting British experts, East Coast experts, West Coast extras. My mom is begging the Lord every night. My whole church community, my parents are exhausted. We've spent, you know, Thousands of dollars on private doctors coming to our home because I was immobile. You can imagine being hospitalized and hearing the doctor say, We have no idea why your case is so severe.

CAT scans, MRIs. I mean, basically, it felt like the Lord was just. Closing one door after the other. And it was very difficult for my faith. And, like you said, I was very transparent in my memoir because, I mean, what's the point in lying?

And it's like, I want to help people. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so long story short, there came a point, as you read in my book. Where I really felt like the Lord gave me a word. He was sort of calling me to acceptance of this.

And as you can imagine, in this situation, that was the last thing that I wanted to hear after being bedridden for so long. But it felt unmistakably from the Lord. He spoke to me in some pretty strange ways, actually, but I'm telling you, he gave me so many Christian mentors and friends to walk through that grief.

Now, I will tell you that right at that time, right as I was trying to sit up again, because at this point I had lost 36 pounds, I was going to die if I didn't try moving again. Basically, every time when I used to sit up, my blood pressure would drop.

So, on top of the spinning, I just could not stay up. I would pass out almost. After three years, when I felt the Lord calling me to acceptance, the one change we noticed when I tried to walk again was my blood pressure wouldn't drop.

So at least my BP was stable.

So that's why to this day, eight years in, even though I don't have a diagnosis or healing still and the world is still spinning around me, laying down or sitting up, at least now I can function for an hour or two sitting up and then I slam back down. But at least I'm mobile, you know, I'm not being nursed anymore. I mean, but at that time, to answer your question, Emily, God brought a man into my life named Matt, and he was a biochemical engineering PhD. Our church's youth pastor, um, functionally, you know, lay pastor. He would do these devotionals for the kids and he would preach from the pulpit.

He was also a cancer researcher and a missionary to Haiti.

Okay, this guy was like a modern-day Paul. And so he waltzes into my house because he calls my mom and says, Your daughter's been isolated in there. The whole community has been praying for her. I want to encourage her in Christ. And this guy was the most Christ-like person I had ever met.

And so he's sitting next to me. And by the way, the plot twist is he had just been diagnosed at age 38 with terminal cancer.

So he waltzes into my room with his chemo pump, you know, and sits next to me. And I'm on that bed in my pajamas, and he starts giving me a solid theology of suffering because at this point, you know, the Holy Spirit had been with me, but I was very bitter at the Lord. I was like, I don't understand your will. Do you love me or not? Why am I suffering so intensely?

And basically After about eight visits, and this guy was an acquaintance from church, so it's not like a total stranger. Yeah. We just realized, Emily, it was the most strange, it was the most bizarre situation, but we realized we were falling in love. And, like, he cracks a joke, I crack a joke. I mean, your audience is probably rolling their eyes, like, you can't even write this.

He's dying. I'm on a bed. And yet, we realized we were kind of having crushes on each other. And it was such a God-written love story because you can't make it up yourself. And as you can imagine, you know, the heart is deceitful.

So, we prayed a lot about this. You know, like, is this from the Lord? Like, what is happening? Is it wise to date if Matt might die? And I certainly had my own convictions.

And the long and short of it is that the Lord called us to get married. We really felt like. The Lord said, Take this joy in your mutual grief. And it was a miracle.

Well, when we come back, we're going to talk about. The fact that when you stop clinging to the illusion that you live on this earth forever and you start Looking to eternity, you are no longer afraid to die. And that is the kind of life that Matt lived up until death and drew you into as well.

So join us again in just a moment on Hope in the Morning. Do you have a heart to comfort the hurting? Do you want to show the world that through Jesus Christ we can have hope in all circumstances?

Well, then we welcome you to visit hopeinthemorning.org and see how you can join us in these ministry endeavors. May you be encouraged by who our God is as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. Are you in a season of seemingly endless sorrow? Is your heart longing for encouragement?

Join us on Hope in the Morning to hear powerful testimonies of how God is a light even in our darkest valley. We'd also love to pray for you. Simply submit your prayer request at hopinthemorning.org. To learn more, visit us at hopinthemorning.org. John thirteen thirty five says.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Do you know how to best love and serve your hurting brother or sister in Christ? Listen to Hope in the Morning and be equipped to offer the hope of Jesus to every hurting heart. To learn more or to partner with our ministry, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. Welcome back to Hope in the Morning.

I am joined by Laura Silverman, and she is the author of an amazing memoir called Singing Through Fire. And we're right now at the point in her story where the Lord actually, through her suffering, Brought a man that she fell in love with, Matt. And he came to minister to you. And you guys started realizing that you were falling in love. And, but he had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer at 38 years old.

And here you are bedbound at that point about what, 80% of the day, would you say? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, it doesn't look like your typical fairy tale, right?

Because you're bedbound, he's heavenbound. And what does this look like?

So, how did you go forward? in your relationship. Oh man, I mean, like I was saying, we prayed so much about it because we really wanted to be cautious and make sure this was from the Lord. And I'm telling you, the Lord, I mean, there were some confusing emotions. You have to read my memoir because, again, I wanted to be honest.

Like, sometimes it is hard to divine what the Lord is saying, you know? I mean, it's difficult, but the Lord did graciously, you know, give us a piece, especially after the engagement, about how. He is g Or mutual suffering. And in fact, our wedding verse ended up being Isaiah 43:20, which is about how the Lord gives us refreshing streams of water during our times of desert suffering. And that really was such a testimony, Emily, to our entire Armenian community and many Armenian churches in LA.

So basically, it was a testimony that God gives us gifts of joy in our sufferings. And not only that, he calls us to have joy. I mean, like you read earlier, Paul and Silas, give thanks in all circumstances, rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven. I mean, we are actually ironically and counterintuitively called to have joy in our fires. I feel like Christians focus, oh, on the deliverance always.

And it's great if you do get an earthly deliverance. But as I learned the hard way, you know, sometimes the Lord does not give an earthly deliverance. And so, what are we going to do? We're either going to have joy in the fire and trust the Lord's purposes, which we might not see until eternity, or we're going to remain. Bitter.

And I went through the whole gamut of emotions, Emily, because I don't want to sound like I'm on a soapbox here preaching at your audience. I mean, if you read my book, it has taken me eight years to finally surrender to these biblical ideas. And I wish I had surrendered sooner, frankly, but you have to read my memoir because I think sometimes the Lord honors our wrestling. Yeah. Because it's not easy to surrender, you know, to his will when it's so painful.

Yeah, you know, actually, going back to Paul and Silas, the situation that you found yourself in very much was a prison in and of itself. You were imprisoned in your own body. And here you have, you know, you obviously are a woman of high intellect and wanting to be challenged in those regards. You know, I know from reading your memoir that you are also highly creative. And it's hard to be challenged intellectually.

It's hard to be creative from bed. And actually, I want to take a quick little pivot here because I loved the fact that your dad. Read to you the Bible and read, I think it was 210 BSF, like BSF devotionals. What an incredible thing. And I just think about how that must have encouraged you and bolstered your faith, but also probably your dad's to have that time with you to dive in deep.

And what a beautiful thing that that's what your heart was craving in those moments. Oh, Emily, I mean, you can't imagine. There's a verse, it's Psalm 119. I can't remember the specific verse, but it says, I would have perished if my delight had not been in your law. And I'm telling you, on that bed, isolated, in on house arrest, essentially, without being able to move, having my dad read to me every night.

I mean, I couldn't even open my eyes at this point.

So it was like mana in the desert. I would look forward every night. You know, at first, distraction, but then it was like something that I was desperately craving. And my dad's great faith grew through it. My faith grew through it, even with all my volatile emotions.

I mean, we could not, I don't think I would be a Christian today if I had not clung to the word still, even amidst all my anger and bitterness throughout the ups and down journey. Yeah. Well, and you see your perseverance through your story. And that's the thing: just like David and other heroes of the faith, our walk with the Lord is not one steady, unmoving line. You know, we do, we have, we have emotions, and sometimes that includes disappointment.

And anger and frustration. And what do we do with those, though? I think that's the difference between whether or not we love the Lord, trust the Lord, is who do you bring those grievances to? Do you bring them to other people against the Lord? Or do you bring them to the Lord and say, Lord, I don't know what you're doing here.

I don't really like this plan. This is not really what I had in the cards. And I know you actually refer in your book several times to your Armenian culture and how there's a lot to do with that. The fact that kind of the Armenian dream of you had this family, and that's what is looked upon as, I guess, earthly wealth in a sense. Yeah.

Yep. And so going back to where we were with Matt, you get married to Matt. And you were able to walk down the aisle. I saw your pictures, which you include some pictures in your book as well. You were a beautiful bride.

And what did your story look like after you guys got married? Oh, Emily, I mean, it first of all, the wedding was miraculous in and of itself because the whole world was turning as I was walking down the aisle. And yet, the Lord helped me literally dance at my wedding. Like, I can't bounce too high because otherwise, my ears will go crazy and I'll spin harder. But I'm telling you, like, there were so many miracles of sustaining grace.

Like, it's, I mean, I think Christians miss that a lot of the miracles are just the 12, 2 Corinthians 12:9, where it's my grace is sufficient for you rather than the actual healing. I mean, this is in the you know, chronic illness and pain context. But anyway, after we got married, I mean, God, even amidst all of Matt's hospitalizations, because as you can imagine, I mean, so we were only married for one year, so it was one year and three months, and then He entered glory. But during that one year, like, it was such a sweet gift. And my heart's desire through singleness, all through my 20s and 30s, on that bed, was to be married to a wonderful, godly man.

So it was just the most beautiful gift. Even though it was short, as I said in my Marie and Louis chapter, where we dressed up in, you know, the costumes, there was this sense that the Lord was prompting us to rejoice, for this is the day that the Lord has made. And so we didn't care if Matt was vomiting, if you know, we were exhausted. I mean, most of our marriage, frankly, we were holding hands, laying down on that bed, just resting because he was so fatigued, I can't move. But and yet, the Lord just gave us so many victories.

Like we had so many family parties where people would come help us and we would just fellowship together. You know, Matt might have just been in the hospital that morning, and yet friends and community and church members would come, bring food, and just you really see how God works. In suffering, almost the most, you know, I don't want to say the most, but like the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. That's what Psalm 34 says. And I'm telling you, Emily, it was mightily true.

Like, I could see the Holy Spirit sort of holding our hand through the whole thing, even amidst all of the volatile emotions and questions and doubts. I mean, and there were some many volatile emotions where I just couldn't trust the Lord. I mean, you have to read my memoir because I wanted to help people who are also in their pit today. Yeah. You know, saying, What gives Lord?

Like, why aren't you, why are you giving me the bad treatment when you're blessing other Christians? Like, I had to walk through great bitterness on that score. And yet, you see how I could never deny nonetheless that God had never abandoned me or Matt. Yeah. So.

Yeah. You know, I love you. Actually, you mentioned in your book, which I thought this was very kind of a fun, poetic way of saying it, but you said that you kind of always thought that there was just a basic bag of blessings that every believer was entitled to almost, you know, and I think you're not alone in that, in with people feeling that way, you know, even if we don't express it, which there were so many times that I was reading your memoir and I'm thinking, she just said what we're all thinking. You know, she just said what we're all feeling. And I remember turning to my husband being like, I like this girl.

I could be friends with this girl because I just, I love, I love how real you are about things. And yet your hope doesn't waver. And it doesn't mean that you didn't question things, but that, that, Basic bag of blessings. You see how the Lord changes your heart throughout your book to where your suffering actually makes you recognize the little blessings. In ways you never would have, because it's like those little things, the fact that you were able to dance at your wedding, if you hadn't ever been ill.

That would have just been a given. You know, it would have been, I danced at my wedding. But instead, it became something that you can look at the Lord and say, What a blessing that you allowed me to dance at my wedding. What a blessing that I was able to walk down the aisle, that you allowed me to get married, that Matt was able to get married. What a neat blessing.

And one of the other things you talk about is that in your marriage, you not only found a partnership. but a ministry. And that you guys were able to minister to each other more effectively because you had suffered. Can you touch on that? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I, you know, I was like a 30-year-old, you know, very prideful, type A, you know, whatever, thinks she's going to be a Supreme Court justice or whatever it was. You know, it's like begging the Lord to bless my career goals or whatever. And so I went from this sort of selfish person. And not that there's anything wrong, you know, it depends what the Lord's path is for you. I'm not saying it's bad to be some high-powered lawyer.

I'm saying. But the bottom line is, you know, I feel like I was able to understand Matt better. And in fact, I think it's, is it 1 Corinthians 1:4, which says, God gives us comfort so that we can comfort others, right? And so Matt and I just saw that dynamic powerfully with each other because we understood each other in a way that I think it might have created bitterness otherwise. Like, why does my husband have cancer and I have to tend to his needs or whatever?

I mean, we all have these emotions because we're human. Yeah. And yet, because we were both sufferers, if you will, I mean, I don't like that term, but it's like we were able to identify with one another better. Yeah. And you demonstrate time and time again in your book how you guys had a servanthood and a sacrificial love, which actually, again, Matt had spoken to you in your memoir.

You talk about this about how he talks to you about what marriage actually is, how it is supposed to be a representation of Christ, that it's not just for our benefit. It's actually for our spiritual growth.

So how did Matt's perspective on marriage kind of help mold yours? Oh, I mean, well, I'd like to get back to the bag of basic blessings because this is tantamount to the same thing. I'm telling you, Emily, like, I think you're right. And that's why I included it. I mean, every Christian, I think, even if we don't subscribe to the false prosperity gospel, which is, you know, very damaging.

Yes, absolutely. That's a whole other bag. I think as Christians, we still have a prosperity gospel light, you know, and in function, we believe God is good and He is, but that's why we expect Him to give us good, godly desires and blessings in the way that we expect. I mean, it seems only natural, right?

So, but basically, I feel like As Christians, we kind of miss the whole doctrine of, hey, did you realize that Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me? I mean, not take up your spot today, ladies. You know, I mean, think about this. We really don't emphasize this enough. I think.

And I'm not like blaming pastors or anything. I'm just saying, but as to the marriage point, Like Matt made this really good point when we were deciding to get married or not. He said, Laura, like, and he wasn't trying to force me to marry him or something. He was just giving me his wisdom. He was saying, anyone could get married and yet, Three months in, you know, you've heard those stories.

Yeah, the one spouse contracts cancer or whatever. I mean, we live in a fallen world. We don't know the Lord's purposes. He works in such mysterious ways. You know, it's like, okay, Sherlock, but it's true.

We kind of forget about that when we're in a normal season, healthy, expecting blessings, expecting God to approve our plan. And so Matt just radically transformed. He made me desire eternal blessings, whereas I was trying to bring out the joy in him in terms of embracing earthly blessings.

So the contrast was really beautiful. Yeah, you actually mentioned that. I love that you say that you taught him how to live and he taught you how to die. And, you know, that's something we can kind of ruminate on a little bit because what a beautiful thing that you want to. You want to enjoy the life that God has given us.

There is beauty in it. There is goodness in it. And, you know, I want to not only put a little plug in right now before the radio portion of this is done, but if you're listening on the radio, we're going to continue this conversation on our podcast. And so, if you go to anywhere where you listen to podcasts, you can look up Hope in the Morning, or you can go to our YouTube channel, which is Hope in the Morning Backstage, and you'll see the continuation of this episode, and you're not going to want to miss it. I mean, this is such an incredible story, and we haven't even gotten deep into Matt's life or your life since his homegoing.

But this is Laura's amazing book, Singing Through Fire. And Laura, where can they get this book? Yeah. Thanks, Emily. It's available on all Amazon sites internationally.

You can just type in Singing Through Fire by Lara Silverman. That's L-A-R-A. And it's also available on Barnes and Nobles online.

Okay.

So also I wanted to say that if they read this memoir, they'll know that you also have a YouTube channel that you and Matt had started. Right? Yeah. Is that still up and going and where can they find that? Yes, it's called The Silverman Show on YouTube.

Okay.

And it contains, you know, my jazz songs, Spanish songs, Italian songs, some of my violin, Matt's, all of Matt's sermons on suffering. I mean, countless Armenian comedy clips that I've been making since Matt died. I mean, it's basically a performance music and theology channel that Matt and I made while we were married. Yeah. Well, Laura, Laura has an amazing personality, which comes through in her memoir and I'm sure comes through on your YouTube.

So I would highly recommend that you go grab a copy of this book, that you listen to the continuation of her episode, and that you go follow her on her YouTube channel. You know, as far as him teaching you how to die and you teaching him how to live, you mentioned toward the end of your book that you. you kind of wished that you had Maybe encouraged him more toward eternity and less toward physical healing. But for some of our listeners, I think that that's a good thing to talk about because oftentimes as Christians, when we're trying to encourage somebody who is either chronically ill, like you have been, or terminally ill, like Matt was, so much of our focus tends to be on healing. You know, I mean, my dad died of cancer last year.

Actually, you know, I noticed that you had said that Matt was doing research on pancreatic cancer, and that's what my dad died of. And there were very well-intentioned people that just kept pushing, you know, look up this homeopathic thing, look up this. But instead, as believers, To keep each other focused on you're almost at the end of the race, run the race well. And how did that kind of shift your perspective? Walking through things with Matt and now Matt being in glory, how did that shift your perspective on how you would encourage somebody else?

Oh, I mean, at the end of my memoir, I actually addressed this explicitly. I think you just said that, where I had regret that I was sort of constantly pushing Matt in terms of, no, babe, you're going to heal. You know, I really believe the Lord gave us Psalm 91 because, you know, it means he's going to deliver you. And, you know, the way God speaks to us is quite, I mean, I don't want to say it's quite confusing because I don't want to give a bad testimony for the Lord.

Sometimes it can be confusing. You know, like Charles Spurgeon gave a testimony once that during a cholera outbreak, the Lord did give him Psalm 91, and he was, in fact, you know, prevented from becoming ill. And so the Lord gave us Psalm 91 for Matt. It was very clear a few weeks before hospice. And to me, I interpreted the verse which says, I will save you from the deadly pestilence as, okay, the Lord is going to do a last-minute miracle.

And yet, if you read that psalm, though, it has a ton of other verses in it, right? That says, I will be with him in trouble and I will lead him to, you know, long life, which could be eternal life.

So sometimes, again, to circle back to that theme, which is very prominent. In my book, sometimes it's hard to understand the Lord's ways or what the Lord is communicating. But the point is, you don't trust the outcome, which gets to your point about as believers when it comes to health issues, I wish I had known this, I wish more people know this. It's almost not hurtful, but it's like if you're trying to encourage someone, yes, you say, I am praying desperately for your healing, but I just we want to trust the Lord's will at the end of the day. And it might sound mean if you say that, but it actually is more comforting to the person because then they don't put all their eggs in the healing basket and then they might get demoralized later the way I was initially, you know.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's such an important doctrine to get right. Yeah, I think too that when you do find yourself either in a chronic illness or in a terminal illness, and all of that, all of that advice, well-intentioned as it may be, all that advice is coming to you, it can be very exhausting and overwhelming because partly I think you feel an obligation, especially depending on who is giving you the advice, you feel the obligation to. Pursue each of those because you don't want them to feel like you're discounting what they're offering. But then there's also this exhaustion of feeling like, I'm gonna, it's a lot of work, especially homeopathic.

So it is a lot of work. And there's a lot of different paths for that. And so it can be very tiring when you're already living in a tired body. Um And so, you know, for those of us that are listening to your episode as someone that has walked two very difficult paths, I mean, to have a chronic illness, just like you mentioned, to look at you right now, we wouldn't know that. We wouldn't know that your whole world is spinning right now.

And That's how it is a lot of times with people that have chronic illness, they look healthy. And it's very difficult because, and you talked about this in your book too, how sometimes people would assume that you were completely better, or they would downplay your suffering. And as believers, we don't want to. Encourage somebody to stay wallowing in their suffering forever, but to acknowledge it and to sit with them in their grief and not to minimize it either, actually is godly. That is a reflection of Christ to.

Say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like Matt did for you. I'm gonna come over and I'm going to pour truth into you and pour theology into you. And, um, You really did just have such a beautiful love story. And one of the things I want to talk about, real quick, too, is you talked about.

In your suffering, you compared it to some biblical figures like Job and Moses and Jeremiah and Habakkuk. And so I was curious if you could share with the listeners kind of like what some of your wrestling with God looked like. I mean, let me start with this. I mean, I am frankly ashamed, Emily. I mean, you have to, I mean, you read my book, and yet the way that it really looked in practice, all of the wrestling with the Lord, was I'm on that bed and in my thoughts, in my prayer life, I'm just wailing out to the Lord, saying, why, why, Lord?

This hurts so much. Please save me, save me. I mean, there was a point on the bed when I was strictly bedridden when I couldn't even pray. It was more like, save me. That was it.

Save me, save me. I mean, you know, and that's why I think the Holy Spirit intercedes with groans because sometimes we just can't ourselves. Absolutely. But the wrestling was very much spiritual highs where I would just randomly have such great faith and who knew why. I mean, I feel like it was really the Lord sustaining me so that I would, you know, perseverance of the saints, you know.

But then there were times when there were great spiritual lows and in fact, sustained, you know, and I'm very, I'm ashamed of that. You know, looking back, I have had to repent of that because I have blamed the Lord. I have played the game of, well, why do you bless other women? In with the long marriage and children, and yet here I am as a widow. Like, do you not love me as much?

Just all these satanic thoughts attacking me. And when you let yourself succumb to that temptation, as I did, unfortunately, many times, you know, until I got to the growth points, it's a very difficult path, you know, because honestly, like, I felt like I had been just fleeced, you know, first the career, then health, then Matt. You know, it was like, Lord, I can't do this give and take away thing anymore. Yeah. But then you look at the Bible and you see to your point that, you know, so many Bible figures wrestled with the Lord.

I mean, just read Psalms for 10 seconds and it's like all lament. Yeah. The thing I did wrong was I didn't praise at the end. You know, I'm frankly, I'm being honest with the audience, and that's why you have to read my book. You know, I wish I had that spiritual maturity the way Matt had, you know, in terms of, okay, you grieve your air, your air, your grievances to the Lord, but at the end of the day, the goal of the Christian life is to get to Romans 8:29, which is we're conforming to Christ-likeness, which means there has to come a point where you say, not my.

Will with thine be done, yeah. And unfortunately for me, it took me eight years. But you know, I'm but at least now I'm further along the journey, yeah. You know, I mean, I think that that's the journey going from weeping to worship, which is what you see in the book of Job. That's where that's what Job did.

You know, I mean, I've talked about this in other episodes, but I think it's such a powerful thing when you see that here, Job lost everything, everything that was earthly of earthly importance to him. And here, I mean, the Bible is very clear that he was righteous from God's own mouth. There was none on earth righteous like Job was.

So, in our In our human thinking, we would think, well, he of all men. Deserves that bag of blessings, you know? And yet the Lord stripped all of that. And I can just imagine with Job how he would have felt confused too. Lord, why would you take all of these things?

Have I not served you? Have I not blessed your name and everything? And yet it also says that he ripped his clothes and that he fell down and worshipped. Naked I came, naked I will return. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And Job is a very powerful example through and through to us as believers. And I honestly think that your memoir is very similar to the story of Job all around because you see with Job, we see the transparency of how he felt. That yes, he was a righteous man. He loved God. He desired to obey God.

But he did not understand. You know, just like scripture says that God's ways are higher than our ways. They're not our own. We don't understand. That's part of how you can actually know that the Christian faith is the authentic faith because we don't understand it.

If it was created by men, We would fully understand all of it. But we don't. God is so much higher, so much more lofty than we are, that we cannot ascertain all of his intentions and everything. And yet, you talk about this too, how we can see that. God is still good.

And You talked about a very important thing that I'd love for you to expound on a little bit more: the fact that it can be hard as Christians to. Continue to acknowledge the goodness of God when we are having seemingly good desires go unfulfilled. And you even talk about in your book about how, and this happens a lot. I mean, I was very, very, I connected with what you said here is that. We often think, oh, well, God will give you the desires of your heart.

if if they are good desires. That's not always true. And you can attest that. You had a lot of good desires that God either fulfilled differently or didn't fulfill at all. What did you learn about the character of God and his goodness as it pertains to our earthly?

Bag of Blessings Oh, Emily, I feel like you're sort of preaching to the choir, but also just exposing all my vulnerable points in the best of ways.

So, on that issue, I, you know, I never understood why, for example, I mean, we could talk about any good desires that you're seeking, right? But there have been many people like Amy Carmichael, you know, powerful missionary who wanted marriage, for example, and yet the Lord never blessed them with it. And so, you look at that and you're like, This makes no sense, Lord. You created Eve for Adam. I don't understand it.

And that created some bitterness in me through my journey because it's like, I don't, I'm a lawyer. I'm analytical like Emily. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand this. I don't.

Isaiah 55 sometimes isn't enough for me, like to just say his ways are higher. And yet, I have to repent of that because it's like, hello, that's the point. His ways are higher. You are not going to understand it. And you're either going to trust that the Bible is true when it says God is good in all things, his ways are perfect, or you're not.

Yeah. And so, God, I think, is really, I mean, he literally told Abraham to kill his son. Like, I don't think we talk about that enough. Obviously, it was metaphorical and God stopped it at the end of the day, but it's a metaphor for us on how God is asking us to trust him with these good desires. It might not be in his plan.

And that is so hard to hear for the woman who's infertile, for the woman who's single at age 50, for the man who just lost his health, for whatever, you know, and it's just. But the flip side is that I am telling you, after studying the New Testament, Old Testament, whatever, the Bible is so clear that the flip side of that is that if God withholds a desire, There are so many purposes for that suffering that you, you probably, you might see one of them, you might not, but there are, there's the John Piper sermon where he says that there are 10,000 reasons for your suffering. And the New Testament confirms this all over the place. 2 Corinthians 4:17 says, Our light and momentary troubles are creating an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. I mean, we either trust that he is using the things that we.

But just can't understand for his glory and our glory, we're either going to believe that scripture is the true living word of God, or we're not. And it took me a long time to get there, but you can tell today I can speak that with more confidence and clarity. Yeah, and that goes back again to like the way that Matt lived his life, right? And the way that it's a game changer, whether we're living for the here and now. and our earthly desires and what we desire.

Our earthly life to look like, all in all, or if we are actually heavenly focused. And you, you talk about the fact that for Matt, he all of his treasures were stored up in heaven. Like he was so heavenly minded that for him, death was the reward. It was, it was the final gaining of all of this treasure that he had stored up in heaven. And he actually had this phrase that you mentioned here saying, don't invest in a rental, right?

Yeah. And he talks about how. You know, we we Well, you actually said this, which I think is so cool. You said that Christians are spiritual stock investors and we're trading present pain for eternal gain. And I'm a poetry writer, and so I love all the rhyming and the different things that just kind of paint a picture.

And what a beautiful thing for us to think that the Lord, which you touch on as well, the Lord always gives us beauty for ashes. They don't always show up in this life. But again, if we are eternally minded, which is how we as believers ought to be encouraging one another, and for those of you that are listening that are going through especially chronic illness right now, I just so want to encourage you with Laura's testimony that This is not all you have. This is not the best there is. And you are earning for yourself an eternal weight of glory by persevering in your suffering, by praising the Lord in your suffering, by bringing it to Him, bring your weeping to Him.

But as Laura encouraged us earlier, transform it into praise, transform it into worship. And part of that, too, is surrounding ourselves, right, with people that are godly, that are going to encourage us. And you see that time and time again in your memoir, where the Lord surrounded you and Matt with people that were saying, persevere, persevere. Even toward the end of Matt's life, I thought this was so neat when you called one of Matt's friends and you had said, you know, Matt, Matt's in glory. And your friend was not like, oh, I'm so sorry for that loss.

He's like, he's in glory, Laura. This is incredible. He is finally healed, he's with the Lord. What a beautiful way. for us to encourage one another, right?

And so how have you applied that in your life now, especially since losing Matt? And you said it was only a year and three months into your marriage. It was just a short. A short marriage, and yet what a beautiful marriage that I hope everybody reads about in your memoir. But how have you applied Matt's advice to not invest in a rental?

Sure.

Oh, can you hear that echo? I can't hear the echoes. We're good. We're good on our end. Oh, okay.

Oh, there we go. That's fixed.

So. You know, after Matt died, you know Emotions, but I did feel the Lord's supernatural peace over me, especially the month right after. It was almost like miraculous. I really felt like the Lord was saying, Matt is safe with me in so many different ways, as I put in my book. But there was this one day where I was kind of crying, and I really felt like the Lord was putting on my spirit this idea of having joy in grief.

And that's one of the main themes in my memoir. I mean, that's why I titled the book, Singing Through Fire. It's metaphorical, but it's also, I'm a singer, you know, I love jazz and that sort of thing.

So I felt like, how could I forget so quick? I felt like the Lord was nugging my spirit to say, rejoice in this. You know, can you please just use what you've learned? Like, remind yourself of this biblical promise I've been drilling into you.

So I started, I cracked a joke to my dad. The thought came into my mind: like, why don't I start doing some Armenian comedy clips on Instagram? Because I don't know, just literally as a breath of fresh air, because I could not laugh at the time. I mean, I was smiling, but it wasn't. I couldn't, you understand.

And I'm telling you, I started, you know, sitting up, I would be crying at night, but then I would, during the day, I would sit up, make these 90-second comedy clips, slap it on Instagram. And I found that a lot of Armenians started following me and just enjoying the cultural comedy, you know, just making fun of, you know, again, I'm Armenian, so obviously it's okay if I, you know, and my community loved it. And, and, and, and I'm telling you, again, it was another gift of joy and grief, like that God had just continually, you know, given me through this valley.

So it's like non-stop, even though he hasn't changed his will, he just kept giving me these buckets of joy in like the most surprising of places. I mean, I even learned violin, man. And I, I, you know, without being able to move my neck much, like, I tell you, like, the Lord wants to bless us, but it looks dramatically different than what we might expect. Yeah. But he gives you what you need to persevere so that you don't need to be scared.

Through the valley, like he's going to sustain you as hard as it you know feels, yeah, yeah. And I guess you know, when you talk about the Lord sustaining us through the valley, I guess it's the difference between keeping our eyes focused at the end of the race, at that end of the valley, when you're done walking through that, or just constantly looking around at what your surroundings are. And I would imagine, especially in your chronic illness, that that could become debilitating if all you are doing is constantly looking around to your circumstances. But When you acknowledge that God has a purpose for your circumstances, that this is. Momentary and light in the grand scheme of eternity.

Again, I want to reiterate the fact that when we say that our sufferings are momentary and light, we want to encourage ourselves in our own walk without we want to encourage one another, but Please hear me that those that are listening that are walking alongside someone else does not mean to diminish their suffering, to discount their suffering. We have to acknowledge it. We have to live with. Empathy and compassion, and thinking through. And honestly, not a lot of people naturally have empathy, which is why that's why Hope in the Morning exists, because.

It's it's kind of that Just here it is laid out bare for you: of here's how you can minister to people. And one of the ways we minister is not to discount someone else's suffering, but. when you are the one going through the suffering. There's great encouragement to be had. to think eternally like Matt did, like Matt taught you to.

Because you have seen not only how God uses your suffering for a testimony, and you talk about his sustaining grace, but. If it wasn't for your suffering, Laura, we wouldn't be here today. Right, I mean, you wouldn't have this beautiful memoir that you have written, you wouldn't have this testimony. Another thing that you talk about in your book is the fact um When When a seed dies, that's when it produces more. It produces greater fruit.

And here you are. Walking, by God's grace, a walking testimony, right? Because years ago, you were not a walking testimony, you were a laying testimony. And the Lord has allowed you to be able to sit up, to be able to stand, so that you can testify to His goodness, just like you are today. And Matt was faithful in that.

Matt really. He, he, I mean, I think that this is a good memoir, not only for women to read, but I think men could really benefit from reading this and seeing the life that Matt lived.

So as we conclude, what are some things that you would love people to know about Matt? What are some things that you think are a beautiful legacy of a testimony that he has left? I would say it's precisely what you've been emphasizing, which is this guy was sort of otherworldly. I mean, in the sense that he had put all of his bag of Blessings, if you will, in the eternity bucket. I mean, everything he did every summer, he went to Haiti or he took the youth group kids to the Christian camp.

He would just, he didn't care. He's single, he's married, he's this. He put all his time outside of being a medical diagnostics professor, by the way, every minute he had, he poured into the Lord. He would stay after church for hours, setting up the youth group events, whatever. I mean, he just had his eyes laser focused on Christ.

And I'm telling you, being in his, I mean, I'm not, you know, being blasphemous by saying, oh, in his presence, like in God's presence, but like when you're with a believer like that, it has a profound impact on how you view the world. And as you can tell, it has changed my countenance even and my theology. I mean, right now, I am a person that, because of Matt's testimony to me, And seeing how he died with such courage. I mean, he was, you have to read Act Four of my. I mean, you did.

Act four of my memoir is essentially like. Matt chilling, having fun during hospice, you know, smiling through it all. Yes, there was pain, but he was so at ease. Like, death is almost like, all right, I'm going on vacation. I'll see you guys soon.

I love you guys so much. I'm at peace. Like, it just, it was like, who are you? But seeing that just was a radical testimony, even to me as a Christian, to be like, why do I fear death? Like, this is so radical.

Like, God empowered Matt. To just be a megaphone to the rest of us, like, do not fear death. And when you don't fear death, It changes your whole world perspective. You are able to live for Christ and Christ alone because you know that the minute you die, you will be alive in eternity. I mean, I could go on and on about Matt's legacy, but I'll leave it with this.

His main legacy that he would preach from the pulpit was this idea that. Even if we don't see redemption on this side of eternity, I mean, look at Matt's death. You know, we really frankly don't know what God's purposes were in that. It's a tragedy, you know, in some, you know, in some sense. But Matt always preached that God always has a purpose and he will redeem it.

And we will see that in eternity. And so it just, it's so powerful for those stories where the story ends in tragedy because God gives us enough glimpses on those stories where there is an earthly redemption and you can kind of say, oh, that was God working all along. But for the stories like mine and Matt, you know, where there is no redemption on this side in some sense, other than, let's say, my book and, you know, Matt's sermon collection. Even for those stories, the Holy Spirit has really comforted my heart to say, no, the story is not over. And I just want to encourage the woman or man in your audience out there who might be reeling in their own pain today and wondering, what on earth, Lord, the story is not over.

Even if it ends in eternity, I want to encourage you, dear brother and sister in Christ. You know, you you had said in your book that when Matt was on hospice that Seeing him on hospice was like standing on holy ground. And that is because of what we talked about earlier: the fact that God, God's story never ends in ashes. And you see that. And you're testifying to that now: is that you believe?

I mean, I see the joy in your countenance, and yet you have, you've endured. much hardship. And that's very similar also to the Apostle Paul: he had this thorn in the flesh. He was imprisoned, he was beaten, he was shipwrecked, and yet he had this tenacious joy in the Lord that was unrelenting because he knew who his Savior was. He knew that his God was a redeemer.

And you also say, and I love the way you say this: the cross always leads to glory. And for the Christian, death is not a punishment, but the ultimate redemption and reward. And so it really takes the sting. out of death because you you see that that is That is our final place. You know, that's what we're working towards: that reunification with the Lord, with perfect.

Perfect unity with him, like we had in the garden before the fall. And here, Christ came to redeem that. He knows we're going to suffer in this life, and yet he says, I won't let any of it sit in those ashes. I'll redeem it all. I can make all of it beautiful.

And you see that with Job, right? He redeemed all of it. And we are not guaranteed that it's going to be redeemed here on earth, but we are guaranteed it will be redeemed in heaven. We are guaranteed that eternal hope. We are guaranteed a resurrected body.

We are guaranteed sinless. Which is so incredible. I mean, that is such a beautiful thing for us to think that. We will have a day where there is no more sin, no more suffering, no more sickness, no more sorrow. You know, another thing I want to leave you guys with is what Matt had said, which is just that.

That when you stop clinging to the illusion that you'll live on this earth forever and you're not afraid to die, that ironically, that's when you really start living. And you start choosing life, not just the here and now, but for eternity. And that things like death, we don't need to let that scare us because. God has not abandoned us, even in death. God does not abandon his children ever.

And for the Christian, death is our reward. It's the moment when we cross that finish line and we hear, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the rest of your master. Laura, thank you so much for sharing your testimony with us today. And again, I want to show you guys this book because this is an incredible book. And like I mentioned at the start of the show, you might get this and think, oh, that's a big read.

You're going to want to give yourself a weekend because you're not going to want to put it down.

So, this is Singing Through Fire by Laura Silverman. Absolutely beautiful, beautiful book. And this is this is a great gift, too, that you can give somebody. Because it just it it points everything. to the Lord, to glorifying the Lord in our suffering.

And there is no greater gift that you can give to somebody in your life.

So Laura, thank you so much for being willing to come on and share not only your testimony, but your husband's as well. Thank you so much, Emily. All glory to God. Thanks for having me on. Hope in the Morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting.

Equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air. and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting.