Singing through Fire- Beating Incredible Odds of Life with Lara Silverman

Dawn Damon: Hey, beautiful Bravehearts, good to be with you. I hope you're doing well and that you have joy in your heart today.

d her debut jazz pop album in: 2024

Lara Silverman: Hi, thank you so much. I'm so honored to be here.

Dawn Damon: We are so glad to have you here. I'm eager to hear your story. I've been reading your book. It is so good. Thank you. I mean, it's so well written and I can hear your humor and a little bit of the sarcasm coming through, which is your humor and really delightful. I told you, I don't have the, I'm not to the end yet, but you have been through the fire. Tell us about your story.

Lara Silverman: Thanks so much.

opened that door. This was in: 2018

But as my memoir details, God was holding my hand the whole way. It's not like he left me alone, which was quite interesting. It was almost like he was saying, Take my hand. I know what I'm doing. And. So long and short of it is, I was bedridden for four years on a bed with my mom, nursing me, just isolated in one room. And so I went from being a high-powered lawyer in the courtroom in downtown San Francisco to being nursed on a bed, literally on a bedpan. I couldn't move my head left or right, or, um, one inch without the world spinning harder. Long and short of it is. We still don't have a proper diagnosis, and it came to a point where I had to try to sit up again; otherwise, I was going to die because I wasn't moving.

And you know, the Lord sustained me in that I still have not healed. I've been walking for three years now, but I can only sit up for maybe an hour or so throughout the day, so I'm still 60% bedridden, and so I've come to view it sort of like a Paul's thorn in the flesh, if you will. I strongly believe the Lord called me to acceptance rather than healing, and that's something that's been very hard for me to digest the last three years. Especially because in the first five years of the illness, I tried maybe 150 therapies. I mean, my family has gone through the ringer, and nothing worked. And you can imagine the wrestling I did with the Lord, which I detail in my memoir of why, you know, if you love me, why aren't you healing me? And all those questions. But to get to the point, well, you, that's about the, that's the beginning.

Dawn Damon: Well, I mean, I'm already just blown away and have so many questions. You're so beautifully articulate, and I can hear you know now to hear your voice and stuff. Some of the writing in your book is coming alive as well. So the book, can we just talk a little bit about that? Because it is a memoir, but it's a love story too. Yeah.

Lara Silverman: Yeah.

Dawn Damon: And tell us about Matthew.

Lara Silverman: So it was really a God thing. Basically, my third year bedridden, all of a sudden, this guy from church, who was just my acquaintance, called my mom and said, I'd like to come over and encourage Lara, you know, because as luck would have it, or not luck, he had been diagnosed with cancer very recently as well.

Wow. And so he comes over and we start having these intense theological debates while I'm literally lying down on that bed over there, and he's sitting next to me on a chair with his chemo pump, and we start debating theology and suffering and death. And he was the most faithful and Christ-like person I had ever met. It was quite surprising how he was facing death. So valiantly, it was almost like another point on his checklist, which I had never seen before. Not in my church circles. You know, we all fear death naturally, but this guy was something else. And so it's strange, but after maybe about six visits, we just sort of realized we were crushing on each other and then teasing each other, and it was sort of out of nowhere.

And you can imagine we prayed about it because I am bedridden, you know, still have the day. And he was. Dying of cancer. I mean, we were still praying for miracles. Our whole church was praying for him, but we basically fell in love, and we prayed for intense direction from the Lord. You know, is this wise? Is this something I can't explain, and I detail it in my memoir? God very clearly told me, Take this gift. Take this gift of joy in your own grief, and. Go ahead. And we got married, and we had one amazing year of marriage. I mean, my memoir details all of the blessings the Lord gave us, even amidst all of his hospitalizations. My hospitalizations, I mean, it was almost miraculous. And then he died a year later, so. Mm-hmm. Which was exactly last June. Not this last June. The June before. So it's been a year and three months just

Dawn Damon: Yes. What an incredible life experience that you walked through, and as you say, you know, you're this high-powered attorney, you're in the dream job, and then this befalls you, and yet you still have joy. Why does God want us to have joy in the fire? It's not after the fire, not after it's over, but in the midst of it.

Lara Silverman: I mean, this is one of the hardest lessons that God instilled in me the last eight years, and in large part, thanks to my husband's strong theology and love for the Lord, because I was very bitter for you can imagine for quite a long time. I would cling and then God would comfort me, and then I would wanna stray away again. I mean, it was. It's been a very intense up and down valley, but the Lord has been by me even despite my unfaithfulness, so that's an encouraging point. He has never let me go, even with my anger, but I've learned that.

I mean, if you read the New Testament, it's all over it. I mean, sorrowful, but rejoicing. Take up your cross, take it up joyfully. I mean, it's all over the Bible, or give thanks in all circumstances, and it's so counterintuitive because you're suffering. How can I have joy? How can I smile when I've. You know, whatever. Pick, take your pick. Lost my daughter, lost my husband. When I'm suffering with intense chronic illness, when I've lost my job, whatever the women listening to your podcast are going through. Yeah. I mean, it's hard, but you look at what Paul says in Second Corinthians 4:17, which is our light and momentary troubles are producing for us an eternal glory, which far outweighs them all. And it's such a deep verse, and we don't talk about it. I mean, I had never even focused on this before I started suffering, but it's right there in the New Testament. Somehow God wants us to have joy because our sufferings are creating eternal glory. It's sort of a mystery, but it's right there.

Dawn Damon: It is a mystery, and it is right there. And yet, you know, in our culture and even in our religious culture, we don't wanna embrace suffering. We wanna embrace, embrace the, the promises of healing and health and wholeness and joy and success and fulfillment. But suffering's not part of the equation, not in my mind, not in my heart. And yet maybe in the scheme of things, God says that.

Lara Silverman: It's wild, isn't it? I mean, you look at the early church, I mean, if you look at Peter's epistles, I mean, they're telling the early church parishioners like God is allowing you to suffer to test the genuineness of your faith. I mean, that's part of it. I mean, there are so many verses we could go into, but our modern paradigm.

Has almost shifted from what the early church thought was an honor to suffer. And that's not to say we're supposed to seek it out. You know, the Lord is with us when we suffer, but if he allows it there, he's doing something in it. So that's why we can remain joyful. Now, it's easier said than done. I mean, I. Still cry. You know, I still, you know, was weeping this morning, frankly, you know, I mean, and so I'm trying to give a, you know, I still have that joy, but we also, it's sorrowful, but rejoicing, like I, I think you can hold both. Yes. You know, you kind of cry it out and then you give it to God, and there's this relief that comes with that.

Dawn Damon: You're right. I mean, it's the tension, and we do hold both. Two things can be true at the same time, and I wish that weren't. So in terms of, I wish you were walking in, you know, this place of healing and strength, because you are also an actress and a comedian. How does that express itself today?

Lara Silverman: Well, after Matt died, you know, I was obviously in a lot of pain emotionally, and God reminded me, he gave me this devotional on a really timely day that said, We can savor what's good while also grieving what's lost. And so I thought, okay, joy and grief, this is what God taught me with our whole marriage of getting married amidst terminal cancer. Take this joy. And so I just started making comedy clips on Instagram, and some of them, you know, went viral, and you know, doing Armenian comedy sketches 'cause I'm Armenian, there's a lot of cultural comedy, you know, making fun of aunties and moms, and my family was all on board. I mean, you can check them out. It's just 'cause I love comedic acting. I love making people laugh. And so it was the way God gave me to sort of force me to laugh, if you will. Sort of the irony of me giving people joy in my own grief was something, only the Lord. Could do. You know, I mean, you're looking at me saying, this person is a widow. She just lost everything, and now she's still smiling. I think it was almost a testimony that God sustains us in the fire, and that's why I named my memoir Singing Through Fire.

Dawn Damon: Such an appropriate title that you've given your book. You know, let's go back to this verse that you were talking about, eternity. How does the hope of that eternity keep going? When life falls completely apart. How does that sustain us?

Lara Silverman: Honestly, the answer is it's the only thing that sustains us, at least for me, because when you lose one thing after the next, you know, first I lost the health, then my legal career, then my husband, I have nothing else to clinging to other than the hope that God is going to make all of this right in eternity in some sense.

You know, I'm not going to see redemption on this. Side in the sense, I mean, I am seeing it with my book, you know, it, it's, God is using my testimony to encourage others. But in terms of, you know, the why, you know why, Lord, you know, I mean, I think, but, but having that faith that no, you know, heaven is still part of the story. I will see the end of this story. My story's not over here. Even if I don't get earthly redemption, even if Matt never comes back, which he won't, you know, but I will see him again. And so if you think about how eternity. We have a gazillion billion years. I don't even know. I'm not a physicist. I don't know what the numbers are. If you look at that versus our temporal lives, it just changes the equation so much, and it's the only thing, frankly, that sustains me.

Now, I'm not trying to escape the temporal life. I think we have a role in changing the world here and doing God's good works here, but that hope that all will be made right again is just, you can't, I mean, it's the only thing that sustains.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, I guess that is why the apostle says, you know, our light and momentary troubles. Yeah. And hard to think of what you're experiencing, what many people have experienced. My sister suffered the loss of her son's untimely death. Hard to think of it as light and momentary troubles, but you're right in light of eternity. It is. And you know when the word of God tells us in Ecclesiastes that, you know, we're just a vapor. Life is just a vapor. Our time on earth is just a vapor. And we might as well, as you've embraced the joy of all of it, seeing the joy. Two things are true at the same time: grief and joy.

Lara Silverman: That's one of the main themes of my book, actually, having joy and grief. I mean, that's the title essentially, and it's so counterintuitive, but that's what God calls us to do in the fire. I mean, sometimes it feels impossible, but he helps you do it. He gave me a husband while I'm bedridden. I mean, who wants me? You can't even write the story. You know, actually, one of the beginning lines of my memoir, you probably saw, is God always writes the best stories. Yes. I mean, I couldn't have concocted, I mean, would I ever have thought I would marry a man with terminal cancer? No. And the world would say, You're crazy. Don't do it because you're gonna lose him. But God's economy is so different, you know?

Dawn Damon: Yes. How long ago was that, by the way? Just to keep the context in?

like we got married in March: 2023

Dawn Damon: So that is very fresh, really, actually in the, and you're probably still walking through some of those feelings, and as you said, you know, Hey, I, I wept this.

Lara Silverman: That's why I was crying this morning. I wept this morning. Yeah.

Dawn Damon: Yeah. Well, we wish we could put our virtual arms around you and love on you this morning. How did you start to write this book? How did you know it was time? Okay. I am putting this in print.

Lara Silverman: I mean, basically two months after Matt died, I'm lying on that bed and a friend calls me and says, Have you thought about writing a book? And I said, No. It's like, what are you talking about? I've never wanted to be an author. I'm a lawyer. I'd rather go be a lawyer if I could, which I can't, 'cause I'm still sick.

And then the next day, another Christian friend called me and said, Have you thought about writing a book? And I'm like, okay. No, I started praying about it because it sounded really strange. And then everywhere, the next week I kept bumping into my devotional and my Bible reading Ephesians 2:10, which says, God has prepared good works in advance for us to do. And right there, the light clicked on. I knew he was answering me, saying, I'm giving you a job offer. I want you to write a book about your testimony.

And so I started last. September. It took me eight months to write it, and then the last few months I've been working on marketing it and all of the videos, and I made a beautiful book trailer. It's like a movie, which shows the story.

Dawn Damon: Yes, I've seen some of it. I'm so excited to share that book trailer with our audience, and we will make sure that we do that. We're gonna put the link in the show notes of the book trailer so that they can see that. We'll also put the link for how to purchase the book there as well, because it's beautifully written. It's beautifully done.

Did you have a publisher? Did you self-publish this?

my own company called Isaiah: 43:20

So, but yeah, I self-published it on Amazon, and yeah, actually, this morning I hit status, which I'm so excited about.

Dawn Damon: Wow.

Lara Silverman: My dad and I were just, I mean, I wasn't crying, but it was like, thank you, Lord. I just feel like he's redeeming my, it's not about the numbers, it's just the fact that it's resonating with people makes me feel like God is blessing my testimony.

Dawn Damon: Absolutely, and it's worth celebrating, because it's not easy to do. I remember, you know, as an author myself and putting books out there and not having that, and then. Last couple reaching that and it's joyful. It's joyful. Yeah. It's kind of that, that smile of God upon your life.

What would you like to leave our listeners with if we were to say, Hey, there are women listening. They might be going through hard times. They don't; they may still be angry at God. They feel they're both in. They need him, and they're mad at him.

Lara Silverman: Exactly. Oh, I can't tell you. I mean, I don't wanna discourage people by saying I'm still there, but you know, there are waves, you know, I mean, the emotions with grief, as anyone knows, it's like one moment, it's anger, one moment it's clinging to the Lord. One moment. It's trusting his purposes and having incredibly strong faith. I mean, it's like a roller coaster. I mean, unless you're like my husband Matt, who was just willing to die. I mean that, I don't know. He was on another level, but I would say. What God has taught me is that there's always a purpose for the suffering.

I hate those trite statements of purpose and the pain involved. I mean, I'm not trying to put anyone else down, but I, you know, when I used to hear those, I would roll my eyes 'cause the pain was so painful. Yeah. But at the end of eight years, I've changed as a person. And now I truly believe that there really is a purpose because there are so many verses in the Bible where God explicitly says there is a purpose in our sufferings. Otherwise, why would a good God allow it? I mean, it just, why would he allow it? Right. So God is saying to you, it's not the end of your story. Yes, some stories do tie up in eternity. We might have to wait to see the redemption on the other side, but this life is a blip compared to eternity, as we mentioned earlier. So keep clinging even if you don't know.

When you will see God tying up that redemption arc. I mean, he promised a job to redeem his suffering. He did it for the job, and he will do it for us. I mean, there are so many verses, Isaiah 61, about God giving us joy, uh, a crown of joy in exchange for a crown of mourning. I mean, we have to trust that he is good, and if he is good, he will end the story in a way that you just can't even imagine.

Dawn Damon: Beautifully said. I wanna just thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with us and being on here today. And once again, we can find you in all the usual suspects. I'm sure your social media, all those things will make available to our listeners, and Lara Silverman, thank you for being with us.

Thank you for writing your book, Singing Through Fire: A Memoir of Finding Surprising Joy in Life's Darkest Trials. I can see that you're still singing. You're still joyful. You have every reason to be, in addition to clinging to yourself. My sister. Keep clinging. We're praying for you. Thank you so much. Trusting God with you, bravehearts.

Thanks for joining us today and listening to this episode of The BraveHearted Woman Podcast. If ever there was a bravehearted woman, you've just met one. If you need to stand in faith, if you need your voice to be heard in your prayers, write to me @DawnDamon, I'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, I'm gonna leave you like I always do. Is this your moment to find your brave and live your dreams!