October 20, 2025 • 41 mins
This week’s episode is one of the most emotional and powerful yet. Granger sits down with his wife, Amber Smith to talk about the release of her brand-new book, The Girl on the Bathroom Floor — a raw and redemptive story of grief, surrender, and finding God’s purpose in unimaginable loss.
Together, they open up about the pain of losing their son River, the healing that came through Amber’s faith, and how God met her in her deepest sorrow with the words: “Enough. Seek Me.” Amber shares the meaning behind the book’s title, the story of meeting one of River’s kidney recipients, and the powerful lessons of hope and redemption that have emerged from their suffering.
They also discuss the harsh criticism that comes with sharing their story publicly — including accusations of “profiting off tragedy” — and how they’ve learned to respond with grace and truth. If you’ve ever faced loss, doubt, or the question of how God could bring beauty from brokenness, this episode will deeply move you.
********************************************** CONNECT WITH MY PODCAST: Instagram► https://instagram.com/GrangerSmithPod YouTube► https://www.YouTube.com/@UCD1JSCn257RlatavklMALyg My NEW BOOK HERE▶ www.grangersmith.com APPAREL™️ GEAR ▶ https://YeeYeeApparel.com SUBSCRIBE HERE ▶ http://smarturl.it/gschannelsubscribe Subscribe to my family channel here ▶ http://youtube.com/TheSmithsTV TALK TO ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Instagram► https://instagram.com/GrangerSmith Facebook► https://facebook.com/GrangerSmith Twitter► https://twitter.com/GrangerSmith Website► https://GrangerSmith.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, special episode today, and this is impactful stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
In fact, I.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Broke down a little bit on here, but a tough subject.
And part of it is this, when you go through
extreme loss, you will hear people that are searching and
reaching and stabbing, sometimes out of anger, and so you'll
hear things like you're profiting on your son's death. Are
(00:30):
we let's unpack it? Well, this is a special conversation.
Been wanting to have this for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Amber.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
My wife is here with the ant man and we're
discussing a brand new book that came out today, The
Girl on the Bathroom Floor. And you have been working
on this book, Babe, When do you think you first started.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
This closet of two years ago?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Two years People have compared it to like an album
making an album, and I'm like, no, it actually takes
a lot longer. The process of a book is much
longer and tedious than an album. Two years ago you
wrote the first part of it is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That that was my first contact. Kyle, your editor put
me in contact with my acquisition's editor, Lisa Joe over
at w and we kind of began the process of
talking about the book and maybe starting it.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
What was the first thing you wrote for it.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Oh, it's a good question, because she wanted me to
chapter dump and just write a like open up ten
Microsoft Waard documents and start writing things. Probably the pool,
probably what happened when I first heard those words river
and pool. I think I started with that story.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So this has been something I've pushed you for doing
for a while, because you know, I felt like your
story is unique enough from separate from like a river,
that it would actually compliment like a river or stand
on its own. And so then I read it several
months ago when you finished the first draft, and I
(02:20):
was like confirmed on I mean, a lot of it
was new to me. I lived through this book, but
a lot of it was new to me. Like I
didn't know I was on tour. I didn't know that
that happened. I didn't know the doughnut, the donut shop thing.
I didn't know all that. A lot of the special
times you had with RIV, I didn't know. So we
(02:45):
lost our son in twenty nineteen, and I wrote a
book called Like a River, a memoir for it, and
then you wrote now this the Girl in the Bathroom Floor.
Can you tell me about the title.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, it came from you. I had wrestled with a
bunch of different titles and topics, and everything that I
had said, you said was too boring. It sounded like
a Bible study. You're like, no, that's not it, No,
that's not Give me an example from Grief to Glory. Yeah,
it was one of them, and you were like, no,
it sounds too much like a Bible study. And that's
(03:20):
something that if somebody is not wanting to go into
Glory or the Lord, they're just going to walk right
past that book and not pick it up. Yeah, it's
like you want the title to grab somebody. You want
it to be exactly where you were. You want it
to be raw and real. And you were the girl
on the bathroom floor. And when we heard it, we
were like whoa. And everyone that has heard it since
then was just like, Wow, that's the perfect title. That's
(03:41):
where so many women and men go to grieve or
to lament, or to hide.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You have not read it at man, obviously you haven't.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
No, So I read like a river, and then after
I would read chapters, I would tell my wife Ashley
about what I just read and she's now doing, and
then she ultimately she read it after I was finished.
And now we're doing the opposite. She's reading this one
and telling me about what she read, and then I'll
(04:12):
read it after she's finished.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
What does she said? What is Ashley said? If she
said any of the details yet?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Yes? Some, Yeah, she's she shared some and she what's
interesting is the very first thing she said to me
was what you said to me? And that was this
book is very conversational. Yeah, it's written very conversationd like,
because she'll bounce from from the pool to a Bible
(04:42):
study or a pool to going out to eat or something.
It's just back and forth. But it's like a conversation
would be, but much more structured. You can follow along,
you don't get lost. And that's one thing that Granger said.
I said, how is it? And he said, uh, it's
very it's very conversational and it's I I didn't tell
her about that, and she got the same synopsis from it. Yeah,
(05:04):
but she's a lot of things that I mean, we're
close that we still didn't know, you know, yeah, And
I think that that's the same. I mean I didn't
know of course, And it was like that with with
like a River as well, and it's it's interesting what
a book like this can do, not just for you personally,
(05:25):
I assume amber, but also for those that you you
interact with, you know, daily, weekly, monthly, you know in
your life, of what how it will draw those in
and help put pieces together that that we don't often
see about each other.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah. I think when the editor told me to write
the book, and I've said this other places, she said,
I want you to be the u ees to you
that you can be. I think when people think about
writing a book, and I even thought, this is like
I need to be more academic, I need to sound better,
and she said, I just want you to be yourself.
People already know your story, they already know your voice
through a rise. Don't change how you're talking to people.
(06:03):
And so that's kind of the feedback that I've gotten.
I think you said, it's like you're just like I'm
getting text messages from you and you're just talking to me.
And so I'm thankful that that's what it feels like
for people, is that I'm right there with you in
the room.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So this is as we speak today. This is literally
released day as we record this, and I've been kind
of prepping you like, hey, you know last even last night,
were like, hey, just in one more hour, the audiobook
will be live at ten or eleven pm Central Time.
The audiobook was live last night, and I just you're like, yeah, yeah,
(06:42):
my work is done. But I was prepping you because
people will hear your story this week and they will
look at you differently, they'll think of you differently. And
I mean the book is could I read some of it?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I mean it starts in chapter one.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Buckle up.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's like a buckle up type thing, like chapter one.
This is the first this is the first few lines.
I sifted through clots of deep red blood, searching for
anything that would resemble the baby I was miscarrying.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
For hours.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I had lain sweating on the towel covered cement floor
of our bug infested barn in the August heat of Texas,
who had been living in an RV while our home
was being built, and we had no plumbing in the
fifth wheel, so my only place to go was the
one barn bathroom that we all shared. The only position
(07:43):
I can get comfortable in was on my hands and knees,
curled in a ball. The pain was more intense than
anything i'd ever felt, and I had transitioned from crying
to praying to oddly sleeping in between muscle contractions. That's
the first few sentences.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, and that came because I think I was going
to start at the pool. And when I talked to
you and Esther at that lunch that day, you said
you should start with the miscarriage. Yeah, because I was
completely in a different spot spiritually, and so that was
a good place to start and then go into the
story and then come back to the miscarriage in the middle.
But yeah, they said, a lot of the people at
the publishing company said when they first read that first sentence,
(08:22):
it was like, WHOA, you're not expecting Yeah, that graphic.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, and you're right, I was involved in that idea
of like you should start with the miscarriage. But this
is an example of like, during this time I was
keeping the kids away from you. The kids knew you
were pregnant, and we didn't tell them about the miscarriage.
We just didn't want to break their heart. And so
but London was so intuitive, at what eight years old
(08:51):
or so, She's like, Mommy, everything okay, and You're like,
I'm just really tired.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, not feeling good.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Not feeling good.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Literally you'd been there in there for hours in the bathroom.
Oh man, But there are other things and and where
where we when I was just talking about oh, I
was recording The Smiths and I I was telling you
probably my favorite part of the.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Book is that it was in the Idol. It is
in the Idol.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, I turned right to it on the Smiths.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And now I'm not going to turn to it on
the podcast here.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is so this part is crazy, And so people
that would want that would be looking for this book.
I mean, anyone could read this book. It's certainly relevant
to anyone that walks on planet Earth.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, it's not just about child loss. It's a lot
of different griefs and just basically like how your life
doesn't go like you thought it was going to go.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Like you if you think you're a candidate for someone
who their life may not go as you think it
should go. If that's you, if you're a candidate for that,
then this book would be good for you. But similar
to what I told people with like a River, because
sometimes people are like I don't want to read it.
I already know what happened. I don't want to relive that.
(10:18):
It's like, no, no, no, no, there's hope. I'm not
going to leave you without hope. In fact, ant Man
and I say that all the time on this podcast
when we talk about Mark of the Beast or End
the Times, We're like, we don't want to ever leave
you on this podcast without hope. And that's what this
book does. But there's a turning point in here, and
it's a chapter called the Idol. And this might be
(10:38):
shocking to some people, but I remember you talking about this,
but I but when I read the book it then
it really hit me.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then when I held.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Actually this hard copy I read a few weeks ago
on an airplane on one leg to South Gards, North Carolina.
I read half of it. On the back from South Carolina, Austin,
I read the second half, I was just like, couldn't stop.
I was even in the terminal walking to the terminal
holding it. But there's a section in here that says
(11:12):
you wrote one of the most shattering realizations in my
grief was about to unfold. And once again it happened
on my bathroom floor as I sat there crying utterly
consumed by sorrow. And this is page one point sixteen.
There is a lot of hard stuff that happens in
a hundred pages. Like you are seeking the Lord. You're crying,
(11:35):
You're grieving. The miscarriage happens, loss of riv happens. There's
just pain. So here we are, they say. As I
sat there crying, utterly consumed by sorrow, the Lord interrupted
my pain with three words that changed everything. They weren't audible,
but I felt every word crushing my spirit like a
(11:56):
carefully a careful heart surgeon, cutting through the fog of
my despair with piercing clarity.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Enough seek Me.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
These weren't my own thoughts, and as crazy as it
may sound, they carried a weight that I can't fully explain.
In that moment, God revealed an uncomfortable truth. I had
made River an idol in my life. My pain, my
longing for him, my constant thoughts of him. They had
begun to eclipse the one who is the source of
all comfort and peace. Gently, but firmly, the Lord was
(12:30):
calling me to lift my eyes from my sadness and
refocus them on him. Enough seek Me. It was a conviction,
a call, and a challenge all at once. God was
calling me to get up to a rise off the
bathroom floor, both physically and spiritually. I felt in that
moment that everyone is suffering something. I felt that I
(12:53):
felt the spirit saying to me, enough, seek me, give
me the glory that belongs to.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Me alone, like whoa yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And when you know, when I read that, and when
I read certain things like this, I often think that
sounds like my God.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
How did it feel to have that clarity, have that moment?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
It was the most powerful moment in my healing journey.
Was and you know, and you hear, you can hear
that and think, well, that sounds mean? Why would God?
You know, you're crying over your son, who wouldn't cry?
But it wasn't mean. It was firm and loving. And
I told Greendeer it was like a father like lifting
his daughter's face, like enough, look at me. And I
(13:39):
realized that I had been seeking the gift I had
been seeking. I long to be with Rivers so much.
I was so sad, But I was not looking to
the Lord. I mean I was in a sense, but
not really. I hadn't read my Bible. I was reading devotions.
I was getting little pieces, but I wasn't looking to
my savior. I was stuck in my sadness and in
my sorrow. And that was the moment that the Lord
called me to arise. That's kind at the beginning of
(14:00):
how Arise with the Amberg got started, And it was
the beginning of us really looking to the scriptures and
seeking who God truly was. Who is this God that
is telling me enough? Look at me?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Well, it's something I think that you learn as a
as a parent. Is that, like you said, it was
like a father lifting up his daughter's face. Is that
only as a parent can you go You can only
see what you're currently in. Yes, and I can see everything.
So I'm gonna let you do this for a minute
so you can feel it and then it's over. It's done.
(14:33):
It's enough.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah. And it's encouraging and challenging. And you know GRANGERD
does that with our kids. Yeah, it's like it's a push.
It's like you can do this.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
The encouragement.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I think there was something you said that's really
important because it wasn't that you weren't seeking him at all.
And so I don't want people to hear this and
go I am thinking God, I am.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And it's not that you weren't. It's that you weren't.
You were seeking him to comfort you for River.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I wasn't seeking him for who he was and not.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
For who he was. That's there's a big difference. And
you know, God allows us to seek him for comfort
for other things to a point, because that's how it begins.
You know a lot of that, that's kindergarten theology. It
starts there but to but eventually he says, stop, it's
time to graduate kindergarten. Look to me. And yeah, So
(15:30):
you and I talked about on the on the Smiths
and we talked about the you know, the misconceptions of
the narcissistic God. Yeah, you know in this instance, like
seek me, I want to be more important than River.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's not, it's not the point of this. It was.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Seek the gift, giver over the gift, and the joy
that you have will then eclipse the grief to hold you.
So that's a selfless desire of the Lord to want
you to seek him. It was from my good, it
was for your good. Yeah, because he doesn't need anything.
He doesn't he doesn't need you to seek him to
(16:07):
make him feel better about himself. He needs you to
seek him so that it's so that you could finally
be healed because.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Of who he is.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That that is a that's a massive understanding that you
had to go through. And when I read that, I
mean not like I said, I remember you talking about it.
When I read it, I was like, whoa man I've
I've also and I know ant man has two felt
moments where the Lord's like, Okay, yep, enough, yep.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I mean he does it in scripture, he does it
all right, let's go.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So, you know, when I started this podcast, it seemed
like I had a lot to figure out on my own,
you know, the scripts, the setups, the filming, the schedule,
the logos, everything was overwhelming, and I just wanted to.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Take care of the creative side of it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You know, whenever you're starting off something new, it seems
like your to do list just keeps growing every day
with new task, and the list that could just begin
to overrun your life. Finding the right tool that not
only helps you out but simplifies everything could be such
a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool
is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of companies,
(17:14):
including EEE Apparel and many many other household names. If
you want to get started with your design studio, they
got hundreds of ready to use templates. They help you
build beautiful online stores to match your brand style. You
could accelerate your content creation. It's packed with helpful AI
tools that help product descriptions and page headlines and even
(17:35):
enhance your product photography. Shopify does all this. You can
get the word out like you get this huge marketing
team behind you. You can create email and social media
campaigns wherever your customers are, wherever they're scrolling or strolling.
Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class
expertise and everything from managing inventory, to international shipping, to
(17:55):
processing returns and all that kind of stuff. If you
are ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your
big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign
up for your one dollar per month trial and start
selling today at shopify dot com slash granger. Go to
shopify dot com slash granger shopify dot com slash granger.
(18:16):
If you're trying to get a gift for someone that
you think has everything, how about a special video message
from me. It's easy to do go to cameo dot
com slash granger Smith and you put in the prompt
what you want me to say. I get that message
on my phone. I'll say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever
personalized message you want me to say to whoever you
want me to say it to. I send it to
you and you give it to them. It's pretty cool.
(18:38):
Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith. So the
next part that I brought.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Up before is.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Is that the Recipient. Yeah, that's another It's a chapter
called the Recipient. And I shouldn't like have my own
copy of this so I could like mark it up.
I actually think I did mark up one of them.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But this part is.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Was crushing to me. This is one of these parts.
One of the things I didn't know you We donated
rivers organs, specifically two kidneys, right, and.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I was so out of this process.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
It was your idea to donate, you know, by God's grace,
and it was your idea to move forward with all
the things, including you wrote letters to the two recipients.
You found out that you found out and you said
you were shocked to see that the kidneys of River
(19:53):
went to a forty nine year old woman and a
fifty three year old man.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I thought for sure they would have gone to children
because it was so tiny.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So once again here's us trying to decide what God's
going to do to my box. Oh it'll be a kid,
you know that. And and we'll return to that family,
the child, the little boy that they thought they were
going to lose. Well, that's not what happened. So you
get that, You get the notice that if this is
a forty nine year old woman gets one and a
fifty year old man, fifty three year old then gets
(20:24):
the other. He wrote them letters telling them all about
river right, and the whole story. His beautiful red hair,
you say, his deep brown eyes, the way that his
face would light up when he saw a dinosaur or
a tractor, How he loved being outside and digging in
the dirt.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
He was so full of joy in life.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You told him about the difficult decision we made and
how we prayed over it, and I told him that
we had been praying for them, and that our hope
was that they were be joyful and healthy and thriving.
And then you left the door open, and that let
them know that you'd love to meet him one day
and then nothing.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Think it was four months.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
For four months, you received one card in the mail.
It was the recipient of Rivers Right Kidney and the
card read, my name is Elda. I'm forty nine years old, married,
have one son. Since I was fourteen, I have suffered
a painful illness called polypsychic psychicistic palsystic kidney disease. Thanks
(21:27):
to you, I have a second chance at life. Words
can'tnot describe how thankful I am, my family and I
will be forever in your debt. I'm so grateful for
the new life you and your family have given me.
I wish you and your family along and prosperous life. Sincerely, Elda.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It's like that's it, I know, and it was. It
fit into a greeting card, and I think I wanted
in my selfishness, I wanted like pages of gratitude. But
then you know, I had to be reminded that was
probably really hard for her to write once she was
Spanish speaking too. How do you ever say thank you
(22:02):
for that? For you know, she knew we lost our son,
and I think I was just expecting something that you
can't expect in that moment, so I write in the book,
don't have expectations and understand what they're going through too.
That's got to be really hard for them, And I'm
so grateful. She even responded, so.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, but you said your tears came, your emotions hit sadness,
maybe even a little selfish sadness. You didn't know what
you were expecting. But somehow you wanted more from her.
You wanted more from that letter. You craved a deeper connection,
something that would ease the ache in your heart. But
you sat there and you realized that it must have
(22:40):
taken a lot for Elder to write it. So then
you met. This is the part I didn't know. So
as I read these words, like you know, these are
these are just new. It was a new story to me.
Once again, I knew that you did it, but I
didn't know the details. I'll try to read it again.
Oh I I did on the Smiths, but you say
page two to one. We finally met on November eleventh,
(23:04):
twenty twenty two. I chose a local coffee shop and
we found a quiet table in the back. Maverick, who
was just over a year at the time, came with
me and Elder brought her sister to help translate because
she mostly spoke Spanish. She was absolutely precious, standing just
over four feet tall, with short, highlighted brown hair and
warm brown eyes behind her glasses. She wore a lovely
(23:25):
floral paisley top with black pants and a cozy black sweater.
As we sipped our drinks, she shared her story that
she had been on dialysis for three long years before
receiving River's kidney, tethered to a machine for eight to
ten hours every single day. Wow, three years, You're right
for Rivers. Entire lifetime, she had been fighting this battle,
(23:49):
hooked to a machine, waiting, praying, hoping, longing for healing.
It's interesting you think back to enough seek me. It
struck me how we didn't always see what the Lord
is doing. We don't always see what the Lord is doing.
(24:10):
How often she must have wondered, do you see me?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Why are you allowing me to suffer like this? And
yet in his kindness I can almost hear him whispering,
Hold on, child, I'm preparing something for you. I'm raising
up a little boy, and man, you want to read
this very I'm raising up a little boy who will
(24:40):
help heal you just hold on and then and then
the part that gets me is the next part. The
part that really gets me is the next part. You say,
I have a picture of her, so he's here on
(25:01):
the smith for some reason. You say, I have a
picture for holding Maverick that day, And it makes me
emotional every time I look at it, because this is
the closest Maverick has ever been to a piece of
his big brother, Eldon Maverick. Two blessings that came out
of the breaking of my heart, two lives I will
(25:22):
cherish forever. That's beautiful. Your words are so beautiful and
so powerful for people to see. The circle of sovereignty
is God. We don't often see. I would say it
(25:44):
might even be rare that we would see a breaking
of a heart, the Lord breaking a heart and then
redeeming it, for that's visibly seen by us. Sometimes he
does it for reasons that we don't know, and other
times he lets he lets you see a little bit
of it. I mean, there's a what does Piper say,
(26:06):
There's ten thousand things God is doing at all.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Times in your life, and you're aware of about three
of them.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You're aware of about three of them, and.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
There's another's Yeah, there's a Scottish pastor, Samuel Rutherford, and
he says, God is I'm probably I'm paraphrasing. God is
too skilled and wise as a physician to hurt you
for nothing. He can use your very wounds to heal you.
And like you said, oftentimes we don't we won't see
all of the intertwining lives that that and all the
(26:32):
things that God is doing. But it's just a realization
it's not about me, it's not about my suffering. It's
not just about me and River like now she gets
to have life and that she's just one of the
blessings from the breaking. So many other domino effects have
happened from the loss of our son, and we know
it's not River that did it. It's not us in
anything that we have done. It's all in what God
(26:53):
is doing. So it really just took a shift in
my perspective of not looking at the earthly things, the
things that are passing away, and really turning my eyes
to the eternal. And that took work and it was hard. Yeah,
But when you can see that there's freedom in that,
and there's peace in that, and there's hope in that
and there's joy in that.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, you said blessing in the breaking. I've heard you
say that before. It's that's good.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That's another one of the titles I would have rejected, though,
because the girl in the bathroom floor is better.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, I think about Jesus. I mean, the greatest blessing
of our lives came in the breaking of his body
or us.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, that's the pinnacle. The pinnacle of suffering is in
the and the beauty from suffering is is that? You
know we were talking yesterday. I think well, I think
it was yesterday about the Book of Acts and the
story of Paul. I'll go there right now. I think
(27:48):
it's Acts nine. But the story of Saul to Paul,
it's he is converted by the Lord from a persecutor
of the church, a murderer of the church, a murderer
of Christians. And then he's radically on the road to
Damascus transformed. And he is blinded by the Lord Jesus
(28:14):
on the road to Damascus, and he hears a voice
saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And he says, who are you?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Rise and enter the city, and you will be told
what you are to do. Okay, So other men fell
to the ground. They didn't know. Everyone's trying to figure
out what's going on. He goes to Damascus in obedience
to what Jesus said, and then verse ten. Now there
(28:43):
was a disciple in Damascus named Anonius. The Lord said
to him in a vision. Anonius, he said, here, I
am Lord. And he said to him, rise and go
to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas,
look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold,
he is praying, and he is seen a vision of
a man named Anonius. And lay his and come in
(29:05):
and lay his hands on him, so that he might
regain his sight. But Anonius, he knows, he knows about
this guy. He knows about this ceasis. Lord, I have
heard from many about this man, how much evil he
has done to your saints at Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And here he has.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Authority from the chief priest to bind all who call
in your name. But here it is, but the Lord
said to him, go, for he has a chosen instrument
of mine to carry out my name before the gentiles
and the kings of the children of Israel, for I
will show him how much he must suffer for this
sake of my name. From the moment Saul Paul was
(29:48):
converted and called into the ministry of taking the message
of the Gospel to the Gentiles. He was also called
into suffering for the aim of Christ. Do we think
we would be any different as Christians, that we would
somehow make it through, make it through a life of
(30:12):
no suffering.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Not if we're to be like Jesus. No, he suffered,
we are to suffer with him. It's a blessing to
be called suffer with him. Yeah, it's hard to come
to the realization too.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So does that just mean that you are persecuted as
a Christian and maybe even martyred or killed or mocked
or does that mean other things too?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I think that's one of the ways, But I think
it includes all types of suffering. Yeah, that's fallen world.
We wouldn't have a need of a savior if none
of us have, if none of us suffered, we wouldn't
have a need for the Lord, if none of us
went through hard seasons of pain. It's for our sanctification
so we can become more like Christ, his glory can
(31:03):
be revealed to us.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
So part of putting out a book like this is
also you coming into the awareness that you're going to
stir up the ant bed, and you're going to stir
up the roaches are going to start coming out. It's
easy ches more than a yes, sorry, I actually corrected
it when I thought like, no, not amen, when it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Would be easy.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Speaking of persecution, it's easy just to go I'm going
to just hide forever. It's as long as I'm just
hiding and not talking and not saying anything, I'm a
not going to offend anybody and be no one is
going to find a fault in what I'm doing, and
so it's much.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Easier just to disappear.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
The opposite of that is saying I'm going to write
a book and go on some talk shows and a
bunch of podcasts and talk about the book about my
son dying in my backyard on my watch. So have
you felt that heavier this round or maybe you've expected it,
(32:11):
or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I think I have expected it, because it seems to
be ever every time we go on socials and talk
about River or your book or anything that we're doing,
an anniversary or something people come out of the would
work again, and it gets all stirred back up again,
and people start saying very harsh, negative things. And that
wasn't my goal in writing this book was I'm going
to go into the world and go on all these
(32:34):
talk shows. My goal in writing this book was I
read so many books when I was grieving that helped me,
that gave me hope, that gave me light. I wanted
our book, this book to be one of those things
that would help somebody. I craved stories of other people
who had gone through suffering and they were still standing
and not only standing, but praising God through it. And
I wanted to be one of those tiny stories that
(32:55):
hopefully could be a light for someone else. But when
you do that, you have people that come out and
say really awful things about what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Do you feel it stronger it being this being your
book or did you feel it stronger with the first
I think it was both.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It's been the same for both that we are profiting
off of our son's death and how despicable of a
human we are to make money on our son dying. Yeah,
no amount of money it is worth obviously the life
of our child, like you and I would give anything
to have our son back, you know. But now with
(33:33):
new eyes and with these blessings, and you know we
have Maverick and all that, we could never go back.
Just with our faith in Christ, we could never go back.
But no amount of money is worth that. And people
said that about the children's book that we wrote, and
I'm not making anything on that. That's for the that's
the donations to the River Kelly Fund. We're not making money.
It's not it's to help someone else for the glory
(33:53):
of God. It is to point people to Christ, because
that is where our only hope is found. That is
where our only light is found. That's the only reason
we're still standing today is that we have saving faith
in Christ, and He has led us through and carried
us through our darkest times. And we want to do
that for somebody else. But I can't be mad at
those people because they just don't know. They're just lost
and they're they're far from the Lord. And I've come
(34:16):
to realize I can't let my feelings get hurt about
that anymore. I have to pray for them. Yeah, the
Bible says pray for those who persecute. You pray for
your enemies, and I pray that the Lord would open
their eyes, and I pray that they never have to
go through anything like this, but if they do, I
pray that they're led to the Lord.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
This is such a tool for you because you'll be
able to tell people from now on for the rest
of your life on Earth. When someone comes to you
and says they're suffering or they have something going on forever,
you could say, will you read Girl on the Bathroom
Floor and that's my backstory, and then we could talk.
(34:52):
And I've done that countless times with Like a River,
and I have on Apple you could go to books
the books app, and you could gift a audiobook. So
I've done this so many times. I said, what's your email?
Like somebody's like talking to me. I said, what's your email?
(35:12):
They tell me their email. I go to Apple Books,
I'll buy Like a River audio, gift it on their
email and I'll say, hey, check your inbox, I send
you something. All you do is press play. So then
I talked to the publisher HarperCollins recently when I was
with Amber, and I was like, yeah, you know, because
we're talking about how so many people love audiobooks.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I was like, yeah, I've bought Like a River so
many times.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Or they said Like a River sells really well on audio,
and I said it might because of me, because I
buy it all the time. And they said, you know,
we can give you a code. I was like, oh, man,
oh that sounds great. There is a limited amount. I
can't just give out infinite amounts of code, but there's
that they've maybe twenty five or so will give me
(35:58):
to give.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Away, like, which is helpful, awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
What any other negative comments besides you're making money on
the death of your child.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I mean, I see just stuff about how how awful
of parents that we are, that it's our fault, everything's
our fault. We murdered our son, we drowned our son,
that our other children should be taken away, that we
should be in jail, just all the same stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
When when I saw and I'm kind of like you, like,
I'm so used to it. It's been so many years now,
it's been we're almost seven years in of hearing those
kind of things still makes.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
My mom so angry. Tell her not to respond, do
not engage.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, well, what I realized every once in a while
if you dig into one of those people. And I
don't recommend doing that, but I do remember a specific
guy who was like calling me a murderer, awful parent.
I should be locked up in jail. Should they should
take my kids away? You know that I was probably drunk,
(37:03):
you know, crazy, He was like going off, and I
when I went to d m him and try to
just come in with kindness and come to find out,
after I pulled back some layers, his wife had just
died of cancer, and and I think he his reaction was,
(37:27):
my wife was an incredible woman and she did this
and that, Like she worked at a daycare and everyone
in town was, you know, needed her and relied on her.
And now she's gone and her memory's gone. And now
your son gets gets on the news and he did
nothing and you did nothing. Why why doesn't my wife's story?
(37:51):
Like that was the source of the anger, was why
doesn't my wife wasn't her story told worldwide? What is
this idiot celebrity guy get his son that was just
a freak accident because he's negligent? What is that what
Fox News talks about? And I was like, I'm so sorry, man,
(38:15):
I didn't know your wife, but she sounds like an
amazing woman.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I'm so sorry, and it's like ended it there.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, I've done that a few times. I don't engage often,
but when I do, it's the same thing. They just
want to be heard. They want their story to be heard.
And when you when I did come at them with
kindness and love, it disarmed them and they eventually would
end up apologizing.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yeah, they came back and they say, I'm so sorry
about River. I was out of line with the things
I said.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It just comes from a place of hurt. Yeah, I
know that.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Now. What a blessing that the interaction that you had
with that woman that because that's interactions that we talk
about potentially having one day on the other side of Cory. Yeah,
And I wonder sometimes when things like that happen, if
(39:09):
if God isn't just going Yeah, I think she might
need it now and pull it out of eternity and
put it in to now.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah. Do you have a favorite part of the book.
I've named my few parts.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Favorite part that's difficult, obviously. I think I would have
to say the Offense. The chapter called the Offense because
it's when like I've met you where you are, and
I've told you all my story. But then I get
to the part where, okay, kind of like that moment
(39:50):
that the Lord did for me, like enough, and I
tell you really hard truths that you need to know.
And I feel like I needed to know these, and
so as your sister in Christ, if you're reading this book,
I need to tell you what the Bible says, you
need to look to the Lord. And so it was
a chapter that might offend some people, but it's truth
that I came to know and trust and believe, and
I feel like it would help them. So that's where
(40:11):
I want them to be. I want to meet them
where they are, but I don't want them to stay stuck.
I want them to get up off the floor and
move forward. I think I really loved writing the offense.
Not that I wanted to offend you, but it might
it might. Thanks for being on, Thanks for having me,
Thanks for giving me the book title and encouraging.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You don't have to tell people that it's.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I don't have to. I want to. I'm so thankful.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, Growling about Them Floor available right now anywhere books
are sold. Follow Amber Emily Smith on all socials and
I'm excited to see what the Lord is going to
do with your story that he wrote.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah. Amen, see you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Thank you so much for hanging out with me on
this episode of the granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate you
being here. If you're listing right now, go ahead and
rate today's podcast. It helps more folks find the show.
And if you're tuning in on the iHeartRadio app, you
could actually set this podcast as one of your presets,
which is cool that way. I'm just one tap away.
If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit like
and subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes. And
(41:15):
if you've got a question you want answered right here
on the show, just email me podcast at grangersmith dot com.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I'd love to hear from you. Thanks again for being here.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Ye
All right, special episode today, and this is impactful stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
In fact, I.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Broke down a little bit on here, but a tough subject.
And part of it is this, when you go through
extreme loss, you will hear people that are searching and
reaching and stabbing, sometimes out of anger, and so you'll
hear things like you're profiting on your son's death. Are
(00:30):
we let's unpack it? Well, this is a special conversation.
Been wanting to have this for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Amber.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
My wife is here with the ant man and we're
discussing a brand new book that came out today, The
Girl on the Bathroom Floor. And you have been working
on this book, Babe, When do you think you first started.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
This closet of two years ago?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Two years People have compared it to like an album
making an album, and I'm like, no, it actually takes
a lot longer. The process of a book is much
longer and tedious than an album. Two years ago you
wrote the first part of it is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That that was my first contact. Kyle, your editor put
me in contact with my acquisition's editor, Lisa Joe over
at w and we kind of began the process of
talking about the book and maybe starting it.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
What was the first thing you wrote for it.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Oh, it's a good question, because she wanted me to
chapter dump and just write a like open up ten
Microsoft Waard documents and start writing things. Probably the pool,
probably what happened when I first heard those words river
and pool. I think I started with that story.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So this has been something I've pushed you for doing
for a while, because you know, I felt like your
story is unique enough from separate from like a river,
that it would actually compliment like a river or stand
on its own. And so then I read it several
months ago when you finished the first draft, and I
(02:20):
was like confirmed on I mean, a lot of it
was new to me. I lived through this book, but
a lot of it was new to me. Like I
didn't know I was on tour. I didn't know that
that happened. I didn't know the doughnut, the donut shop thing.
I didn't know all that. A lot of the special
times you had with RIV, I didn't know. So we
(02:45):
lost our son in twenty nineteen, and I wrote a
book called Like a River, a memoir for it, and
then you wrote now this the Girl in the Bathroom Floor.
Can you tell me about the title.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, it came from you. I had wrestled with a
bunch of different titles and topics, and everything that I
had said, you said was too boring. It sounded like
a Bible study. You're like, no, that's not it, No,
that's not Give me an example from Grief to Glory. Yeah,
it was one of them, and you were like, no,
it sounds too much like a Bible study. And that's
(03:20):
something that if somebody is not wanting to go into
Glory or the Lord, they're just going to walk right
past that book and not pick it up. Yeah, it's
like you want the title to grab somebody. You want
it to be exactly where you were. You want it
to be raw and real. And you were the girl
on the bathroom floor. And when we heard it, we
were like whoa. And everyone that has heard it since
then was just like, Wow, that's the perfect title. That's
(03:41):
where so many women and men go to grieve or
to lament, or to hide.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You have not read it at man, obviously you haven't.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
No, So I read like a river, and then after
I would read chapters, I would tell my wife Ashley
about what I just read and she's now doing, and
then she ultimately she read it after I was finished.
And now we're doing the opposite. She's reading this one
and telling me about what she read, and then I'll
(04:12):
read it after she's finished.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
What does she said? What is Ashley said? If she
said any of the details yet?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Yes? Some, Yeah, she's she shared some and she what's
interesting is the very first thing she said to me
was what you said to me? And that was this
book is very conversational. Yeah, it's written very conversationd like,
because she'll bounce from from the pool to a Bible
(04:42):
study or a pool to going out to eat or something.
It's just back and forth. But it's like a conversation
would be, but much more structured. You can follow along,
you don't get lost. And that's one thing that Granger said.
I said, how is it? And he said, uh, it's
very it's very conversational and it's I I didn't tell
her about that, and she got the same synopsis from it. Yeah,
(05:04):
but she's a lot of things that I mean, we're
close that we still didn't know, you know, yeah, And
I think that that's the same. I mean I didn't
know of course, And it was like that with with
like a River as well, and it's it's interesting what
a book like this can do, not just for you personally,
(05:25):
I assume amber, but also for those that you you
interact with, you know, daily, weekly, monthly, you know in
your life, of what how it will draw those in
and help put pieces together that that we don't often
see about each other.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah. I think when the editor told me to write
the book, and I've said this other places, she said,
I want you to be the u ees to you
that you can be. I think when people think about
writing a book, and I even thought, this is like
I need to be more academic, I need to sound better,
and she said, I just want you to be yourself.
People already know your story, they already know your voice
through a rise. Don't change how you're talking to people.
(06:03):
And so that's kind of the feedback that I've gotten.
I think you said, it's like you're just like I'm
getting text messages from you and you're just talking to me.
And so I'm thankful that that's what it feels like
for people, is that I'm right there with you in
the room.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So this is as we speak today. This is literally
released day as we record this, and I've been kind
of prepping you like, hey, you know last even last night,
were like, hey, just in one more hour, the audiobook
will be live at ten or eleven pm Central Time.
The audiobook was live last night, and I just you're like, yeah, yeah,
(06:42):
my work is done. But I was prepping you because
people will hear your story this week and they will
look at you differently, they'll think of you differently. And
I mean the book is could I read some of it?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I mean it starts in chapter one.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Buckle up.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's like a buckle up type thing, like chapter one.
This is the first this is the first few lines.
I sifted through clots of deep red blood, searching for
anything that would resemble the baby I was miscarrying.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
For hours.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I had lain sweating on the towel covered cement floor
of our bug infested barn in the August heat of Texas,
who had been living in an RV while our home
was being built, and we had no plumbing in the
fifth wheel, so my only place to go was the
one barn bathroom that we all shared. The only position
(07:43):
I can get comfortable in was on my hands and knees,
curled in a ball. The pain was more intense than
anything i'd ever felt, and I had transitioned from crying
to praying to oddly sleeping in between muscle contractions. That's
the first few sentences.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, and that came because I think I was going
to start at the pool. And when I talked to
you and Esther at that lunch that day, you said
you should start with the miscarriage. Yeah, because I was
completely in a different spot spiritually, and so that was
a good place to start and then go into the
story and then come back to the miscarriage in the middle.
But yeah, they said, a lot of the people at
the publishing company said when they first read that first sentence,
(08:22):
it was like, WHOA, you're not expecting Yeah, that graphic.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, and you're right, I was involved in that idea
of like you should start with the miscarriage. But this
is an example of like, during this time I was
keeping the kids away from you. The kids knew you
were pregnant, and we didn't tell them about the miscarriage.
We just didn't want to break their heart. And so
but London was so intuitive, at what eight years old
(08:51):
or so, She's like, Mommy, everything okay, and You're like,
I'm just really tired.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, not feeling good.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Not feeling good.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Literally you'd been there in there for hours in the bathroom.
Oh man, But there are other things and and where
where we when I was just talking about oh, I
was recording The Smiths and I I was telling you
probably my favorite part of the.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Book is that it was in the Idol. It is
in the Idol.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, I turned right to it on the Smiths.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And now I'm not going to turn to it on
the podcast here.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is so this part is crazy, And so people
that would want that would be looking for this book.
I mean, anyone could read this book. It's certainly relevant
to anyone that walks on planet Earth.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, it's not just about child loss. It's a lot
of different griefs and just basically like how your life
doesn't go like you thought it was going to go.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Like you if you think you're a candidate for someone
who their life may not go as you think it
should go. If that's you, if you're a candidate for that,
then this book would be good for you. But similar
to what I told people with like a River, because
sometimes people are like I don't want to read it.
I already know what happened. I don't want to relive that.
(10:18):
It's like, no, no, no, no, there's hope. I'm not
going to leave you without hope. In fact, ant Man
and I say that all the time on this podcast
when we talk about Mark of the Beast or End
the Times, We're like, we don't want to ever leave
you on this podcast without hope. And that's what this
book does. But there's a turning point in here, and
it's a chapter called the Idol. And this might be
(10:38):
shocking to some people, but I remember you talking about this,
but I but when I read the book it then
it really hit me.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then when I held.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Actually this hard copy I read a few weeks ago
on an airplane on one leg to South Gards, North Carolina.
I read half of it. On the back from South Carolina, Austin,
I read the second half, I was just like, couldn't stop.
I was even in the terminal walking to the terminal
holding it. But there's a section in here that says
(11:12):
you wrote one of the most shattering realizations in my
grief was about to unfold. And once again it happened
on my bathroom floor as I sat there crying utterly
consumed by sorrow. And this is page one point sixteen.
There is a lot of hard stuff that happens in
a hundred pages. Like you are seeking the Lord. You're crying,
(11:35):
You're grieving. The miscarriage happens, loss of riv happens. There's
just pain. So here we are, they say. As I
sat there crying, utterly consumed by sorrow, the Lord interrupted
my pain with three words that changed everything. They weren't audible,
but I felt every word crushing my spirit like a
(11:56):
carefully a careful heart surgeon, cutting through the fog of
my despair with piercing clarity.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Enough seek Me.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
These weren't my own thoughts, and as crazy as it
may sound, they carried a weight that I can't fully explain.
In that moment, God revealed an uncomfortable truth. I had
made River an idol in my life. My pain, my
longing for him, my constant thoughts of him. They had
begun to eclipse the one who is the source of
all comfort and peace. Gently, but firmly, the Lord was
(12:30):
calling me to lift my eyes from my sadness and
refocus them on him. Enough seek Me. It was a conviction,
a call, and a challenge all at once. God was
calling me to get up to a rise off the
bathroom floor, both physically and spiritually. I felt in that
moment that everyone is suffering something. I felt that I
(12:53):
felt the spirit saying to me, enough, seek me, give
me the glory that belongs to.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Me alone, like whoa yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And when you know, when I read that, and when
I read certain things like this, I often think that
sounds like my God.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
How did it feel to have that clarity, have that moment?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
It was the most powerful moment in my healing journey.
Was and you know, and you hear, you can hear
that and think, well, that sounds mean? Why would God?
You know, you're crying over your son, who wouldn't cry?
But it wasn't mean. It was firm and loving. And
I told Greendeer it was like a father like lifting
his daughter's face, like enough, look at me. And I
(13:39):
realized that I had been seeking the gift I had
been seeking. I long to be with Rivers so much.
I was so sad, But I was not looking to
the Lord. I mean I was in a sense, but
not really. I hadn't read my Bible. I was reading devotions.
I was getting little pieces, but I wasn't looking to
my savior. I was stuck in my sadness and in
my sorrow. And that was the moment that the Lord
called me to arise. That's kind at the beginning of
(14:00):
how Arise with the Amberg got started, And it was
the beginning of us really looking to the scriptures and
seeking who God truly was. Who is this God that
is telling me enough? Look at me?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Well, it's something I think that you learn as a
as a parent. Is that, like you said, it was
like a father lifting up his daughter's face. Is that
only as a parent can you go You can only
see what you're currently in. Yes, and I can see everything.
So I'm gonna let you do this for a minute
so you can feel it and then it's over. It's done.
(14:33):
It's enough.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah. And it's encouraging and challenging. And you know GRANGERD
does that with our kids. Yeah, it's like it's a push.
It's like you can do this.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
The encouragement.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I think there was something you said that's really
important because it wasn't that you weren't seeking him at all.
And so I don't want people to hear this and
go I am thinking God, I am.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And it's not that you weren't. It's that you weren't.
You were seeking him to comfort you for River.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I wasn't seeking him for who he was and not.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
For who he was. That's there's a big difference. And
you know, God allows us to seek him for comfort
for other things to a point, because that's how it begins.
You know a lot of that, that's kindergarten theology. It
starts there but to but eventually he says, stop, it's
time to graduate kindergarten. Look to me. And yeah, So
(15:30):
you and I talked about on the on the Smiths
and we talked about the you know, the misconceptions of
the narcissistic God. Yeah, you know in this instance, like
seek me, I want to be more important than River.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's not, it's not the point of this. It was.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Seek the gift, giver over the gift, and the joy
that you have will then eclipse the grief to hold you.
So that's a selfless desire of the Lord to want
you to seek him. It was from my good, it
was for your good. Yeah, because he doesn't need anything.
He doesn't he doesn't need you to seek him to
(16:07):
make him feel better about himself. He needs you to
seek him so that it's so that you could finally
be healed because.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Of who he is.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That that is a that's a massive understanding that you
had to go through. And when I read that, I
mean not like I said, I remember you talking about it.
When I read it, I was like, whoa man I've
I've also and I know ant man has two felt
moments where the Lord's like, Okay, yep, enough, yep.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I mean he does it in scripture, he does it
all right, let's go.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
So, you know, when I started this podcast, it seemed
like I had a lot to figure out on my own,
you know, the scripts, the setups, the filming, the schedule,
the logos, everything was overwhelming, and I just wanted to.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Take care of the creative side of it.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You know, whenever you're starting off something new, it seems
like your to do list just keeps growing every day
with new task, and the list that could just begin
to overrun your life. Finding the right tool that not
only helps you out but simplifies everything could be such
a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool
is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of companies,
(17:14):
including EEE Apparel and many many other household names. If
you want to get started with your design studio, they
got hundreds of ready to use templates. They help you
build beautiful online stores to match your brand style. You
could accelerate your content creation. It's packed with helpful AI
tools that help product descriptions and page headlines and even
(17:35):
enhance your product photography. Shopify does all this. You can
get the word out like you get this huge marketing
team behind you. You can create email and social media
campaigns wherever your customers are, wherever they're scrolling or strolling.
Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class
expertise and everything from managing inventory, to international shipping, to
(17:55):
processing returns and all that kind of stuff. If you
are ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your
big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign
up for your one dollar per month trial and start
selling today at shopify dot com slash granger. Go to
shopify dot com slash granger shopify dot com slash granger.
(18:16):
If you're trying to get a gift for someone that
you think has everything, how about a special video message
from me. It's easy to do go to cameo dot
com slash granger Smith and you put in the prompt
what you want me to say. I get that message
on my phone. I'll say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever
personalized message you want me to say to whoever you
want me to say it to. I send it to
you and you give it to them. It's pretty cool.
(18:38):
Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith. So the
next part that I brought.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Up before is.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Is that the Recipient. Yeah, that's another It's a chapter
called the Recipient. And I shouldn't like have my own
copy of this so I could like mark it up.
I actually think I did mark up one of them.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But this part is.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Was crushing to me. This is one of these parts.
One of the things I didn't know you We donated
rivers organs, specifically two kidneys, right, and.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I was so out of this process.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
It was your idea to donate, you know, by God's grace,
and it was your idea to move forward with all
the things, including you wrote letters to the two recipients.
You found out that you found out and you said
you were shocked to see that the kidneys of River
(19:53):
went to a forty nine year old woman and a
fifty three year old man.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I thought for sure they would have gone to children
because it was so tiny.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
So once again here's us trying to decide what God's
going to do to my box. Oh it'll be a kid,
you know that. And and we'll return to that family,
the child, the little boy that they thought they were
going to lose. Well, that's not what happened. So you
get that, You get the notice that if this is
a forty nine year old woman gets one and a
fifty year old man, fifty three year old then gets
(20:24):
the other. He wrote them letters telling them all about
river right, and the whole story. His beautiful red hair,
you say, his deep brown eyes, the way that his
face would light up when he saw a dinosaur or
a tractor, How he loved being outside and digging in
the dirt.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
He was so full of joy in life.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You told him about the difficult decision we made and
how we prayed over it, and I told him that
we had been praying for them, and that our hope
was that they were be joyful and healthy and thriving.
And then you left the door open, and that let
them know that you'd love to meet him one day
and then nothing.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Think it was four months.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
For four months, you received one card in the mail.
It was the recipient of Rivers Right Kidney and the
card read, my name is Elda. I'm forty nine years old, married,
have one son. Since I was fourteen, I have suffered
a painful illness called polypsychic psychicistic palsystic kidney disease. Thanks
(21:27):
to you, I have a second chance at life. Words
can'tnot describe how thankful I am, my family and I
will be forever in your debt. I'm so grateful for
the new life you and your family have given me.
I wish you and your family along and prosperous life. Sincerely, Elda.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
It's like that's it, I know, and it was. It
fit into a greeting card, and I think I wanted
in my selfishness, I wanted like pages of gratitude. But
then you know, I had to be reminded that was
probably really hard for her to write once she was
Spanish speaking too. How do you ever say thank you
(22:02):
for that? For you know, she knew we lost our son,
and I think I was just expecting something that you
can't expect in that moment, so I write in the book,
don't have expectations and understand what they're going through too.
That's got to be really hard for them, And I'm
so grateful. She even responded, so.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, but you said your tears came, your emotions hit sadness,
maybe even a little selfish sadness. You didn't know what
you were expecting. But somehow you wanted more from her.
You wanted more from that letter. You craved a deeper connection,
something that would ease the ache in your heart. But
you sat there and you realized that it must have
(22:40):
taken a lot for Elder to write it. So then
you met. This is the part I didn't know. So
as I read these words, like you know, these are
these are just new. It was a new story to me.
Once again, I knew that you did it, but I
didn't know the details. I'll try to read it again.
Oh I I did on the Smiths, but you say
page two to one. We finally met on November eleventh,
(23:04):
twenty twenty two. I chose a local coffee shop and
we found a quiet table in the back. Maverick, who
was just over a year at the time, came with
me and Elder brought her sister to help translate because
she mostly spoke Spanish. She was absolutely precious, standing just
over four feet tall, with short, highlighted brown hair and
warm brown eyes behind her glasses. She wore a lovely
(23:25):
floral paisley top with black pants and a cozy black sweater.
As we sipped our drinks, she shared her story that
she had been on dialysis for three long years before
receiving River's kidney, tethered to a machine for eight to
ten hours every single day. Wow, three years, You're right
for Rivers. Entire lifetime, she had been fighting this battle,
(23:49):
hooked to a machine, waiting, praying, hoping, longing for healing.
It's interesting you think back to enough seek me. It
struck me how we didn't always see what the Lord
is doing. We don't always see what the Lord is doing.
(24:10):
How often she must have wondered, do you see me?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Why are you allowing me to suffer like this? And
yet in his kindness I can almost hear him whispering,
Hold on, child, I'm preparing something for you. I'm raising
up a little boy, and man, you want to read
this very I'm raising up a little boy who will
(24:40):
help heal you just hold on and then and then
the part that gets me is the next part. The
part that really gets me is the next part. You say,
I have a picture of her, so he's here on
(25:01):
the smith for some reason. You say, I have a
picture for holding Maverick that day, And it makes me
emotional every time I look at it, because this is
the closest Maverick has ever been to a piece of
his big brother, Eldon Maverick. Two blessings that came out
of the breaking of my heart, two lives I will
(25:22):
cherish forever. That's beautiful. Your words are so beautiful and
so powerful for people to see. The circle of sovereignty
is God. We don't often see. I would say it
(25:44):
might even be rare that we would see a breaking
of a heart, the Lord breaking a heart and then
redeeming it, for that's visibly seen by us. Sometimes he
does it for reasons that we don't know, and other
times he lets he lets you see a little bit
of it. I mean, there's a what does Piper say,
(26:06):
There's ten thousand things God is doing at all.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Times in your life, and you're aware of about three
of them.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You're aware of about three of them, and.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
There's another's Yeah, there's a Scottish pastor, Samuel Rutherford, and
he says, God is I'm probably I'm paraphrasing. God is
too skilled and wise as a physician to hurt you
for nothing. He can use your very wounds to heal you.
And like you said, oftentimes we don't we won't see
all of the intertwining lives that that and all the
(26:32):
things that God is doing. But it's just a realization
it's not about me, it's not about my suffering. It's
not just about me and River like now she gets
to have life and that she's just one of the
blessings from the breaking. So many other domino effects have
happened from the loss of our son, and we know
it's not River that did it. It's not us in
anything that we have done. It's all in what God
(26:53):
is doing. So it really just took a shift in
my perspective of not looking at the earthly things, the
things that are passing away, and really turning my eyes
to the eternal. And that took work and it was hard. Yeah,
But when you can see that there's freedom in that,
and there's peace in that, and there's hope in that
and there's joy in that.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, you said blessing in the breaking. I've heard you
say that before. It's that's good.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That's another one of the titles I would have rejected, though,
because the girl in the bathroom floor is better.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, I think about Jesus. I mean, the greatest blessing
of our lives came in the breaking of his body
or us.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, that's the pinnacle. The pinnacle of suffering is in
the and the beauty from suffering is is that? You
know we were talking yesterday. I think well, I think
it was yesterday about the Book of Acts and the
story of Paul. I'll go there right now. I think
(27:48):
it's Acts nine. But the story of Saul to Paul,
it's he is converted by the Lord from a persecutor
of the church, a murderer of the church, a murderer
of Christians. And then he's radically on the road to
Damascus transformed. And he is blinded by the Lord Jesus
(28:14):
on the road to Damascus, and he hears a voice
saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
And he says, who are you?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Rise and enter the city, and you will be told
what you are to do. Okay, So other men fell
to the ground. They didn't know. Everyone's trying to figure
out what's going on. He goes to Damascus in obedience
to what Jesus said, and then verse ten. Now there
(28:43):
was a disciple in Damascus named Anonius. The Lord said
to him in a vision. Anonius, he said, here, I
am Lord. And he said to him, rise and go
to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas,
look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold,
he is praying, and he is seen a vision of
a man named Anonius. And lay his and come in
(29:05):
and lay his hands on him, so that he might
regain his sight. But Anonius, he knows, he knows about
this guy. He knows about this ceasis. Lord, I have
heard from many about this man, how much evil he
has done to your saints at Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
And here he has.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Authority from the chief priest to bind all who call
in your name. But here it is, but the Lord
said to him, go, for he has a chosen instrument
of mine to carry out my name before the gentiles
and the kings of the children of Israel, for I
will show him how much he must suffer for this
sake of my name. From the moment Saul Paul was
(29:48):
converted and called into the ministry of taking the message
of the Gospel to the Gentiles. He was also called
into suffering for the aim of Christ. Do we think
we would be any different as Christians, that we would
somehow make it through, make it through a life of
(30:12):
no suffering.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Not if we're to be like Jesus. No, he suffered,
we are to suffer with him. It's a blessing to
be called suffer with him. Yeah, it's hard to come
to the realization too.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So does that just mean that you are persecuted as
a Christian and maybe even martyred or killed or mocked
or does that mean other things too?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I think that's one of the ways, But I think
it includes all types of suffering. Yeah, that's fallen world.
We wouldn't have a need of a savior if none
of us have, if none of us suffered, we wouldn't
have a need for the Lord, if none of us
went through hard seasons of pain. It's for our sanctification
so we can become more like Christ, his glory can
(31:03):
be revealed to us.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
So part of putting out a book like this is
also you coming into the awareness that you're going to
stir up the ant bed, and you're going to stir
up the roaches are going to start coming out. It's
easy ches more than a yes, sorry, I actually corrected
it when I thought like, no, not amen, when it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Would be easy.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Speaking of persecution, it's easy just to go I'm going
to just hide forever. It's as long as I'm just
hiding and not talking and not saying anything, I'm a
not going to offend anybody and be no one is
going to find a fault in what I'm doing, and
so it's much.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Easier just to disappear.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
The opposite of that is saying I'm going to write
a book and go on some talk shows and a
bunch of podcasts and talk about the book about my
son dying in my backyard on my watch. So have
you felt that heavier this round or maybe you've expected it,
(32:11):
or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I think I have expected it, because it seems to
be ever every time we go on socials and talk
about River or your book or anything that we're doing,
an anniversary or something people come out of the would
work again, and it gets all stirred back up again,
and people start saying very harsh, negative things. And that
wasn't my goal in writing this book was I'm going
to go into the world and go on all these
(32:34):
talk shows. My goal in writing this book was I
read so many books when I was grieving that helped me,
that gave me hope, that gave me light. I wanted
our book, this book to be one of those things
that would help somebody. I craved stories of other people
who had gone through suffering and they were still standing
and not only standing, but praising God through it. And
I wanted to be one of those tiny stories that
(32:55):
hopefully could be a light for someone else. But when
you do that, you have people that come out and
say really awful things about what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Do you feel it stronger it being this being your
book or did you feel it stronger with the first
I think it was both.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It's been the same for both that we are profiting
off of our son's death and how despicable of a
human we are to make money on our son dying. Yeah,
no amount of money it is worth obviously the life
of our child, like you and I would give anything
to have our son back, you know. But now with
(33:33):
new eyes and with these blessings, and you know we
have Maverick and all that, we could never go back.
Just with our faith in Christ, we could never go back.
But no amount of money is worth that. And people
said that about the children's book that we wrote, and
I'm not making anything on that. That's for the that's
the donations to the River Kelly Fund. We're not making money.
It's not it's to help someone else for the glory
(33:53):
of God. It is to point people to Christ, because
that is where our only hope is found. That is
where our only light is found. That's the only reason
we're still standing today is that we have saving faith
in Christ, and He has led us through and carried
us through our darkest times. And we want to do
that for somebody else. But I can't be mad at
those people because they just don't know. They're just lost
and they're they're far from the Lord. And I've come
(34:16):
to realize I can't let my feelings get hurt about
that anymore. I have to pray for them. Yeah, the
Bible says pray for those who persecute. You pray for
your enemies, and I pray that the Lord would open
their eyes, and I pray that they never have to
go through anything like this, but if they do, I
pray that they're led to the Lord.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
This is such a tool for you because you'll be
able to tell people from now on for the rest
of your life on Earth. When someone comes to you
and says they're suffering or they have something going on forever,
you could say, will you read Girl on the Bathroom
Floor and that's my backstory, and then we could talk.
(34:52):
And I've done that countless times with Like a River,
and I have on Apple you could go to books
the books app, and you could gift a audiobook. So
I've done this so many times. I said, what's your email?
Like somebody's like talking to me. I said, what's your email?
(35:12):
They tell me their email. I go to Apple Books,
I'll buy Like a River audio, gift it on their
email and I'll say, hey, check your inbox, I send
you something. All you do is press play. So then
I talked to the publisher HarperCollins recently when I was
with Amber, and I was like, yeah, you know, because
we're talking about how so many people love audiobooks.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I was like, yeah, I've bought Like a River so
many times.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Or they said Like a River sells really well on audio,
and I said it might because of me, because I
buy it all the time. And they said, you know,
we can give you a code. I was like, oh, man,
oh that sounds great. There is a limited amount. I
can't just give out infinite amounts of code, but there's
that they've maybe twenty five or so will give me
(35:58):
to give.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Away, like, which is helpful, awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
What any other negative comments besides you're making money on
the death of your child.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I mean, I see just stuff about how how awful
of parents that we are, that it's our fault, everything's
our fault. We murdered our son, we drowned our son,
that our other children should be taken away, that we
should be in jail, just all the same stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
When when I saw and I'm kind of like you, like,
I'm so used to it. It's been so many years now,
it's been we're almost seven years in of hearing those
kind of things still makes.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
My mom so angry. Tell her not to respond, do
not engage.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, well, what I realized every once in a while
if you dig into one of those people. And I
don't recommend doing that, but I do remember a specific
guy who was like calling me a murderer, awful parent.
I should be locked up in jail. Should they should
take my kids away? You know that I was probably drunk,
(37:03):
you know, crazy, He was like going off, and I
when I went to d m him and try to
just come in with kindness and come to find out,
after I pulled back some layers, his wife had just
died of cancer, and and I think he his reaction was,
(37:27):
my wife was an incredible woman and she did this
and that, Like she worked at a daycare and everyone
in town was, you know, needed her and relied on her.
And now she's gone and her memory's gone. And now
your son gets gets on the news and he did
nothing and you did nothing. Why why doesn't my wife's story?
(37:51):
Like that was the source of the anger, was why
doesn't my wife wasn't her story told worldwide? What is
this idiot celebrity guy get his son that was just
a freak accident because he's negligent? What is that what
Fox News talks about? And I was like, I'm so sorry, man,
(38:15):
I didn't know your wife, but she sounds like an
amazing woman.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I'm so sorry, and it's like ended it there.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, I've done that a few times. I don't engage often,
but when I do, it's the same thing. They just
want to be heard. They want their story to be heard.
And when you when I did come at them with
kindness and love, it disarmed them and they eventually would
end up apologizing.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yeah, they came back and they say, I'm so sorry
about River. I was out of line with the things
I said.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
It just comes from a place of hurt. Yeah, I
know that.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Now. What a blessing that the interaction that you had
with that woman that because that's interactions that we talk
about potentially having one day on the other side of Cory. Yeah,
And I wonder sometimes when things like that happen, if
(39:09):
if God isn't just going Yeah, I think she might
need it now and pull it out of eternity and
put it in to now.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah. Do you have a favorite part of the book.
I've named my few parts.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Favorite part that's difficult, obviously. I think I would have
to say the Offense. The chapter called the Offense because
it's when like I've met you where you are, and
I've told you all my story. But then I get
to the part where, okay, kind of like that moment
(39:50):
that the Lord did for me, like enough, and I
tell you really hard truths that you need to know.
And I feel like I needed to know these, and
so as your sister in Christ, if you're reading this book,
I need to tell you what the Bible says, you
need to look to the Lord. And so it was
a chapter that might offend some people, but it's truth
that I came to know and trust and believe, and
I feel like it would help them. So that's where
(40:11):
I want them to be. I want to meet them
where they are, but I don't want them to stay stuck.
I want them to get up off the floor and
move forward. I think I really loved writing the offense.
Not that I wanted to offend you, but it might
it might. Thanks for being on, Thanks for having me,
Thanks for giving me the book title and encouraging.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You don't have to tell people that it's.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I don't have to. I want to. I'm so thankful.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, Growling about Them Floor available right now anywhere books
are sold. Follow Amber Emily Smith on all socials and
I'm excited to see what the Lord is going to
do with your story that he wrote.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah. Amen, see you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Thank you so much for hanging out with me on
this episode of the granger Smith Podcast. I appreciate you
being here. If you're listing right now, go ahead and
rate today's podcast. It helps more folks find the show.
And if you're tuning in on the iHeartRadio app, you
could actually set this podcast as one of your presets,
which is cool that way. I'm just one tap away.
If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit like
and subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes. And
(41:15):
if you've got a question you want answered right here
on the show, just email me podcast at grangersmith dot com.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I'd love to hear from you. Thanks again for being here.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Ye
Host
Granger Smith
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.