Meeting God on the Bathroom Floor - Amber Smith on Faith, Hope, and Life After Loss
Episode Notes
Where do you turn when heartache threatens to take over your whole life?
This week, Dr Alison is joined by Amber Smith to talk about her journey from crushing grief to quiet, hard-won hope. Many of you know part of her story: the unthinkable loss of her three-year-old son, River, in 2019.
Together, they talk about the raw reality of grief—how faith can be both anchor and wrestle, how a marriage can survive when each person’s pain looks different, and why welcoming joy again is not a betrayal of what you’ve lost.
If you’ve ever faced heartbreak or walked alongside someone in deep pain, this conversation will meet you right where you are - whether you’re on your own bathroom floor or standing beside someone who is.
In this episode, we explore:
- Amber’s story of losing her son, River, and the spiritual transformation that followed
- The “before and after” shift that tragedy brings to faith and identity
- How she and her husband, Granger Smith, fought for their marriage
- Why grief can quietly become an idol
- How holding space for grief can bring a family closer
This episode blends honesty, tenderness, and practical wisdom, exploring what it means to choose life and love while discovering God’s presence in moments when hope feels distant.
📥 Grab your 3 free Boundaries For Your Soul resources here
📥 Download Alison’s free printable with the five boundary tools when you sign up for her weekly email.
📚 Find Amber’s Book here: The Girl on the Bathroom Floor by Amber Smith
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 76: Finding the Faith & Strength to Move Forward after Loss & Heartache With Granger Smith
Episode 133: From Feeling Numb to Meaning-Making — Navigating the 6 Stages of Grief
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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Music by Andy Luiten
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You. I'm so
glad you're here with me today for this incredibly powerful and vulnerable, we get really candid in this conversation with my guest, Amber Smith. Many of you know part of Amber and her husband, Granger Smith's story, the thinkable loss of their three-year -old son River back in 2019. And if you want more of that backstory from Granger's perspective, be sure to go back and listen to my earlier conversation with him. It was episode 76 and we'll link to that in the show notes.
Amber is here today to share her side of the story, which she's writing about in her brand new book. It's called The Girl on the Bathroom Floor, held together when everything is falling apart. It comes out in just a couple of weeks and it's just such a raw and unflinching look at those moments where pain, fear, and grief seem to hit the hardest. Sometimes they're behind closed doors, they're in your car hidden in your closet or in Amber's case it's on the bathroom floor and the book is also hopeful I mean amidst unspeakable loss.
Somehow, Amber was able to honor the pain while keeping her faith and her hope alive in the promise that no matter where you are, you are held by a God who grieves with you and offers you a way through suffering. In today's conversation, Amber and I talk about
- what life looked like before and after River's death and how her faith transformed in the aftermath,
- how she and Granger chose each other in the midst of the grief, and
- the very practical ways they held on to their marriage when pain looked different for each of them.
- The faith practices that anchored her and her family through their grief, and the tender, complicated joy of welcoming their son Maverick while still holding space for ongoing sorrow.
- And Amber and I also each share very personally about how it's complicated at times to honor grief within a family where each family member is processing loss in different ways and what it looks like to honor each person's journey and how holding space for different experiences of loss within a family doesn't drive you apart. It can actually bring you closer together.
Amber Smith is a Christ follower, a wife and mother of four. She hosts the Arise with Amber podcast and speaks at her local church and is the founder of the River Kelly Fund. She and Granger live with her children, London, Lincoln and Maverick on a small farm in central Texas. Amber's voice is tender, courageous, real, and she's also really practical. I think this conversation will meet you right where you are, whether you're on your own bathroom floor today or walking with someone who is, I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Amber Smith.
Alison Cook (00:29.215)
I'm just so thrilled to have you here today, had such a powerful conversation with your husband, Granger. And I hate that the circumstances of life have prompted these stories. And yet I'm so grateful that you've gifted us with the benefit of wisdom through so much suffering. wanna just for the reader's sake, I wanna start by reading.
Just for the listeners sake, I wanna start by reading a short note that you start the book with, because I just think it so beautifully sets the tone, Amber, for this book. This book, this beautiful book that you've written, The Girl on the Bathroom Floor, that is just such a powerful, honest story of suffering and of hope. Here's what you write. This is a book.
about hope, a book about transformation even in the midst of unimaginable suffering. It's the story about discovering not just who I was, but who God created me to be. It's a story about searching for who God is and where he is in our pain. This is a book about a girl who was, about a girl who died when her son died, and about a girl who raised to new life in Christ.
You have lived this Amber and I'd love to just kind of start where you start in the book you open it on the bathroom floor in a moment of absolute pain I think it was just about a year maybe 14 months after you had buried your beautiful three-year-old baby boy River He had drowned in your backyard pool with unimaginable tragedy and
In this moment where you open the book you had miscarried. Is that right? Can you take us back to that moment?
Amber (02:30.966)
Yeah, I started there. I think because that's where I was on most of my journey was the bathroom floor. And I wanted to start there because that was another deep layer of pain that I was brought to. But I was in such a different place mentally and spiritually and emotionally. And when I miscarried a year after we lost River, I fully had done deep work of grief. I fully came to the full trust and
goodness of our sovereign God and I knew that he would bring me through this pain. knew that if he had brought me through what I had gone through, the traumatic events that led up, or that happened after the death of my son, if he could lead me through that, then I knew that he would lead me through this and I knew that there was purpose in this. So I started there because we're gonna all face suffering in this life and you might suffer more than once, which was probably a lot of our case.
but that God had met me there and led me through that deep pain and I knew that he would do it again.
Alison Cook (03:32.085)
It's so powerful. It's true. mean, it's, I kind of want to talk about that next. When Rivers accident happened, it's almost as if your life split understandably into before and after, right? How do you remember the texture of those days before Rivers death? How, what were you like before his death? What was your relationship with God like and then I want to touch on how that lives in your memory with who you are now and how you understand God now.
Amber (04:09.218)
Yeah, when that night happened, by worldly standards, we were happy. I mean, my husband and I had a good marriage. We had three healthy kids. We lived on a little piece of land. My husband was a singing, songwriting, touring musician. He was selling out arenas. He had number one singles. We were joyful. We felt like by the world standards, like, this is awesome. Our life is great. But spiritually, I had just began seeking the Lord a year before we lost River.
Alison Cook (04:16.437)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (04:32.297)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amber (04:38.99)
I wasn't raised in a Christian home. I didn't grow up with that foundation. And I just felt a pull. The Lord was drawing me in a year before. I had just started going to women's conferences and reading devotionals and doing Bible studies and going to church with my kids for the first time. And that's when our tragedy happened. And I can look back now and see that God was preparing me for what I was about to go through. Like I see that year when he was planting little pieces of scripture on my heart. He was putting women in my life who would walk me through.
Alison Cook (05:00.24)
Mm-hmm.
Amber (05:08.846)
this dark time, I didn't see it then, but I see it now, that he was carefully placing those people in my life and giving me bits and pieces of his word that I was gonna have to lean on a year later. And I, you're right, it's a before and after. I was a different girl before that. I was very much living of the world. We would have called ourselves cultural Christians. We would have said that we knew Jesus, but we weren't living a a surrendered life to him. I, the girl that I was died that day.
by the pool with my son. But the girl that emerged through what God brought me through is a more beautiful version that I could have ever thought. And not saying that I'm beautiful, but what God did in my life was a beautiful resurrection. I mean, He saved me through the loss of our son, and I'm forever grateful.
Alison Cook (05:59.135)
So your story in a lot of ways, Amber mirrors Granger, right? That that cultural that we were good people, we were doing right by the world, you know, we weren't. And then this happens, but that wasn't enough to sustain you. And I see in your eyes when you talk about that death to life experience, how real it is.
Tell us a little bit about your marriage and how, I know that the statistics are not kind to couples who lose a child. There's a way in which that, understandably, right, that incredible tragedy and the way different people cope can pull a couple apart. You and Granger looked at each other in the hospital garden and you swore to each other, we will not let this terrace apart. What did that look like for you?
How did you keep that that to each other? Not just in a superficial way, right? But in a day to day when your grief is pressing in on each of you in different ways in every side, what did that look like? And I know my listeners are struggling with that in many ways. It's not just my grief, right? It's like, I also have to kind of carry my own grief, but then have to bear witness to the grief of my spouse and it's different on different days. Give us some thoughts on what that how that played out in your marriage.
Amber (07:33.911)
Yeah, I've been through a lot of divorce in my life and I mean a lot. And I just remember I either thought, okay, I'm never getting married or when I get married, that's it. It's once and that's it's till death do us part. And we made that vow to each other, to each other and before God. And we meant it. And when we went out into that garden, we made that vow. We're going to choose each other. It's going to be really hard. We don't know what this is going to look like, how we're going to go home, how we're going to be a family again, how we're going to have joy again, but we're going to fight for each other and we're going to fight for our kids.
And we did, and it was messy. It wasn't perfect. We both grieved very differently. Granger might be having a really, not a really good day, but a day where he was feeling some light and I would be really low and vice versa. And then you're dealing with your kids' grief on top of that. And it's just a mess. And it really is. And the only way that we were able to do it was truly just having grace for one another, knowing when to pull back and when to lean in, not getting angry.
Alison Cook (08:18.196)
Yeah.
Amber (08:32.79)
at the other one for how they were feeling. I wanted to look at photos and pictures of Riv every day. It made me feel so close to him, but it broke him. So I couldn't get upset because he didn't want to see a photo. I just had to understand that he was grieving in his own way and that we just did our best that we could each and every day.
Alison Cook (08:50.942)
Is there any one practice or phrase or even just any one spiritual discipline that you would return to that would re-anchor you through the storms, through the messiness, whether as a family or as a couple?
Amber (09:09.176)
I think for me to get to that point took a long time. This was a very long journey of grief. I cried every day for an entire year. But I think what I hold onto and what I held onto, 2019 was my most transformative year, was Proverbs 3.5, and it's trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Because we are not God, we don't understand why things happen the way that they do this side of heaven, but we know that we can trust our Lord.
And we know that because we get to know who He is as He reveals Himself to be in Scripture. And then I guess as for the grief, something that we would say instead of, how are you doing? We would say, how's your heart today? Because we know how we're doing. We're doing terrible. This is awful. But when you say, how's your heart today? We can say, you know, I'm really sad right now. Or I actually had a really good hour, you know, but I'm really missing Him. So it just allows you to answer it in a different way.
Alison Cook (10:02.45)
I love that. Just a subtle shift with each other that provided the safety for honesty. Nobody had to say, I'm doing okay. You know, it was like a very real way of everybody. I would imagine through that kind of group, my family, I married into a family, Amber with a lot of loss at the get-go. My husband was a widower when I met him.
with two young children. So they had lost their mom. He had lost his wife, whom he loved. I met them, I met the family about a year after this loss and we dated, we took our time because we, and one of the things I noticed is we had to create space, just like you're saying. It doesn't go away and also life continues. You don't sit in it and so.
Amber (10:49.23)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (10:51.53)
What I noticed coming into that, not having gone through it myself, but joining with a family that was grieving from the earliest moments, was that honesty that surfaces, that can, again, if you don't create space for it, we'll end up ripping you apart. But if you do, it brings you even closer. To this day, we all honor Lisa in our family. She's a part of the family. I never met her.
Amber (11:14.925)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (11:18.72)
But I have a relationship with her because she is the mother to my children. Right? And so we honor her to this day, even though I've now been in my kid's lives longer than she was. And so I think that's why, as you're saying that, I asked the question because we had practice as one of the things we would do is just assume grief. And so the question would it be, how are you feeling today? The question would be, is it small, medium or big? Right? Yeah. And so some days it's small.
Amber (11:42.284)
Yeah. That's good, yeah.
Alison Cook (11:47.797)
It's there, but it's small. Some days it's big. And that just allowed that baseline of, course it's going to be there. And what you said about pictures, very similar, very similar. Some folks didn't want to look at pictures. Some do. it does. And it's hard to talk about, which is what I so appreciate about your story in this book. You're not minimizing the pain by talking about God's presence in it.
Amber (11:57.698)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (12:16.68)
and how God does bring such unbelievable joy and intimacy and growth and healing through even unimaginable things. But it's a very nuanced thing to talk about.
Amber (12:16.846)
Yeah.
Amber (12:32.462)
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of why I wrote the letter in the beginning was because there are people who are, you know, we're six years down the road. We've learned a lot. But there are people who are on day one and on day one, you are in shock, you're in fog, you're so angry. You don't want to hear all the things that God has a plan for this awful thing. And I just wanted to relate to that girl because I was her or guy. You know, I was her and
Alison Cook (12:55.87)
Yes.
Amber (12:59.104)
it's okay to be in that place for a little bit. I just don't want them to stay stuck there. Because that's where the enemy is. And so just allowing space for that to say, is really hard and I'm walking with you and you're not alone. But when the time is right, you can do this. You can fight through this.
Alison Cook (13:16.188)
Yes, and there you describe in the books, both a feeling kind of a wailing, just those moments when you're flat on your face on the bathroom floor, and also moments where you felt God's silence, where you didn't feel the hope and the redemption. Can you share with us a few of those moments and kind of in the moment what got you through it, even when the feeling wasn't there?
Amber (13:46.297)
I think allowing myself to feel all of those things. I mean, I think in grief, at least for me, I was in such a state of shock and fog for an entire month. I didn't fully let go for a month. But when I came home a month later and I was all by myself, I just gutterily cried. I let out animalistic cries for my son and just allowed myself to grieve. And just giving yourself grace and space to do that really helped me.
Alison Cook (13:49.077)
Yeah.
Amber (14:15.702)
And going to the scriptures, because just because we feel something doesn't mean it's true. Just because I didn't feel God at a certain time didn't mean he wasn't there. But we can't know that unless we go to God's Word and unless we see that he is with us all the time. He never leaves us, never forsakes us. So just kind of going back to God's Word anytime I felt distant or the enemy coming in or lies from the world or really, really sad, I would just have to go back to the truth of what God's Word says.
Alison Cook (14:43.38)
when you talk about the lies of the world, there's a couple of ways. One is through the pat answers and they're trying to push you through it. Well intended often, but very hurtful. But the other is you guys received a lot of criticism publicly, which is just insane to me. What did it feel like to live through that? You know, where you kind of on both sides of things, people don't whether they're being critical. whether they're trying too hard to be positive, how did you find safe people who knew how to hold you through whatever you were feeling?
Amber (15:55.705)
I think realizing because we were in the public eye, because Granger's Music was taking off and we had a YouTube channel, I think people felt access to our lives. But that is one reason why we kept our videos up and we wanted to share because this is real life and terrible things happen and real people grieve. you're right, we were met with such criticism and it was really hard. mean, especially for a mom and a dad who deeply love our kids.
Alison Cook (16:05.078)
Mm-hmm.
Amber (16:25.208)
Like we would do anything for them just to have people saying the hurtful, hurtful things that they said. It just made me think, you I doubt that any of those people would have said it to a grieving mother's face. But we live in this world where we're protected and hidden behind these keyboards and don't even have a profile picture. And we just say whatever we want without a filter and without thinking. But it just made me realize that it truly shows the spiritual condition of someone's heart for them to be able to say that. And just to know that we are in a spiritual war and the enemy will do anything to break you down. And sometimes he'll use the mouth of other people. So we really had to cling to our close circle and shut out the world. If you were not in our arena and don't know us and don't know our family, then we don't have to listen to the outsiders and what their criticisms have to say.
Alison Cook (17:13.758)
Again, it's not fair that you have to develop those tremendous boundaries and resilience muscles, but it is one thing that comes out of something like this is you develop those clear filters about whose voice you're going to listen to and whose you aren't.
It’s just unbelievable. The other thing, Amber, that I think I want to touch on, you write about it in the book so well. Again, it's such a nuanced thing to write about. It's such a hard thing to talk about because you're so real about the grief, about the pain. I see it in your eyes now. You're not minimizing it. And yet you also write about realizing that even your grief could become an idol.
And that is just such a transparent, authentic, observation, confession. Talk to us a little bit about how you began to realize that, the nuances of that. When does it become something that we take on as sort of an idol and versus a lived expression that we see in the Bible? We see it in the Psalms. We see it in Jesus' life, right? How did you begin to understand that distinction in your own life? So powerful.
Amber (18:36.61)
I think so many things can become idols in our lives. mean, our careers, our marriages, our kids, and even our grief. I think if we begin to take on something as our identity, like if I just lived my life as I'm the woman who lost a son and that's all that I ever was, that is making an idol out of my grief. And I just was grieving really hard on the bathroom floor one day and I felt in my spirit, enough, seek me.
Alison Cook (18:42.006)
Yeah.
Amber (19:04.374)
And I had just been, I realized that I had made my child an idol. I was seeking river so much in my pain and I desired to be with him and I longed for the life that we had. And I realized I was taking the focus off of my savior and I was just focusing it solely on my sorrow. And it was a really powerful moment for me to realize that because we do love our kids, but our kids are a gift from God. you know,
Alison Cook (19:28.83)
Yeah.
Amber (19:29.846)
we can't stay stuck in that grief or it will become our identity and it will become an idol in our lives. And so the Lord just revealed that to me and that was a turning point for me to arise up off the bathroom floor. Yeah, and God just did that. Yeah.
Alison Cook (19:45.971)
It reminds me of the Ecclesiastes. There's a time to mourn. There's a time for joy. There's a time to dance. There's a time for tears, right? There's that, those seasons and through all of it, God is the one at the center. It also reminds me when you talk about that, how even in the mental health world, you can make a diagnosis an idol. You can make anxiety your idol. know, anything, these are, are health, helpful. These are real things that we deal with.
Amber (20:10.19)
YUM
Alison Cook (20:15.366)
and also they're never all of who we are. It's really powerful.
Amber (20:18.786)
Yeah.
Yeah, anything that takes you away from seeking and focusing on the Lord can become an idol in your life.
Alison Cook (20:27.476)
Yeah. You describe Maverick's birth as I think just so beautifully as both a joy and also an ache. It was a complicated experience for you. It was a restoration, but also never a obviously a replacement. Tell us a little bit about that about your experience of honoring the joy again. We've talked a lot about the podcast about how sometimes when you've experienced great loss, it can be hard to let yourself feel joy because that loss is always right there next to it. What was that like for you?
Amber (21:03.362)
Yeah, think anytime that anyone feels any sort of joy after a loss, you do feel guilt about it. You feel like, can you be laughing or how can you be smiling? How can you have joy in this moment when you just buried your child or buried your spouse or lost your job? But having Maverick was not in our earthly plan, but the Lord graciously blessed us with him. And it really was grief and joy coexisting because I was so thankful that I was given the chance to be a mom again. I was so thankful for his little life, but I was also still so sad over the loss of my son.
And he, Maverick, you we got criticized for that too. Maverick is not a replacement for River. Maverick is a beautiful new chapter in the story that God is writing for our lives. And Maverick has a purpose too. And I can't wait to see what that is, but we shouldn't be made to feel guilty for keeping on living. You know, people say I would die for my children, but will you live for them?
Alison Cook (21:49.206)
Yes
Amber (21:58.775)
I had a husband and two other children. You have to make the choice to keep living. And with our eyes focused on Christ, I will see River again. I will see him again in heaven. And for now, I get to have the joy of this new blessing of Maverick that I did not think that I was gonna get to have. So it's this constant pool of grief and joy. I still some days have grief and joy. I'm sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. And those can be parallel, and that's okay to both feel those in the same moment.
Alison Cook (21:58.975)
Yes. I just, behalf of all of humanity, I am so sorry that anybody even ever would suggest that. Anybody who has known love knows that. And again, in my family of grief, I am in some ways that person. Am I replacing somebody? I can never replace my kid's mom. Never. I know that.
They know that I could never replace my husband's love for his first wife. I know that he knows that love isn't about love is adding. It adds love. never takes away. know, love is not a zero sum game. It multiplies. And I just I think it's beautiful that you and Granger continue to experience the joy of your family.
Amber (23:11.235)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (23:22.292)
and of your kids even as you honor this little boy who's always a part of your family and who you will be reunited with and who will be reunited with his siblings including...
Amber (23:27.288)
Yeah.
Amber (23:30.69)
Yeah.
Yeah, and same for you. mean, you would never wish that pain on anybody, but by the grace of God, your husband got to love again, and your kids get to have a bonus mom who loves them so much. And so it is. It's an addition. It's not a replacement. It never would be a replacement.
Alison Cook (23:39.658)
No!
Alison Cook (23:45.948)
Exactly.
Alison Cook (23:51.241)
It's never a replacement. just drives me crazy. I, I've received a little bit of, you know, people will say to me, how, how, how does it feel to be second? I'm like, I'm not second. That's not, it's not a, you don't understand. and it's only something God can fully, it's something you can only fully comprehend in the spirit, right? That God weaves.
healing and he weaves new life and he weaves new love out of what's broken and never replaces but somehow mysteriously through the goodness of God there's new graces there's new joys his mercies are new every morning and so thank you for letting me just as I've watched your story a little bit I've I've learned and and benefited from hearing some of you reading your book from my own story as well and I I know so many people
are going to benefit because life is complicated. Everybody's had loss on some level.
Amber (24:55.02)
If you haven't, you will, it's coming. It's just something as humans we all share is the suffering in this world, but we also share the hope that we have.
Alison Cook (25:02.164)
Yes. I want to just close, Amber, in your final chapter, you write five years out. If you could speak to the woman who's listening, who's still on her own bathroom floor today, what would you want her to know?
Amber (25:23.502)
that that bathroom floor moment is not the end of your story. That sometimes that can be the beginning of something really, really incredible. And that she's never alone. That God isn't finished yet. That there's so much life left to live. just that I am so sorry for whatever he or she is facing. And that it's okay to feel those things, but just don't stay stuck in that place. Because there is so much more.
And I would just encourage her when the time is right to get up off the floor and fight and choose to keep living, but keep your eyes on Christ.
Alison Cook (25:49.332)
Yes.
Alison Cook (25:55.646)
Yeah, yes, I love that. Choose to keep living and keep your eyes on Christ. It's the only way and it's a way that is good and it's not always easy but it is so good and I'm just so grateful for you for sharing again this beautiful story with us. The Girl on the Bathroom Floor by Amber
Emily Smith, it's available wherever you get books. Amber, where can my listeners find you if they want to connect with you and learn more about your story besides the book?
Amber (26:29.888)
If you want to connect, I'm usually always on Instagram. I love chatting with people through Messenger and helping people through the hard parts of their life. It's at Amber Emily Smith. And then my website is arisewithamber.com.
Alison Cook (26:41.962)
That's beautiful. Thanks Amber. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Amber (26:46.232)
Thank you so much.