"The Chosen" Changes Lives

 "The Chosen" Changes Lives

On both sides of the camera, “The Chosen” is changing lives.

Lara Silva, who portrays Eden, a woman representing the Apostle Peter’s wife, recently told CBN’s Faithwire her role in the faith-based series “has been completely life-changing.”

“I didn’t grow up with a strong faith,” Silva explained. “I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. My mom was raised Catholic, but we didn’t go to church, I didn’t own a Bible, I didn’t have that root under me.”

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In her mid-20s, the Atlanta-based actor trusted Jesus as her Savior. It was that consequential shift in her worldview, in fact, that jumpstarted her career in the entertainment industry.

Now, Silva says she can’t share her acting journey apart from her salvation story.

“It was a connection for me,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “I can’t tell one without the other, like I can’t tell my acting journey without Jesus and vice versa; I can’t tell my testimony without realizing that my passion and love and gift that He gave me. … He spoke to me, like, ‘I’m gonna help you.'”

Silva said it has been “God connections” along the way that have made her acting career a reality.

Originally, she auditioned to play Mary Magdalene — a role that ultimately went to Liz Tabish — but Dallas Jenkins, the show’s creator, had “a different role in mind for me,” Silva said, referring to Eden, an imaginative character depicting what Peter’s real-life wife might have been like.

Silva quickly realized, she recalled, she would “need” God if she were to pursue a career in the “crazy industry of acting, which I also didn’t find until I found God.”

“It’s those God connections that got me to where I am,” she said. “It hasn’t always been easy. I came into my faith a little later in life, too. It’s like I’m learning as I go. He’s meeting me where I am constantly. I’m not always strong in my faith — sometimes it shakes, sometimes it wavers, sometimes you’re in disbelief at times. But I think that’s why I’m here, maybe I get this gift of sharing and telling my story.”

“Maybe that’s why God’s placed me here,” she continued, “to be able to help someone out there, too.”

Following the Lord’s lead has been a theme in Silva’s life.

For her, Proverbs 16:9 — “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” — has been something of a life verse, guiding her to where she is now, sitting in Midlothian, Texas, on a sprawling campsite owned by The Salvation Army and home to the elaborate set of “The Chosen.”

“In our minds,” Silva said, “we’re like, ‘I want to do this, this, and this, and I have hopes and dreams of doing this and I want to accomplish this,’ but for me, I didn’t realize that, without that supernatural help, power, the Spirit of Jesus, He’s the one that is going to open or sometimes close those doors for me.”

“Like being on this show,” she continued. “I wanted to be an actor, but He’s the one who’s gotten me here and paved the way for me to be able to tell and share what He’s done for me.”