Yesterday, beloved author and voice within my generation’s faith community Rachel Held Evans passed away. She was 37 and it was unexpected and heartbreaking. In her passing there are so many feelings and emotions, but when the person and life you grieve is not a nearby friend, but merely feels like one, grieving can be seen as more difficult than if you knew them. And so I write this for any and all of us who don’t live near Rachel, but loved her, our lives were impacted by her and we are grieving in the locations and places God has us.
Last Saturday, Rachel was still in a medically enduced coma and my book club of whole hearts that mean more than I can type sat around a table over a nourishing homemade potluck meal and discussed her latest work, Inspired. This book club, this room full of real women in my life all began from my reading Rachel’s book Searching for Sunday pool side and getting to a chapter entitled “Meal” and thinking “I need to talk about this book, with women and over a meal.” Since that day, God’s used her word to build a small, but powerful within the little communities each women lives, group of women evolving in our own faiths and lives and expressions of Christ in the world. I share this to show you this is but one small example in one small town of Rachel Held Evan’s impact on our world.
She grew up in the same era as I did, just a few years ahead of me. She equipped herself with way more bible knowledge then I ever applied myself to, yet aspired to and felt so in touch with her stories she so openly shared. Her works are ones I’d recommend to anyone, and her personality was one I felt loved by even from afar. The joyful, kind, buoyant yet real, sometimes raw, and always open personality she expressed in every word, every conversation live and even in her social posts is something that now we see how great, beloved and valuable she was.
Last night, I happened to coincidentally read Henri Nouwen’s Life of the The Beloved chapter on our Givenness. Our lives are to be given and in doing so they become more powerful than we ever could’ve imagined or experienced had we kept them to ourselves, for ourselves. Rachel’s life was given. With every word, ever gift of her personality and personhood, and lastly, and in Henri Nouwen’s words most greatly in her dying. As heart breaking as this loss is, it also reveals the gift a life has. A life, our love, our kindness, our being real and raw and gracious and open to letting go of our lives is a gift that lives on. Our lives are short. They are not our own. We don’t know how long or little they may be within time, but even the smallest expression of love, even the slightest kind-hearted interaction, ever gentle and hidden giving of ourselves impacts the lives and people and world around us.
Words cannot express the ache those who knew and loved Rachel the most are feeling. Words cannot make it better. But they are something I can give. I loved Rachel. I loved her work. She helped me grow in my own faith. She helped me laugh and love God and people better. She showed me kindness in her work and in her small coming to Lancaster, PA during her Searching for Sunday tour. She was a light and we are all aching and praying with you. Her life made a difference. It is my hope, it is my prayer, that all of us who were impacted by her now take what God is doing within us because of what she paved and now share our own works, our own personalities, our own acts of love and life and giving to everyone and God within it all. May her life continue in us. May we hold onto the hope she had in Christ and in exploring faith and in trusting that God and our stories and our tellings of our personal Gospels have in and on the world.
We love you Rachel. We miss you and we grieve the loss of all of the words and growth and expression your life was going to bring into this world that only you would’ve. Thank you God for her life. Lead ours to love like Rachel and lean into your voice in us.
Amen.
Please pray with me for Rachel’s husband Dan and her family. Here’s a small piece about her.
