Snap Thoughts

Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) was a New York Times best-selling author whose books include Faith Unraveled (2010),  A Year of Biblical Womanhood (2012),  Searching for Sunday (2015),  Inspired (2018).  She wrote about faith, doubt and life in the Bible Belt.

Rachel has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian, Christianity Today, Slate, The Huffington Post, The CNN Belief Blog, and on NPR, The BBC, The Today Show, and The View.

Rachel was married to Dan and they have two children.

The timeline of her illness and passing is surreal.

April 19th, 2019 Announcement

During treatment for an infection Rachel began exhibiting unexpected symptoms. Doctors found that her brain was experiencing constant seizures.  She is currently in the ICU.  She is in a medically induced coma while the doctors work to determine the cause and solution.

May 4th, 2019 Update

Rachel was slowly weaned from the coma medication.  Her seizures returned but at a reduced rate.  There were periods of time where she didn’t have seizures at all. Rachel did not return to an alert state during this process.  The hospital team worked to diagnose the primary cause of her seizures and proactively treated for some known possible causes for which diagnostics were not immediately available due to physical limitations.

Early Thursday morning, May 2, Rachel experienced sudden and extreme changes in her vitals.  The team at the hospital discovered extensive swelling of her brain and took emergency action to stabilize her.  The team worked until Friday afternoon to the best of their ability to save her.  This swelling event caused severe damage and ultimately was not survivable.

Rachel died early Saturday morning, May 4, 2019.

When those who are so much younger than me unexpectedly leave this world…I struggle with understanding.  Yes, I know all of the typical Christian responses, but sometimes, solace in those words is difficult to find and accept. 

Rachel was a far better Christian writer than I will ever be.  I am almost double Rachel’s age and know that I should be thankful the time God has granted to me, but the hurt and sadness still remains.

Rachel’s husband wrote about her passing and his words gave me peace.

I haven’t yet planned much past this weekend.  I’m not sure where life will take us from here.  There have been press inquiries and tweets and posts and articles.  But none of it changes the fact that Rachel is dead.  This gaping raw wound in my life isn’t something I can fix.  Sometimes things just hurt and there’s no avoiding it.  Any attempt to do so, to move on too quickly, to outsmart it, to cover up the pain, will backfire.  It will have to ease on its own with the passage of time.

This month of May 2019 has been a time of mourning for me and my family.  But I hope to start piecing things back together after Rachel’s funeral; after a final official goodbye.  I hope to start re-assembling my shattered imaginary future.

I haven’t lost what Rachel created.  I’ve lost what was never mine to claim.  I lost what I imagined I’d have, what I assumed would be there in the future: Her laugh, her words, her take on the latest thing.  Was it reasonable to assume I’d have that?  That at 38, 39, 40 she’d still be alive?  Sure.  Was that future owed to me?  No.

Sometimes we just don’t get what we want.

But I have hope.  The kind of stubborn hope that exists in the face of certain future tragedy. It’s a hope that’s aware of the past, the present, and the future possibilities.  It’s a hope that’s fulfilled every time I remember I can still laugh at bad jokes, still be a friend to my friends, still love my children.  It’s not a hope that requires life to turn out how I want.  It’s not a hope that I have to wait for.  It’s a hope that takes delight in all the things that are still good.  It’s a hope I learned from Rachel.

I write these words not because I always feel them.  But because I hope they will someday make up enough of me to matter.  I want to be just a bit more like the person I see reflected back in my edited self.  The person Rachel saw in me.  She made me better than I was before I met her.  She left the world better than how she found it.  For that I will always be grateful.

-Dan