Rachel Held Evans has died
From Rachel’s husband, Dan:
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.
This entire experience is surreal. I keep hoping it’s a nightmare from which I’ll awake. I feel like I’m telling someone else’s story. I cannot express how much the support means to me and our kids. To everyone who has prayed, called, texted, driven, flown, given of themselves physically and financially to help ease this burden: Thank you. We are privileged. Rachel’s presence in this world was a gift to us all and her work will long survive her.
-Dan
The Internet Monk Archives 
“All things have I seen in the days of my vanity; there is a righteous man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his evil-doing.”
— Ecclesiastes 7:15 —
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Amen, Eeyore. I heard the news yesterday. I have only read her “Searching for Sunday” and her blog occasionally but she was an important voice of younger Christians and insight into why they are leaving the church. Very sad.
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Her death hit me hard, I did not agree with everything, but I thought she was one of those writers that I wanted to see where her faith would lead her — I just felt a heavy sense of a loss to the future. Very sad leaving behind a husband and two very young children. May she rest in peace.
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What a sad loss, she will be missed. Prayers that the peace of our God and the outpouring love of supporting friends bring comfort to her family. (Thanks for posting CM)
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The good and wise ones die (IMonk, RHE) and the hucksters live and prosper.
How long, o Lord? HOW LONG?!?
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Amen.
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/04/us/rachel-held-evans-dead/index.html
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Sad very sad indeed. I read her last blog entry and was struck by her talk on laments .May the Lord be with her and her family in this time of sorrow.
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I didn’t even know she was ill. Such a tragedy. There are no words. May God’s peace and comfort be with her family. She was a voice that evangelicalism needed and still needs.
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So saddened by this. She was an inspiration to me, and a kindred spirit. The same event, the evangelical community’s response to World Vision hiring practices, and there subsequent reversal, was the straw that caused both of us to say we were no longer evangelicals.
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“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.” — James Joyce, Ulysses
Though we may be joined in grief by the experience of the whole human race, by all the mourners that went before, and also by all those that are mourning even now at this moment, we are also always utterly alone it.
God comfort and strengthen Daniel Evans.
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Jesus wept. Shortest verse in the bible, and one of the most meaningful.
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Very sad. I’ve clicked onto her blog from time to time and always found in her a refreshing outlook on the Christian faith, whatever that is these days. I’ve been praying for her health lately and now for her family. It’s a great loss.
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How very sad. But I think her writings will live on and be an encouragement to many.
Her family and friends are in my prayers.
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I thoroughly enjoyed her posts, insights, commentary, over the years.
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Prayers for her husband (and family?).
So sad to hear this…our loss, heaven’s gain.
Thanks for posting this today.
Grief is one of the hardest things we experience here, just look at Jesus’ own grief while here.
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She and I attended Bryan College, although many years separated us. The school taught me (and her too, I’d guess) how to think about Christianity and Christian life without relying on memorized statements. I was proud of her relentless pursuit of God and what being a Christian really ought to be like. I never met her but I mourn her anyway.
I remember reading her last blog post, from Ash Wednesday, and felt a foreshadowing as I read the ending.
“It strikes me today that the liturgy of Ash Wednesday teaches something that nearly everyone can agree on. Whether you are part of a church or not, whether you believe today or your doubt, whether you are a Christian or an atheist or an agnostic or a so-called “none” (whose faith experiences far transcend the limits of that label) you know this truth deep in your bones: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”
Death is a part of life.
My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/lent-for-the-lamenting
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So very sad
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