Want to tell you a story. I got a text from my daughter a year ago today. 2 words: Rachel died. She was referring to @rachelheldevans. Went to the floor sobbing, “No no no no, Lord, please no.” We’d prayed so hard. Pled so hard. I never met Rachel. We had a unique relationship.->
I ask for your grace to tell the story, a story about life in this insane social media culture. I ask you to listen instead of lurch. Rachel and I had been on opposite sides of several issues. Our familiarity to one another was limited to the controversial. My knowledge of her...
was based on whatever my part of the world retweeted or circulated about her. We got into it a few times and, let me just say, you didn’t want to get into it with Rachel. I say these words with a smile and tears in my eyes. I never had an opponent in my life I respected more.->
In a faith world drowning in hypocrisy, I knew that girl was earnest to the bone. One of the really awful things about social media is that 2 people who disagree may respect certain rules of engagement & not go for the jugular but their camps can often mob the other viciously.
I can’t tell you how many times I have watched people say things to others as if on my behalf and I’m thinking to myself, I would never in my life talk like that to her/him. Stop! It’s very disturbing. I don’t like it no matter what that person has done to me. It was 1 of those->
times. Both of our camps were mob-bullying the other. I wanted to DM her to check on her but I didn’t know how to do it without following her on Twitter. So I did. She answered me almost immediately. It was brief. Talked about what impact constantly being hit has on the soul.->
Then I was left with a most interesting conundrum. I had followed her on Twitter. Was I to unfollow her or keep following her? In those days I still cared that people could make certain assumptions from who you followed. I could not care less anymore but that’s a different story.
I thought, well that’s a fine kettle of fish. We just held out a bit of an olive branch to one another and now I am going to Unfollow her and she is going to know it. Seemed unkind & hypocritical to me so I kept following & some of you are not going to believe what I discovered.
.@rachelheldevans was a real live person. She was not the embodiment of all her controversial retweets. She was a multilayered human. She talked about her children. Her man. Her life. She got the flu during that period & I prayed for her & wrote her name in my journal. “Rachel.”
I replied to this or that tweet about regular stuff. She did the same. We did not become best friends nor big DM buddies but I’d like to make the point that, for Rachel and me, we became something more important: real people to one another. We were more than our stands. Rachel &
I were, hands-down, the 2 most hated women in the Christian media world. By fellow Christians, of course & for different reasons. That was our unique connection. And two people have to occasionally see how the other is holding up under the strain. Make no mistake. IT IS A STRAIN.
I’d already been praying for her when she got that last flu. I saw her shout-out when she said, “if you’re the praying kind.” I replied what she already knew. I was praying kind. And now the tears flow. I prayed so hard. I printed out a picture of her and taped it up at LPM ->
Told my staff what they, of course, already knew, “She is not a social media account. She is a person. This is what she looks like. Here is the picture of her with her husband and children.” I still have that picture on my phone. I sent her a DM while she was in that coma. ->
Told her something to the effect of, I will stand over you in prayer continually and then please come back and, well, what I meant was, drive me crazy.
She didn’t.
To all her real live loved ones: I have prayed for you so hard this year. I am so deeply sorry for your loss.
She didn’t.
To all her real live loved ones: I have prayed for you so hard this year. I am so deeply sorry for your loss.
Oh man, what an unexpected gift is going to come from this thread and what a fitting commemoration on this one year anniversary. I am going to get to block so many trolls! It’s like Merry Christmas from Rachel!
