over the pond.

A woman named Rachel Held Evans died suddenly this morning at 37 years old. You can find her blog here if you don't know who she is. She was an author, a radical Christian thinker and mother to two children. She has left behind many people who are heartbroken and hurting.

My faith and my relationship with the church is something I keep pretty close to my chest. When I casually mentioned my church at work, four months into my placement, the initial response was surprise. I'm not sure when I stand, so sometimes I hide in the corner. But I have faith, I believe in God, I try to seek him.

I sat down with one of the youth leaders at my home church a couple of years ago and asked him if I there was a space in the church for me, whether all that I am- feminist, queer, passionately working for the community against oppression and division- could fit into the walls of a Christian community. He told me about a feminist theologian and how there were people challenging and seeking whose journeys might look something like mine. He told me that there was a place, that my people can be found, that, if I wanted to, I wouldn't have to walk away.

A few years later, when I was ready to try and find my place, I searched for people like me. People who were looking beyond traditional doctrine and seeking God through inclusivity and activism and social justice.

Rachel was one of those people.

She has written four books, the latest of which I have just ordered, and has helped many people who found themselves the "wrong" shape or size, or too much or too little, for the churches they grew up in.

I found her on twitter around the time Vicky Beeching came out, when I wanted to find and support the other outcasts and misfits and rebels and see how they were living out their Christian lives. Rachel was bold and articulate and full of faith, a feminist, a leader, a force. She embraced her doubts and believed passionately in loving one another and the role we have as Christians in a world so broken and lost. Her words have given me great encouragement, challenged me, and brought me closer to God.

I cried this evening hearing of her passing.

Hearing a voice calling out that you are not alone, that you are welcome, that you can have doubts, that the church is big enough for us all, that we will fail and we must try harder but oh how we are loved- this is what kept me close to God, stopped me from just walking away.

I have found a place for me in a church here in Brighton. They run social programmes and preach from a humble and broken and honest place, they celebrate LGBT history month and speak openly about mental health, the environment and politics. They are messy but strong in faith. They are a community that looks out to the streets around them, as they hold those inside safe. I have a home in this church, I am welcome.

I would have stopped searching a long time ago if I didn't have people along the way who saw me and understood me and told me that it was worth searching. That there was something to find. I don't know if I could have reconciled who I am with who the traditional church wants me to be without seeing other people- faithful and doubting and loving people- living their truth in the light of God. If I hadn't seen people challenging the oppressive, patriarchal, exclusive, proud tendencies of the church, I don't know if I could ever have been a part of its growth.

Thank you Rachel for all you did and will carry on doing, even in death. Your life and your voice and your words were so important and God given. You reached a girl in another continent who didn't know if she would ever belong. You make me realise how much we can do in the little time we are given, how many people we can reach, how many lives we can change.

I still don't seek God first. I am proud and I am stubborn. They still tend to be someone I reach for when I've already started falling. Rachel is a reminder of all we can do, and all we must do, if we put God in the centre and trust them completely.

"Its time to live a life of love that pleases you" is a line from a Tim Hughes song we sang in my youth. As I submerge myself in my work and the lives I impact, I know that I am doing what they have called me to do. I feel I am where I am supposed to be.

I want to come closer to God and reach out and hold on to them. I want to be one of the disciples Rachel was calling to and cheering for and challenging.

May she rest with God watching over her.

And may I remember how lucky I am to still be here and what I must do to live out the life I am called to live.