"I don't want an easy faith, I want a brave faith."

Hi friends,

Today is a big day: Rachel Held Evans’ book Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning With and Reimagining Faith is now out and available in the world!

I was honoured to serve as the book’s editor/midwife and so it’s a milestone here, too. After two years of work on this very meaningful project, it feels so good to be able to place her words back into your hands and hearts.

At the request of her widower Dan, I have spent the last two years immersed in Rachel’s online archives to create this book. Combing through our shared past, working with an incredible community of contributors, footnoting and contextualizing, editing and crying, remembering and even laughing through tears as this book slowly came together was a heavy lift at times, but a gift all the same.

These are the essential essays. Not only Rachel’s most viral (although those are there) but also the most pivotal in her own story, the most influential, the most remembered, the most treasured by her readers who trusted her to be honest, and even the most quietly beloved by her.

To reach the day when this special book finally is placed into your story too, is a big milestone, a finish line of sorts.

I wasn’t sure how to mark the day with you all. It’s complex and emotional, sad in many ways but lovely in others. So here’s the thing I have decided, especially after all those hours immersed in Rachel’s voice, a book from Rachel is always worth celebrating.

Why? Well, on the intense book release days of our past, Rachel was always the first person to make a big deal out of the day. She was a writer’s writer and a real friend of writers. So many of us from that era can testify that there would be text messages and emails (usually with half a dozen exclamation marks accompanying), social media amplification and genuine joy as she celebrated a new book. Her ability to read and endorse widely and well was legendary. In some ways, I think she liked to celebrate the book releases of her friends even more than she liked to celebrate her own! When she released a new book, we all rallied to celebrate, to spread the word, and to honour her as our friend and guide, too.

So even though today is yet another ...