Jennifer Lyell: She Brought Beautiful Words to Life

And I don't have enough words to honor her.

Last Friday, I got a phone call early in the morning letting me know that my friend and former colleague and editor, Jennifer Lyell, had been hospitalized hours before and was not expected to make it. The next day and the next (it seemed like weeks not days) were filled with constant texts and phone calls and check-ins as we awaited what turned out to be the inevitable.

Jennifer’s death made national news because of the role she had as a survivor of sexual abuse who called out not only her own abuser but the entire denomination and leaders who had enabled this and so much other abuse.

I first knew Jen in her role as editor at Lifeway publishing. She would become my editor. I will share more about that below.

The reasons her death made national headlines are tragic and evil. For any who don’t know these stories, I will share some links here, but I want to end by sharing the positive part of her legacy, particularly for me and for readers.

In 2018, Jen and I led a call for the resignation of an enabler of abuse and misogyny in our denomination that led to signatures in support from thousands of Southern Baptist women. Story here and here. (My apologies if you hit paywalls.)

More of her story of abuse and her death here.

NPR’s brief obituary (grateful to be interviewed for that) here.

Coverage of the death in The New York Times here.

A heart-wrenching, gutting, and necessary read from

Kristin Du Mez

:

Some things she could not survive

Beautiful words by her dear friend Rachael Denhollander about who she was in all of her life here:

In Loving Memory of Jennifer Lyell.

Her death is not fodder for social media, and blog posts, and podcasts. Her life, and her sexual assaults, never should have been either. Had they not been, yesterday would not have happened. There is much, much more to be said. But for this moment, right now, there are other things to say.

She was the woman who sent all my girls “I read past my bedtime” shirts when they started reading fluently. Because she loved children more than anything, and books were her passion. Whenever I’d send her surreptitious pictures of them reading past midnight and ask “am I winning, or losing???” She’d tell me to tell them to keep going, Miss Jen said it was great!

She was the woman who wrote the most beautiful children’s Bible I have ever read, that I read to my children, every night. The woman who clung to the “Promises of God” in the midst of horrific suffering and betrayal – far outpacing the faith and courage of the pastors and leaders who stood silent because “NDA’s” and “career suicide”, and “strategy” and “politics”.

She was the woman who loved more fiercely, and sacrificed more readily, than anyone I have ever known. Because she suffered so greatly, she surrounded those she knew with unending, intentional, love.

She never had children, but she loved them more than anything. The woman who had a perfect LSAT score and negotiated millions of dollars of contracts, turning author after author into NYT bestsellers, loved nothing more than to sit on the ground with smallest, taking big and beautiful truths of God, and making them real. As a child, she had suffered greatly. Her response was to love the weakest, the most fiercely.

She was the woman who was high school calculus champion, who sat on my back porch with my three-year old, coloring with chalk and asking her questions to find out all the amusing, hilarious, unfiltered things going on in her mind. I’d never seen anyone engage just that way, or find such absolute delight in the answers little people give, except myself. Jen was so often not treated with dignity, so she bestowed it intentionally upon everyone else. The woman who loved celery, but made sure Elora got extra Oreos when we sat and watched a movie together.

The woman with the brilliant mind, who sent us silly hats and glasses, and gave me an adult-sized Princess Elsa dress, because she knew me to the core. Who insisted that my favorite color – mauve – was so outdated it wasn’t a real thing anymore.

Who sent Jacob and I to see Les Miserables for the first time, when we were in London, because she knew how much the storyline, the unending arc towards justice, meant to us both. She took so much pure joy, in gifting to others.

The day I took the emergency flight to serve as her medical advocate, my children were at a fun park – a place they’d visited years ago because Jen sent us a gift card saying “Tell your kids I know they’ve had to give up so much of their mom over these past few years, in part to help me, and thank them for me. Go spend time together.” In the midst of being crushed, she thought of my children.

Probably the only woman who can outstubborn me, and she knew it, and delighted in it.

One of the only people with the most resolute moral clarity I have ever seen. What is wrong, is wrong. What is right, is right. And it doesn’t matter what it costs if it is right, and it is true. And there is never an excuse for not doing what is right, or telling what is true. She lived it, literally, until the day she died. If more leaders had the clarity and courage she did, and the willingness to sacrifice, consequences to themselves be damned, this week would not have been the week that it was. But that’s for another day.

The woman who became one of my dearest and most treasured friends, who I could talk to for hours, but who would also text “just five minutes, I promise!” when she knew I was homeschooling. She was supposed to move close to us when this was all over, because we both knew I needed someone to help me teach math and she was, after all, highschool calculus champion. If she were here, she’d edit all I’ve written too, because details - math, English, or otherwise - were her forte.

That she loved so fiercely and selflessly, after the depths of what she suffered until the day she went home, was astonishing to me. Leaders preach about faith and clinging to Jesus, but Jen knew what that actually meant. She knew Jesus was there when men were depraved, and leaders failed. She clung to the real Jesus, not the Convention, not the “church”, not the idols we raise and worship. She knew the full gospel, and the real promises of God, and she knew what it meant to rely on them, when everything else crumbled away.

Standing with her these past six years was a privilege, but it was just the smallest part of who Jen was in our lives. That journey was born, yes, out of her conviction for the truth, her fierce protection of others, and her love for those around her, but just a fraction of the person, Jennifer Lyell. Walking her to heaven’s gates with those who loved her dearly, serving as her medical advocate – for a few brief days having the power to truly keep her safe, to pay attention to every detail, when I could not stop so much of the rest of what happened to her, was a beautiful gift. I grieve so deeply for the life she should have had, that was taken from her. But I do not grieve that she is free now, from this one. And someday Jen, we’ll sit and talk for hours again, and color with chalk with three-year olds – heaven must have them somehow – and only the joy will remain. We won’t have to talk about why people sit silent in the face of evil, because it will be no more.

Jen opened my eyes to the misogyny that was right there in front of me all the time, receiving applause and laughter, excused by many as simply generational or “boys will be boys.”

But that’s not all she did for me. Jennifer Lyell came to me with the idea of publishing classic works of literature, beautifully bound and made, edited by me with introductions written especially for Christian readers. This was her idea. She approached me, won me over, and carried the project through. She tried to serve the church so well, even while she was enduring so much suffering at its hands.

Her legacy to my little corner of the world is these beautiful books.

I want to close this little tribute to Jennifer with something I said to her in a text message in 2018 when we were discussing this project and she had told me about the work she was doing to promote more literary reading in the church through her role at LifeWay. Jennifer Lyell brought beautiful words to life.

What a gift to the church she was—and still is—and what a gift to me:

I am leaving comments open on this post because I want to read and share all the love for Jennifer anyone wants to offer. Thank you, dear readers.