I Know Where He Is
I lost a good friend earlier this week. I’ve known Bob Welbon for 40 years, as long as I’ve been in Miami. He was a very active member of the first church I served here, Key Biscayne Presbyterian (starting out as youth minister). He was slightly older than I, and very knowledgeable about all kinds of things about which I knew … well, practically nothing: real estate, computers and other kinds of technologies, sailing, choral music, and fixing darn near anything that needed fixing. Even in the days before God created the internet, if you had something that needed to be repaired, Bob either had the part you needed in his garage or knew where to get it. His neighbors called him MacGyver. Bob was a real renaissance guy.
More than that, Bob was a very devoted follower of Christ. He was a serious student of God’s word, a faithful church attender – two things that used to always go together, but alas, no longer – and at the time I met him, a deacon. And above and beyond all of those things, Bob was one of the kindest, gentlest, godliest men I’ve ever known, and possessed of a servant’s heart like few others I’ve encountered. Whatever you needed, if it was within Bob’s ability to get it for you and get it to you, it was as good as done. I used to say, “If my car broke down in a bad part of town at 3 AM, I could call Bob, and he’d be there in 20 minutes … and he’d have whatever was needed to fix the car and get it running again.” He was the very definition of a Good Samaritan.
Bob’s family’s and my family’s lives intertwined countless times over the years. It’s too long a story to tell in detail, but when Heidi and I very unexpectedly became “instant parents” to two rather needy little people on Friday, March 13, 1992, we took them and their four older siblings – all removed from their biological parents’ house and parceled out to several different families in our church, all frightened and confused – to spend the night together at the Welbons’ house. Bob and his rock star wife Lori were out of town, and my buddy Jary Reed and his wife were baby-sitting and house-sitting for them. One quick phone call was all it took to get approval to keep all the kids together at their house for that first night. (Their house was big enough to hold all that humanity at one time, unlike my house and Jary’s apartment.) The next day Christy and Andrew came home with us … and never left.
When we decided to plant a church on the southern edge of downtown, we held all our preparatory meeting in the Welbons’ living room. When people would ask Bob how he heard about our church, Redeemer, he would say, “It was born in my house.” Bob and Lori’s youngest daughter was the first child I ever baptized. Bob served as an elder in that church, always a “go-to guy” for whatever we needed … and when a church is starting out, you need everything. We ultimately disbanded after seven years due to my contracting Transverse Myelitis, but I still saw Bob frequently.
I teach a men’s Bible study in Coral Gables every Wednesday morning. I’ve only been doing it for 31 years, so maybe one day I’ll get the hang of it. (How I got started with that is another story, also too long to relate here, but suffice it to say – as is true of so many things in my life – it’s all Steve Brown’s fault.) As long as I have been leading it, Bob has been the “quarterback,” the one who would tap his glass and call the men to order and say, “All right, guys, let’s get started with our prayer requests ….” If I needed to miss a Wednesday morning, Bob was one of the guys I would call to pinch-hit, and he always stepped up graciously and enthusiastically.
About four years ago Bob told us he was having trouble with his memory. At our stage of the game, who doesn’t? So at the time we didn’t think too much about it. But over time it progressed noticeably, to the point where he had trouble completing sentences. Then he had trouble starting sentences, or at least sentences that made sense to anyone else other than Bob. We learned he was suffering with something called frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), a particularly aggressive form of dementia.
Bob continued attending the study, and we’d still acknowledge him and his role with our group. Even though it was a little uncomfortable, we would all stop and listen politely while Bob said whatever it was he was trying to communicate, simply because of how much we all loved and respected him. As long as he was able to sit at the table with us, he was still our quarterback. He was still the man we knew, loved and respected.
About two months ago Bob’s father-in-law Jim, also a regular at the Bible study, told us Bob had attended his last Wednesday morning with us. He simply couldn’t sit at the table with us any longer. It was sad, but we all knew that day was coming. Lori was an absolute champion in the way she took care of Bob, right up to the very end, and their three adult children came to see their dad as often as they could. They were the picture of a loving, supportive family dealing with a terrible affliction, and may God bless them for what they did to make Bob’s last days and weeks as bearable as possible.
Last Sunday morning God stepped in and put an end to Bob’s, and in many ways, Lori’s and the family’s suffering. (Devastating afflictions like this are just as hard, if not harder, on the spouse and family.) While I was with my KPC family, worshiping the God who saves us by his grace, sanctifies us by his grace, and ultimately heals us by his grace … Bob got to see him and worship him live and in person. He got to see the face of his Lord and Savior whom he served to long and so well, and hear those matchless words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. … Enter into the joy of your master.” The same God we were worshiping in Kendall … Bob was now worshiping in person in heaven. What we were doing by faith he now could do by sight.
But first, I like to think Bob looked Death and Disease in the eyes and said, “Later, losers. Free at last, free at last … thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.”
I began by saying I lost a good friend this week … but that’s not right. I didn’t lose him. I know exactly where he is, and I’m looking forward to see him again one day. (And if there is any such thing in heaven as something that needs to be fixed, I know where Bob will be and what he’ll be doing.)
When I do see him next, Bob won’t have dementia, and I won’t have a wheelchair, and we’re going to talk and laugh and swap stories and look back on those difficult days as a mere speck against the backdrop of eternity. As Sam says to Frodo in the movie version of The Lord of the Rings, “In the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
I know where Bob is. By God’s grace, I know I’ll get to see him again. As the late Brennan Manning wrote:
On the last day, when we arrive at the Great Cabin in the Sky,
many of us will be bloodied, battered, bruised, and limping.
But by God and by Christ, there will be a light in the window
and a "Welcome Home" sign on the door.
It is my fervent, sincere hope, and I know Bob would agree, that one day you will be there, too.*
Kent
*If you are not sure where you will spend eternity when you die, but you would like to become a Christian: By faith, acknowledge your sinfulness to God, ask him to forgive you by applying the sacrificial, atoning death of Jesus to you, cleansing you of your sins, and sending his Holy Spirit into your heart and life. It will be the start of a lifelong, day-by-day relationship with Jesus that will continue the rest of your life … and beyond.
Begin by praying something like this:
Lord, I believe that you created me and love me.
I acknowledge my sins and my need for your forgiveness.
I reject my sinful lifestyle apart from you and turn to you alone for salvation.
Come into my heart and make me a new person –
forgiven, cleansed, loved, and adopted into your family forever.
From this day forth, help me to live as you would have me live. Amen.