I lost a hero this summer and have been grieving in various ways ever since. Here are some very personal thoughts about that, some of which might be relevant to you. I don’t mind being a bit more vulnerable on this side of Substack. Thank you so much for your support.
On July 4th, Lisa woke up to the sound of me crying. It had probably been over a year since she had seen me show such emotion (at my dad’s funeral), but a beloved friend went to be with the Lord far sooner than I could bear. I had just received an early morning text message telling me the news and I just lost it, emotionally, trying to process this loss. I had heard of my friend’s stroke the night before and had been praying through the night, pleading with God for a miraculous healing. I just didn’t want to imagine this world without Dr. Robert Sloan living in it.
I never deserved a friend like Robert, a past president of Baylor University, then current president of Houston Christian University, and a passionate scholar of Scripture. When he taught Bible studies at church, and you asked him what version he was reading from, he’d show you a Greek translation. Literally. His memory of other Scriptures, his ability to flip to four or five relevant Scriptures whenever a topic came up, was astonishing. With a mind so quick and fertile even in his late seventies, we all figured he’d be with us for at least another decade.
God had other plans.
Robert’s life, thoughts, and friendship shaped me; his death is shaping me just as much (more on that in a moment). We hardly did any socializing. There were a few group dinners, but I knew him primarily from a weekly Bible study of six men (the ones I dedicated The Life You Were Reborn to Live to) that met for sixteen years. We’d catch up for five minutes (maybe ten if a hot political or ecclesiastical issue was going on), study the Bible, and then pray for each other. I could never figure out why a man of Robert’s learning was willing to go through the Scriptures with us, given that we could add so little to what he already knew. But for sixteen years, on Wednesday mornings, he did.
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