Mike Womack died last Wednesday.  That’s about all I know.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know why.  I found out on Facebook.  Can you believe it?  Facebook.

To you, that is probably normal.  How else are people who live so far apart and are separated by so many years supposed to stay in touch?  We can’t call each other once a week.  We can’t schedule reunions once a year.  Can we?  So, what’s so wrong about finding about the passing of my old friend on the latest social networking site?

That’s what I am trying to figure out…..

Back in the day, Mike and I were friends.  He used to show up at soccer practice in middle school.  He was a grade ahead of me – but he lived right around the corner from the elementary school where we practiced.  Being a fellow goalkeeper – he used to help me.  To teach me.  To hang out with me.  He hardly knew me outside of soccer – but around him – I felt like the most important person in the world.

My junior year in high school – I joined the concert choir in high school.  It was the second semester – and I was looking for lighter academic fare.  I got stuck sitting next to Mike.

Little did I know how my life would change. 

I had been a bit of wild child for the year leading up to that point.  Got into a couple of minor scrapes (one with the law).  I was drinking pretty regularly – and since I am never running for office – I’ll admit that I had inhaled.  But I believe God had other plans for me – plans beyond destroying my brain and my life with drugs and alcohol.  I was sitting next to a key part of that plan.

Over the course of the next several months, Mike befriended me.  We began to hang out – beyond school.  All the while – I felt like the most important person in the world when I was with him.  He just did that for you.  It was never about him – but it was always about loving, caring and serving others.  That was who Mike was.

One night that spring, I was walking up front beach road – no doubt waiting for my pals to arrive with the case of beer.  I am sure it wasn’t my night to be the designated driver.  I moseyed past a gated condominium entrance – and guess who was standing there at the gate. Yep.  He convinced me that night that there was more to a Friday night than drinking and hanging with the fellas.

Just a few weeks later, he came to my home one night – and read to me from the bible.  He read Philippians 4:7 (at the time, it was his favorite verse): 

And the peace that passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Mike asked me if I had that kind of peace.  He said that he did.  He laid the bible on my bed, open to Philippians – and told me the decision was mine.  And he left.  That night, I was changed by the blood of Christ.  I was changed forever.

Mike went off to college the next year.  The Pizza Club was never the same.  He came back for Jr. College for a couple of years – and I used to go to his house at night and watch Cheers after my shift at the airport parking lot.  Then, he went back to U.F. – I went off to U.W.F. and I only saw him one more time – at a friend’s wedding.  We talked a few times after that – and kept in touch by email.  But by this time, we were very different – and leading very different lives.   And email – well, that’s just not really keeping in touch, now is it?

A few years back his dad got very sick.  After that – we never spoke or wrote again.  I tried, albeit very weakly, to track him down.  About 20 times over those few years.  But never really was able – or brave enough to email or call when I thought I’d found a contact point.  Now, I wish I had been.

Facebook – just doesn’t seem to be a fitting messenger for news of this sort.

Now I understand the theology behind conversion, so just give me a little latitude here when I say this:

Mike Womack changed my life.  Forever. 

And I always thought that I’d get a chance to see him again.  To talk to him again.  To renew our friendship again.  To tell him how what he had done – how the time he invested in my life – had so impacted me.  But that can’t happen now – it can’t happen here.  And, man does it hurt.  It hurts almost as if I had seen him every day of my life for the last 24 years – because in a way – I had.  Regardless of my questions, and my confusion, my sorrow, my grief – I do not despair.  For I have hope that I will see him again one day.