My heart goes out to you in deep sympathy with the loss of your beloved Robert Champagne. I know it will be quite difficult to picture life without him. You know where he is and can by the Lord’s grace joy in the fact that he has reached where we all long to be, face to face in the loving intimacy of our loving Abba Father in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit. What has happened is in the perfect will of the Lord, so we know He will uphold you in these difficult days.

Since both Robert and I were both former Catholic priests whom the Lord saved to Himself, we have been close for some years. I have always seen in him a great zeal to promote the greatness of the grace and sovereignty of God. All the letters and emails that we shared over the years were centered on better understanding the grace of God for us sinners. The last emails I shared with him, however, went much deeper than he had previously done. He showed me that he was a soul who could rest on the love of God. He took solace and comfort in the love of God shown through His Son, Jesus Christ, “that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in His kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:7-8)

I will always count it a privilege to have known him. I truly pray that his life and example will always shine as a testimony to the love and long suffering of the Lord God.

The very last scripture of my last letter to Robert is the note of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord on which I end, “Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.” (Psalm 71:20). That indeed was what Robert both experienced and knew in the depths of his soul to be true.

Trusting in the love and grace of the Lord,

Richard Bennett