...The shock and the tragedy of Doug's death, 2 weeks before his 21st Birthday was such an assault on my sensibilities and emotions, that it struck me at the very core of my being...
...Neither was it lost on me how frail, our mortality is! Especially my own! As I later learned... I quite possibly drank from that same bitter cup that ushered my friend, and brother into the presence of the Almighty...
...Those days immediately following Doug's Death were filled with questions and speculation, most of them unsubstantiated, or unanswered...
...those memories are pretty cloudy in my mind today as they are filled for me personally with a whirlwind of emotions and personal introspection...
...I had just started my new job as a RoughNeck and I had to focus on that four days at a time...
... I do remember that Barry was out of the picture for a little while as he had traveled back to Ohio for Doug's Funeral and Burial...I am sure that He was emotionally overwhelmed, and I am sure he was bombarded with all the questions from Doug's family about what exactly happened?...
...I do remember having to talk to detectives locally in DeRidder who were naturally investigating a suspicious death of such a young and seemingly very healthy young man...
...It was certainly not a task that I was looking forward to...after all I really didn't know anything that I thought would be of any use, but I was what they referred to as a MATERIAL WITNESS, and I was the last person in our group that had talked with Doug or seen him up on his feet that night...
... I rescued him out of the front yard where he was running around drunk and naked, I got him dressed and back inside the house before I left for work...
...All I knew, was what I had been told...Most of that was second and third hand, I never seen that girl Lisa ever again, and it would be weeks before I got to see Barry and talk to him...
...As the story goes, Barry and some of the fellows stopped by the house the following day and Doug was laying on a pallet on the floor in my bedroom sleeping off his hangover, so everyone thought...
...They said that he was acting like he was having a nightmare or something because they could hear him moaning, kind of talking in his sleep, being restless...
...No one there had any idea that Doug was actually laying there, probably in a coma, struggling to live...
...After all they had came by the house to see if Doug wanted to go fishing with them and to get the fishing equipment, and after seeing Doug dealing with a massive hangover, seeing him Dog Drunk the night before, everybody just quietly left the house, deciding that Doug would be better off if they just let him finish sleeping it off...
...I guess that nobody else stopped by until the following day, and I heard that it was Barry that discovered Doug still lying on the floor in the bedroom the next day...
...He reached down to shake him awake and horribly realized that His best friend Doug Tuttle was no longer amongst the Living...
...I can't even imagine what that grizzly discovery must have done to Barry and his Psyche...
...The emotional scar, I'm sure still travels with him today. It's not something we talked about much other than the few times we talked after he came back to DeRidder following the funeral and his trip back to Ohio...
...The one thing that I do know for sure... Doug's Death was not for nothing...He did not die in vain...
...It changed my life forever!...
.....And consequently, the lives of an unknown number of people, that only God Himself knows...Because that number is still being added to up until this day... and beyond...
...Doug's life and His death are still impacting the lives of all the people whose lives my ministry impacts, and their ministry and lives impact compounded exponentially add infiniteum etc. etc. etc...
...I remember driving back and forth to work that following week...We were working on a new location, and it was close enough that they didn't suitcase us in a local motel...
...We just drove back and forth every day, and it was during that time I discovered a local Radio Station called Stereo Love...Kajn...Cajun country Christian Radio. I believe it was broadcast out of Crowley, Louisianna...
It was during those times of driving back and forth to work That God's presence and His Spirit, became very real to me, and I can remember driving for miles, grieving and weeping, sobbing so violently at times I had to pull over and gather myself to drive because I was blinded by my own tears...
...My thoughts would race and my emotions would run wild, and I find myself talking out loud with God praying and hollering at him all at the same time...Wrestling with a decision that God had been lovingly coaxingly been trying to get me to make for a long time now...
...Our house was only a block away from the Texas Avenue Baptist Church, and I remember my eye always being drawn to the sign out front...There was an invitation to come to their REVIVAL!...
...I had absolutely no Idea what a REVIVAL was but I had purposed in my heart that I was going to Church this next Sunday and was going to become a Christian...
That was one of the greatest decisions that I had ever made in my entire life and I wasn't sure what it all meant but I can tell you this much...
...Satan wasn't digging it and he wasn't about to let go of me without a fight and it was a battle that I almost didn't survive...
...But that's a whole other story...
...NEXT THE REST OF THAT STORY!
...IT TRULY IS A NEVER ENDING STORY...
SO PLEASE KEEP ON KEEPIN ON!!!
BROTHER MICHAEL
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