Doug
My testimony is a personal story of God’s wonderful love and providential care. God saved me from the penalty of my sins when I was 10 years old. I’ll describe this at length later, but this experience is only a part (although a very important one) of the story. God always has, and always will love me. As His child, I can do nothing to make Him love me more or less than he does. He simply loves me.
I’m proud to say that my childhood was very happy. I was raised in a completely functional family home. Dad worked and provided the income. Mom worked at home and ran the house. She cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, and for the majority of the time, made sure I stayed in line! Mom and dad loved me very much, and both sacrificed so that I could have all of what I needed and most of what I wanted. Mom and dad were together until she died, after a long time in a comatose state, in 1997. Dad didn’t re-marry, and died in 2000.
As far as discipline goes, my mom and dad both believed in the effectiveness of corporal punishment. It was mom, however, that practiced it. My dad worked a three-shift rotation, so he wasn’t with me as much as mom. As a result, mom applied the “hands on” discipline. As I grew older, mom found that embarrassment was a much more effective tool as far as I was concerned. She would wait to spank (and when I say spank, I mean a swift lick to my bottom) me in front of my friends. That’s cruel you may say, but I’ll just say that it was effective!
Since dad worked three shifts, he was at home when I was at home roughly two-thirds of the time. As a result, I wasn’t as close to my dad as I was to my mom. Dad was an intimidating presence to me. He was a big man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, and just big all over. Mom only had to threaten she would tell dad if I misbehaved, and that, as they say, was that. I can’t remember dad ever spanking me. His sheer physical presence was enough to keep me in line! I learned much more about my dad as I grew older, and I grew much closer to him. He was one of the gentlest men I’ve ever met.
Mom and dad loved sports, and that love rubbed off on me. They supported all my athletic endeavors, with dad coaching or managing most. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are those spent with dad and my teammates. I spend this much time talking about my parents so you’ll understand how much I loved them, and how great a job I think they did raising me. It’s important you understand that, because the testimony of my journey with God starts in a way that might make you think less of them. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I wasn’t raised in church. In fact, the only church services I attended were at my dad’s home-place and home church in Anderson County. Red Hill Baptist Church it was, and when we did attend, it meant an early morning trip from our home in deep west Knox County to Red Hill, near Norris and northeast of Clinton, Tennessee. I don’t remember much about these trips to church, except that it seemed to me an inconvenience…wake up early on a weekend, drive an hour and sit in a hot church until lunch with my grandparents, Uncle, Aunt, and my cousins. Though, I did enjoy the time I spent with my cousin nearest to me in age, Stan. Together on small motorcycles, we explored a lot of TVA trails and fire roads in the area.
When I was ten, a friend of mine asked me to go with him to a summer camp in the Chattanooga area, Camp Joy. I don’t remember if I understood it was a church camp. It just sounded fun. I didn’t understand then that God was acting in my life. In fact, I doubt I considered God at all. But, He was there all along. He saw that I had the opportunity to go to this camp. This is what I remember about the week at Camp Joy. They kept us very busy. We started each day in chapel, went to breakfast, and took in a variety of activities ranging from horseback riding to swimming, to crafts. We had lunch in between activities, free time afterwards, then dinner. After dinner, every night…every night, we had chapel.
Put simply, chapel was about two hours each evening of nothing but degradation and fear. All of us, ages 7 through 14, were told how inherently bad we were. We were constantly told that if we didn’t repent and ask Jesus to save us, we would spend eternity in Hell. Of course that was right, unless we accept Jesus as Lord and our Savior, we will go to Hell. You have to remember that in 1970, when I was ten, fear was the primary method used to lead someone to Christ. For many of us for many nights that week, there wasn’t much sleep, and what sleep we got was fitful.
I endured Saturday night through Tuesday night before I responded. As I know now, the Holy Spirit was drawing me that week. I was mature enough to understand the message delivered each night, and the Spirit used that message to speak to me. On that Wednesday night in the summer of 1970, I went to chapel with everybody else (there was no choice). Like many, I was dreading it. I don’t remember what the message was about, though I’m sure it was much like the others, “if you die in your sleep tonight, will you go to heaven or hell?” Whatever it was, I responded, as did many others, to the pull of the spirit. I walked the aisle to the altar, prayed the sinner’s prayer (and meant it), and received Christ as my Savior and Lord. I remember being relieved immediately afterward. I don’t know if joyful would describe it, but I was certainly happy about what I’d done, if not for what Christ had just done for me, surely for the relief I felt. I also remember being proud of what I’d just done, though I wasn’t sure that’s how I should have felt. The rest of the week was a lot less scary for me. I slept better. On Friday, we were all bused to the sponsor church in Chattanooga, Highland Park Baptist (believe it or not!), and I was baptized along with many others.
The end of the week came quicker than I thought it would. I came home excited and nervous to see my mom and dad; excited to see them, and nervous to tell them that I had been saved and baptized. They were both happy for me, but mom told me she wished she could have seen it (I assumed she meant my baptism). Her reaction puzzled me for a long time. Even at ten years old, I wondered how she could have ever seen me saved and baptized if she didn’t take me to church. I can understand her comment now being a parent myself, sort of, but it also still strikes me as a little selfish on her part.
Despite not being raised in church, despite not giving God much thought, God was thinking of me. He gave me parents who let me go to church when I wanted, and sometimes went too. Most importantly, He showed me what unconditional love was, through my mom and dad. He put the friend who invited me to church and to camp in my life. He provided the camp, the counselors, the messages, and the opportunity to come to Him, all at just the right time.
The things I remember about my new salvation shortly after being saved are doubt, insecurity, and asking myself, what now? I can certainly attest that Satan attacks new, young believers. Satan knew he had lost my soul, so he quickly went to work on my joy, and he was successful. I doubted that my salvation was real. Had I just said the words and didn’t really believe them? I wondered if I had only responded out of a feeling of peer pressure. I didn’t think I was good enough to deserve my salvation or to keep it. Of course, no one deserves salvation, and it isn’t ours to keep, but God’s. But, I didn’t realize that then. Not being actively instructed by other believers (mom and dad were saved, but I didn’t feel I could go to them with my doubts and questions), I floundered. I wondered, “What do I do now?”
Without instruction, I began to think less and less about my salvation. I became more and more concerned with the things most boys my age were concerned with; sports, motorcycles, cars, and, well, girls. Anyway, years slipped by before I began to attend church regularly, and that lasted only a couple of years. High school came and went. College started. Work started. I got busy, and I gave very little thought to my relationship with God. Through all this time though, God thought a lot about me. In the fall of 1982, He intervened in my life in a miraculous way!
In October 1982, at a party hosted by a mutual acquaintance God brought me the love of my life, the woman who would become my wife, Carol Tinnel. Understand, I did nothing to deserve Carol and her family. It was simply God giving me just what I needed in my life exactly when I needed it. Of course, I had the choice of asking her to be my wife, and she had the choice to say yes or no. For once, I made the right decision, and I was blessed that she said yes. I began attending Highland Park with Carol. Our courtship was a quick one. I got a promotion that took me to Montgomery, Alabama, in the winter of 1983. It only took a couple of months to realize I had to have Carol in my life all the time. I proposed that winter, and she accepted. We were married July 16, 1983, in what we now call the old sanctuary at Highland Park. When I complete this testimony, we will have been married a little over 35 years. God is good.
Carol and I attended the Young Adult Sunday School class then taught by Bill Luttrell, the Christian mentor I never had until then. Bill was truly a blessing from God. Bill birthed in me a desire to read and study God’s word. Bill also gave me my first opportunity to teach class. For over 30 years, God has given me the privilege of teaching that class. God has given me many Christian mentors over the years. So many I couldn’t possibly try to list them without risking leaving some out. But, I was especially blessed to have Bob and Violet Tinnel, Bill Luttrell, Tony Collins, and Eddie Click to live the Christian example that I followed closely.
After we were married, Carol and I lived in Montgomery, Alabama, for a year. Times were a little tough. I was working 70-80 hours a week, and Carol was having a tough time finding work. We prayed and God gave us a way to come back home. He gave Carol a job here first, and He blessed me with work shortly after. There is no doubt in my mind that it was God’s will and intervention that brought us home.
Six years after we were married, God blessed Carol and me with our first child, Kyle. About two and a half years later, He blessed us again with Tyler. Nothing can help you understand how the Father feels about you better than your own children.
God blessed us day after day, year after year. He blessed us in good times and bad with family and friends that loved us and with a wonderful church family.
God has blessed both Carol’s career and mine. He blessed Kyle and Tyler growing up. Kyle and Tyler both graduated Lenoir City High School, and like mom and dad, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Kyle married just after college to his wife, Irina, and God has blessed them and us with twin daughters and granddaughters, Violet and Catherine. Tyler is engaged to marry Morgan Brown, whom he grew up in church with. We love both our daughter-in-law and future daughter-in-law very much, and of course, our granddaughters are the lights of our life. God is good.
God has only spoken to me audibly once. I was alone, but His voice was something I heard…no still, small voice this time. Now, if someone had been standing next to me, could they have heard it too? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. This is how it happened, and this is what he said.
In the spring of 2015, I was subcontracting for a hazardous waste processing company just across the Highway 321 Bridge at Melton Hill Dam. Kyle was in the Army, and was being shipped out to Kabul, Afghanistan for a six-month tour of duty as an intelligence specialist. I was devastated. To say I was scared is a vast understatement. Like many who have watched sons and daughters go to war, I was terrified that I would never see him again.
Kyle sent me a text telling me he was about to board his flight from Rhode Island to Germany, with connections to Kuwait and Afghanistan. I remember the moment very well. My stomach felt like I had swallowed acid, roiling, moving up to my throat and to my eyes. Knowing I was about to break down, I left my office and went outside to the parking lot. It was a beautiful spring day, the sky bright blue. It was a crisp morning, but hinted of a warm afternoon. I remember thinking, like I did September 11, 2001, that it was too beautiful a day for something so tragic to be happening.
As the gravel crunched under my feet, I cried out to God to take care of my son. I said “He’s in your hands now God”. That’s when He spoke. As clearly as if he were standing directly in front of me (and really he was), he said “He’s always been in my hands”.
From that moment forward, my relationship with the Father changed. It took on a completely new and marvelous form for me. I say for me because it was always that way for God. From that moment I realized just how much God loves me. He wants nothing more from me than my love and trust. In short, He knows what I need, want, and what’s best for me. The pressure I put on myself was taken from me in that moment of realization. As His child, there is nothing I can do to make him love me more or less. He simply loves me. I am, and always have been, in his hands.
Summing up, I know now that God has always been, and will always be, with me. I feel Him with me always. He speaks to me through His word, through His Spirit, and through His Son, Jesus Christ.
With deference to perhaps America’s greatest author, Mark Twain, I’ll end this testimony, for now, by taking some literary license in saying “So endeth this testimony for now, it being strictly a history of God’s love for a boy and a man. It must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of God’s love and providence for the man yet to be. I simply must stop where I can.”