Live to Tell the Story

Almost a year ago, we made a routine call just a few blocks from our station. An elderly lady had a near syncopal episode(almost passed out). After evaluating her, we began to make small talk with the family who was grateful for our presence. Then the daughter of the elderly lady began to talk to us about her son who recently drowned while wade fishing. She had asked if we saw the story on the news. The story that followed had us scratching our heads and wondering if all of the events as told by her were true and possible. Here are some news links to the story of Terrell and Damien: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7061389 http://www.hcnonline.com/articles/2009/10/19//fort_bend_sun/news/sws_-_equasearch_1013.txt

The mother says that the week before her son was tragically taken, she felt like he was acting strange. She says that he was extremely affectionate toward her, hugging her, telling her, "I love you, mom," and caressing her arm. She says that one night she woke up frightened as he was in the room just staring at her. She asked him what was wrong and he of course said, "nothing." Terrell was considering making a career move and becoming a mortician. She thought this odd, but Terrell said he was not scared of death or the dead. She said that the night before the trip, Terrell had a dream that he was surrounded by caskets and snakes. She said he wasn't sure of the meaning of the dream, but that he tried his best to put it behind him.

Terrell was excited about going fishing with his uncle who is a cop, and his cousins. That evening before they left, he had a talk with all of his family about some of the bad choices they had been making and that it was time to "get right with God." They had all been raised in church and that night prayed for forgiveness and made a commitment to live for Christ. On the way out the door, Terrell grabbed an extra bullet proof vest his uncle had. His mom asked why he needed it, and he said in a joking manner, "Someone's gotta live to tell the story."

When they got to the coast, they were approached by some men dressed in nice clothes like they were "going out." It was obvious that they were not there to fish. The men asked if they had caught anything. As Terrell watched from a distance, he put on the vest and grabbed his handgun. Nothing more occurred, but Terrell was on edge. The family continued fishing. Terrell and Damien ventured out into the surf wade fishing and began to drift. Their uncle tried to help, but just like that they were gone. Moving water is such a powerful, and often unstoppable force. Tragedy had struck. Both men were unable to swim against the riptide. The other men tried their hardest to get the the men, but it was too late. Their bodies disappeared into the abyss.

With the help of Texas Equusearch, the family searched all over the southeast Tx coast. Damien's body was found a few days after the accident. Terrell's mother refused to believe they would never recover her son's body, and a week later they found Terrell on Wolf Island. His mom said his body washed up on the cemetery there. Before searching the island, they were warned to watch out for snakes. The civil war cemetery there is known for its vast array of snakes.

It seems that some how, some way, God had been preparing Terrell for death. The dream, the prayers with family, the affirmation of love for his mother, far from coincidence. I believe God made Terrell aware, so he would speak to his family about Christ. Something in his spirit gave him an urgency to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All Christians are alive, so that they would tell the story. We can be great story tellers. We spend our time on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, at the dinner table, and water cooler telling stories. All entertaining, but in the grand scheme, meaningless. More often than not, we fail to tell the Greatest Story of all. Would you Live to tell THE STORY.