Who is David Doerr?
Sounds like an existentialist question to me; do any of us really know the answer?
Actually, I do have an answer to this question. As we all are, I am a combination of how my Creator created me, the experiences I have had during my lifetime and my perception of the experiences of my life.
I was created in the image of the living God, filled with His love, desiring to be like Him and redeemed by Him so that I may be with Him forever in His awesome presence. Imperfect as all human beings are yet made perfect by His incomprehensible love.
My father was a career U.S. AirForce veteran who was stationed at only three air bases during my youth. I was born in our nation’s capital while he was stationed at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. Our next stop was in Florida at Eglin A.F.B. We were there until I was 11 years old. The memories of my youth include hurricanes, when my older brother and one of his friends tried to launch a surplus parachute and ended up with cord burns on their hands and shreds of nylon parachute scattered around the neighborhood, and sunshine. We were outdoor kids with a normal childhood in every respect: we spent summer days riding our bicycles all over Valparaiso, Florida with never a thought of being kidnapped or otherwise injured. Sandlot baseball, bicycle races and playing in Tom’s Bayou. All in all life was pretty idyllic.
We moved to upstate New York when my father was stationed at Plattsburgh AFB in Plattsburgh, NY. We lived about 20 miles from the air base in a small town where my mother got a job as a first grade teacher. Life wasn’t quite a nice as Florida. My brother, sister and I had been pulled away from all we knew, including all of our friends and transplanted into a foreign environment and expected to continue our lives. It never occurred to us that this was happening to our parents as well. There was an adjustment period, including a couple of fights my brother and I got into with some local boys.
By the time I got into high school most of the adjustments had occurred new friends had been made and life was back to normal. Except that something was missing in my life and I did not know what that missing “thing” was. This missing part of my life left me with an attitude problem. I did o.k. in high school but was the classic underachiever. Almost making the National Honor Society, almost graduating in the top 10% of the class, almost, almost, almost. Never achieving to the level of my ability.
Life was going downhill, dropped out of college, one botched relationship after another, an undistinguished enlistment in the U.S. Navy, another attempt at college. My family members were unable to figure out what went wrong; I had everything a child could ask for yet I was spirling downward. I did finish college, somehow winning an award as the top student in my class during my junior year. I finished very high in my class and was invited to interview and compete for jobs with companies that interviewed only the top 10% of graduates. I accepted a job offer from a world-class consulting firm, maybe life was turning around. Nope. Another undistinguished career that would lead to leaving that firm after four years.
The one bright spot was the woman I met at college and later married. She was absolutely beautiful, the quintessential California girl. Long strawberry blond hair, tiny but with perfect proportions and bright. Talk about being love struck! Our marriage was up and down, pretty much like the rest of my life, not because of Deborah, but because I was just rudderless. No clue what I wanted. No clue where I was going. No clue about life. Yet somehow Deborah hung in with me.
I was about to hit the bottom. Deborah had an anurysm behind her right eye. It was not immediately fatal but she never regained consciousness. Month after month, nothing. Her body fought back valiantly but in vain; she dealt with heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary failure, renal failure and pneumonia. The months continued, we had our first grandchild but she was in a persistent vegataive state and could not hold Sam. Finally, her body, strong for all those months, could hold on no longer. Her passing was more relief than pain because she was now at peace.
I was tormented, not by her dying nor because of the financial loss but, rather by the sense of injustice that she, always faithful and strong had died and I, the clueless and weak was spared. I ended up homeless, living in a 12 year old car that I could not afford to drive. I hated God and the injustice He allowed on this earth. I was at the bottom of my existence and God was to blame!
After months of homelessness a polite and caring man listened to me express my anger and I asked him to talk to me. I had never heard a stranger reach out in love like this man. Somehow he understood my anger, my disillusionment, my disappointment and my despair. He spoke to me of love and forgiveness; we spoke for hours over several weeks. This minister truly loves people, not just me but others he met at the shelter, I knew he had something special.
When we began exploring the Bible, I was shocked at how much love is expressed for human beings. I figured God just wanted to punish everybody for sinning. Sin does grieve God, but His response is to lift us from our sin and restore us to our place as “created in His image”. I read more books and learned how to shift my focus to the truth of God. Our world was created by Him for us; for our pleasure, for our enjoyment and for our benefit. When I began living according to His truth rather than my perception, my life was transformed.
God was not to blame, rather it was my perception of truth that was holding me down, keeping me from achieving everything God has ordained for me. (Predestined? No, but waiting for me to have if I so desired.) God has ordained goodness, bounty and liberty of choice for all of us. We each must claim these gifts for them to be ours, God gives us everything we need to claim the gifts we need simply claim them.
Why do I now focus on even the smallest of successes? It is because God looks at our righteousness, our perfectness, our successes, He looks at even the smallest shred of righteousness. The failures, the sin, the imperfectness are discarded. I now do the same; failures are discarded, successes are embraced and I am able to lay claim to the bounty that God offers to all of us.
I am not yet where I wish to be but God has given me His universal truths to guide me down the path to all of His blessings. Just so you know, His blessings exceed even your wildest imaginings!
