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David Pelzer
By Julie | September 16, 2008
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” — Jeremiah 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11 has been one of favorite Bible verses for years now. No matter what I’m going through, or how long the trial I’m in seems to last, I can always remember the promise from God in this verse, that he plans to give me hope and a future. It’s a reminder that some how, some way, things will get better.
This morning as I’ve thought of this verse another person came to my mind, David Pelzer. I do not know him, most likely will never meet him, but I’ll never forget his story. David Pelzer has written several books, chronicling his life. I read three of them: A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave. A Child Called It is down right horrific, but by the time I finished A Man Called Dave, I had read the most touching human triumph stories of my live.
As a boy, David Pelzer was singled out for unfathomable abuse by his psychotic mother. For most of this time his father was in the house, but he worked as a fireman and was on duty several days in a row. His dad did little to stand up to his overbearing, and obviously mental wife. David had four brothers who were not abused. It was said the abuse David suffered was one of the worst child abuse cases in the state of California. This was the hardest book I have ever read. The things David went through were the most horrible I have heard of a person experiencing. His mother did everything she could to harm him. She treated him as if he were not even human, and called him “It”. She was better to the family dog than her child. I started the book late at night and didn’t put it down until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. I had to make sure this little boy was going to be ok. When the book ended, I knew David was going to be removed from his mom’s care, but the end did it. Even though I was tired, I couldn’t get David’s horrors out of my own head that night. I barely slept. I barely slept.
I went to the store immediately the next day to buy the sequel, The Lost Boy. I couldn’t eat breakfast… I had to know what was going to little David Pelzer. In this book, David’s teachers finally had enough of seeing this boy come to school beaten and bruised. The laws were different, so the teachers and administrators were risking their jobs when they called the Police. A cop snuck David across the county line then told the boy he was free. David was 12 when he was saved from his mother’s house. The rest of the book follows David’s life in and out of foster houses; some were really good homes, some a not as much, but he was safe. He did not have to see his mother, though she did try to declare him insane. She wanted to be able to blame David’s abuse on him, rather than be held accountable. By the end of the book David is a young man, graduating and ready to move into adulthood. He’s made some friends, but is not an average boy, looking for a party. Though he overcame many barriers in this book, you can see insecurities, and ghosts his mother left on him he’d have to overcome.
But it was in A Man Named Dave where we really see David overcome his childhood, and even face his mother as a grown man and father. In this book it is obvious God had plans for him, and even used his childhood abuse to reach out to others, to help them be better people and live better lives. Even in a terrible story of childhood abuse God had a plan to give David a ‘hope and a future.’
As an adult Pelzer married, had a son, and became a pilot for the Air Force. In his spare time he started volunteering his time to kids who’d been abused. He tried to reach out, to be a friend. But these kids were hurting, and wanted something authentic, so as he heard them say, “You don’t know what I’ve been through!” He was able to say, “Um, yes I do.” Soon he was talking to bigger groups, giving speeches, being invited to give speeches, and writing books. He’s won many awards, and been recognized by every president since Reagan.
As a grown man David has touched the world, and helped heal individual lives. He’s had his struggles: a failed marriage, financial hardships as he started his business, not to mention near death at the hands of his own mother as a boy. But A Man Named ends with him getting remarried to a woman who seemed to really understand him, and he started to face success. More proof that even if we go through unspeakable hardships, God has… “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
It’s easy to see it in other people’s lives. But when I look at my own, God is doing the same thing for me as well.
Topics: Awesome People, Encouragement | 1 Comment »
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Did you read the New York Times interview with Pelzer? It places him in a less than favorable light. I should read A Man Called Dave; maybe I would find the stories a little more inspirational then.