Daily writing prompt

Who is the fictional character you relate to the most?

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My first instinct was to come up with somebody cool. Indiana Jones would have been nice. Han Solo would have worked. Maybe somebody rugged, clever and adventurous who always has the right line at the right moment.

But the more honest answer is George Bailey.

I have always loved It’s a Wonderful Life, but until recently, it never occurred to me that part of the reason might be that, in some ways, I see myself in George. He spent much of his life looking at what he had not done. He wanted to travel, see the world, build things and live a life that felt bigger than Bedford Falls. Instead, life kept putting people in front of him who needed something, and George kept answering.

That part feels very familiar.

I have always had a hard time ignoring someone who says they need me. “Doug, it’s 2 a.m. I’m stuck without a ride. Can you help me?” I was asleep. I had to work in the morning. I was tired. But my answer was usually, “Yes, I can help.”

I never set out to be a martyr, and I have never expected recognition for helping people. I have just never wanted to be the guy who let the ball hit the ground. My thinking has usually been simple: If I don’t help, who will?

That sounds noble when it is written down, but most of the time it has not felt noble. It has felt inconvenient, tiring and sometimes frustrating. Usually, it has simply felt like something that needed to be done. George Bailey did not walk around thinking he was changing lives, either. He was too busy noticing the places he never went and the dreams he never reached.

I understand that, too.

Before my senior year of high school, I moved from Fort Walton Beach to Sarasota. I have often looked back on that decision as a mistake. It would have been easier to stay where I was. I had friends in Fort Walton Beach and relationships that mattered to me, and I wish I had done a better job of maintaining them.

In Sarasota, I felt like an outsider. Most of the people in my graduating class had known one another for years. They had their friendships, their shared history and their place. I graduated with a lot of people I barely knew, and in many ways, that year did not feel successful.

I had moved to Sarasota to be close to my mother. I had recently accepted Christ, and Mom was a devout Christian. It seemed logical to put myself in an environment where my faith could grow. I am not sure I was a particularly impressive Christian example that year. I was still a teenager, still figuring things out and still capable of making plenty of mistakes.

Years later, Riverview High School was about to be torn down. A guy named Joe Clara contacted me and asked whether I wanted to ride with him to Sarasota to see the school before it was demolished. Joe had been a couple of years behind me. We had been in band together and had hung out some, but we were never especially close. I could not figure out why he had thought to contact me.

During the trip, he told me.

One night, Joe had been in my car with some other guys who were drinking beer. He asked whether I wanted one, and apparently I told him, “I get my high from the Holy Spirit.”

I do not remember the night, and I do not remember saying it. Honestly, I am a little embarrassed by the line now because it sounds canned and cheesy. But Joe remembered it. He told me that sentence stayed with him for years. The idea that a person could find fulfillment, not in a substance but in a relationship with the Lord, had made an impact on him.

Joe said that moment became part of the journey that eventually led him to church on the night he accepted Christ. I did not lead him to the Lord. I was not the preacher that night, and I was not the person who prayed with him. But I had been one small part of the road that got him there.

That revelation changed the way I saw my year in Sarasota. The year had not suddenly become easy. I still wished I had stayed closer to some of my Fort Walton Beach friends. I still remembered the loneliness and the feeling that I never quite belonged. But it no longer felt wasted.

I had judged that year by what I could see. Joe had been carrying evidence I knew nothing about.

That is very much the lesson George Bailey had to learn. He measured his life by the places he never visited, the buildings he never designed and the life he thought he had missed. He had no idea how deeply his presence had become woven into the lives of other people.

I have a tendency to do the same thing. I can look at the things I have not accomplished. I can think about the ministry opportunities that did not happen, the writing career that took longer than I imagined, the roads I did not travel and the versions of life that never came together. What I do not always see are the people who were affected while I was busy believing I had fallen short.

Joe was kind enough to tell me. There may have been others who never did.

Maybe it was a student who needed encouragement, a friend who needed someone to answer the phone or someone stuck at 2 a.m. who simply needed to know that they were not alone. To me, those moments may have felt ordinary. To them, they may not have been.

That does not make me George Bailey in every way. I do not own a savings and loan, I have never lived in Bedford Falls, and no angel named Clarence has ever jumped into a river to get my attention. At least not yet.

But I understand what it is like to spend a lot of time looking at the life I thought I would have, only to miss the value of the life I actually lived. I understand what it is like to keep answering when someone says they need me. And I understand what it is like to wonder whether always catching the ball meant I never got to run my own route.

Maybe the truth is that the route was never the point. Maybe the point was that the ball did not hit the ground.

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