Maybe I'm looking for the impossible.

Over the last 5 or 6 years, I have made a serious effort to better understand evolutionary theory. I know - that's a HUGE thing to tackle, but I feel like I have mostly been taking the science on faith.

I have taken a fair number of science courses at the undergraduate level during my lifetime (biochemistry, organic chemistry, microbiology, cellular biology, human anatomy & physiology, pathophysiology, and even a course titled "Major Ideas in Biology" which spent considerable time on the basics of evolutionary theory). However, I am still having some difficulty getting my head around how all of the various chemical, physical, and biological concepts have combined to produce something as complex and intricate as the DNA molecule.

My limited science education is pathetically insufficient to grasp how molecular coding for specifically folded proteins can give rise to an entire, complex organism such as Homo sapiens. Going beyond that, to try to understand how a few basic elements combined under just the right circumstances to create the earliest precursors for DNA, and then the eventual formation of the first rudimentary DNA molecule, is even further beyond my education.

I understand the concept of deep time, and enough fundamental chemistry, to have a basic foundation for understanding evolution, but I have realized that one really has to devote his life to the study of evolution to actually understand it at the molecular level.

Is anyone able to give a simplified explanation of how such a complex and intricate molecule was able to form from the "primordial soup" of early Earth, and the basic principles of how that single molecule, and all of its successive mutations, then led to the complex lifeforms we see today? I get the concept of cellular specialization, but the incredible coordination needed at the cellular and molecular levels almost seem like they had to have been purposefully designed. Obviously, I am missing something, as I do not believe in "Intelligent Design", but I just can't seem to work out the intricacy of complex life from my fragmented knowledge of the sciences.