Jeremy L. Berg

On this week of my 30th birthday I am sharing some personal journal entries that provide a window into the trials and triumphs I faced during the decade of my tumultuous 20s.  

I had my share of days where anxiety over the future and insecurities over the person I was becoming brought about short bouts with depression.  I often felt lonely and misunderstood at home during these years, and sought refuge and sanctuary on a walk in the woods or a drive to the bookstore to find a friend in a book.  

Thankfully, I also learned to cast my cares upon the Lord during these times.  I had turned my future over to God in a very real way, and I was learning to wait upon the Lord, hoping and trusting that He would open the right doors at the right time.  

The following journal entry takes me back to my favorite place of refuge — the hollow behind Bethel Seminary under a giant oak tree along the shore of Lake Valentine.  This was a truly great moment with God.  I’m so glad I wrote the following down.  

I hope my words below adequately paint the scene.  Enjoy!

April 1, 2003

Not much fooling around on this April Fools Day.  I awoke in an uneasy spirit of discontentment.  Feeling the purposelessness of my life right now.  I am 23, blessed with an expensive college education, gifted with knowledge and abilities to succeed, but lacking the drive and courage to compete in this rat race world of “survival of the fittest.”  I feel worthless with my huge debt of college loans and no steady income to show for my education.  I am trying to substitute teach but receiving no calls the past few days.  I can’t afford NOT to work.  Flustered and emotionally disheartened by the last conversation with [a girl], I am just not happy.  

So, today I truly RAN TO GOD!  I left home and drove to Bethel and after taking care of some application procedures for Luther Seminary, I wandered off into the grassy hills and lakeside oak trees and found myself under a tree seeking the arms of a loving and compassionate God.  Many times I have wandered through these trails alongside Lake Valentine and felt the warm embrace of God.  I knew I would find peace and comfort there.  

Nestled away from the hustle and bustle of a crazy, ruthless world, I found hope and reassurance in signs of another springtime in the making — my own springtime of the soul.  Birds chirped, geese fluttered about in the freshly thawed waters, and the grass showed its brown complexion from several months buried beneath the suffocating snow.  In this place of comfort I let my mind wander and attempted to jot down some thoughts as they came to mind.  Upon my scrap of paper, this is what appeared:

Here again I sit where I feel most free, 

Down by the Lake under the old oak tree. 

The gentle breeze reminds me of You.

 

Nature’s steady course shows me you still care,

With the turning of the season,

new beginnings fill the air.

 

The grass lies dormant and flattened by winter’s peril,

Just as my soul feels so dead and so sterile.

As surely as the grass knows of April’s life giving showers,

My soul knows You will come and make my frozen heart flower.

 

The many storms and winters this old oak has seen,

Yet no doubt plagues its consciousness it would seem.

It has come to trust the lessons of the past,

That life has a meaning and God’s good purposes come to pass.

 

Until every flower blooms and morning bird sings 

the Song of the Lamb, the Song of the Redeemed,

All creation joins together in glad expectation,

to see all things new, a sinless creation!