To a sick woman friend. Encouragement to quiet surrender and trust in God.
Addressee, date, and source
The Thirty-Eighth Letter.
To a sick woman friend. Encouragement to quiet surrender and trust in God.
Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us, and has also called us with a holy calling to His service and kingdom — may He be your inward and everlasting comfort and rest!
In Him, beloved sister!
Although I trust that the Lord is near to you Himself, and will be mighty enough to uphold you in all weaknesses and distresses, yet I find myself moved to testify to you, by these lines too, that I take part in your sufferings and do not forget your soul before God. May it go so inwardly well with you, there with the Savior upon your bed of suffering! May He reach forth, in the very moment, whatever is needful! May His power be made perfect in your weakness! May your last moments be truly blessed to you! May the Lord still all that is yours, and work, through His love, in the hidden ground! See indeed how detached, how inward, how bare, how single-hearted He would gladly make you! Ah yes — may He make you into a child, and let you enter, as a child, into His kingdom!
How much, then, falls away, when God so leads into the dear Oneness! And — O the grace, that whoever experiences it even here below — that, methinks, is what God would still carry on in you upon your bed; let Him then do as He will, with quiet surrender and trust: for He is faithful, He will also do it. Should I perhaps see you no more after the flesh in this present time, then I offer you up, with my whole heart, to your God and Redeemer, and lay you into His Father’s hands, that He may take you to Himself forever — for your delight and His own. In Him we shall find and love one another forever, according to the riches of His mercy in Christ Jesus, our only Salvation, to the eternal glorification of the triune God — Amen! Eternally Amen!
German
Der achtunddreißigste Brief.
An eine kranke Freundin. Aufmunterung zur ruhigen Ueberlassung und Vertrauen auf GOtt.
JEsus Christus, der uns geliebet und sich selbst für uns dahin gegeben, uns auch berufen hat mit einem heiligen Ruf zu Seinem Dienst und Königreich, der sey dein inniger und ewiger Trost und Ruhe!
— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.
German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. A letter of comfort to a sick, perhaps dying sister; near its end Tersteegen allows that he may “see you no more after the flesh in this present time.” It opens with a single sweeping blessing on Christ, “who loved us and gave Himself up for us… may He be your inward and everlasting comfort and rest!” Though the Lord is already “near to you Himself,” he could not keep from writing to say “that I take part in your sufferings and do not forget your soul before God.” The middle is a series of prayers spoken over her sickbed: that it may “go so inwardly well with you, there with the Savior upon your bed of suffering”; that “His power be made perfect in your weakness”; that “your last moments be truly blessed.” His deepest wish is that she be made “a child,” detached, inward, bare, single-hearted, so as to “enter, as a child, into His kingdom,” with the counsel of quiet trust: “let Him then do as He will… for He is faithful.” If this is farewell, he makes it one, “I offer you up, with my whole heart, to your God and Redeemer,” and ends, “In Him we shall find and love one another forever… Eternally Amen!”
A few words and echoes.
- Quiet surrender and trust. The letter’s watchword for the sickbed — not striving or anxiety but a restful handing-over of oneself to God, who “is faithful, He will also do it.”
- Made a child. His central prayer for her draws on Christ’s saying that one must “receive the kingdom of God as a little child” (Mark 10:15) — the sickness itself becoming the way she is made small, simple, and ready to enter.
- His power made perfect in weakness. The prayer over her frailty echoes Paul’s word that God’s “strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9) — her very helplessness the place His power completes itself.
- Into the Father’s hands. His act of commending her — “lay you into His Father’s hands” — takes up Christ’s own dying words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
- Eternally Amen. The letter does not close so much as open outward: in Christ, the parting “after the flesh” is swallowed up in a finding and loving “one another forever.”
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-038 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.