A letter of comfort and encouragement to a sick friend.
The Eighty-fourth Letter.
A letter of comfort and encouragement to a sick friend.
In the grace of our sweet Saviour beloved friend and brother!
Of your so very ailing circumstances I have from time to time heard with compassion, and in weakness sighed up for you to the dear God the needful support, grace, and blessing; and this I still do. It is, after all, the hand of our dear heavenly Father that sends and governs all this — without whose gracious will not a hair can fall from our head. To Him we have given ourselves up, body and soul, and so it shall remain. We are therefore to regard and look upon ourselves, in all ways of suffering too, as in God's hand, to whom we belong, and who has given us the sure promise that all things shall serve us for the best. Even though we do not feel and see this always, yet the childlike faith shall justify the Lord, and say with David: All the ways of the Lord are goodness and truth. It will surely not last much longer with us here in this misery. Only take heart upon such a God! For longer than four years now has the gracious God helped you through, dear brother! in your wretched ailments; praised be His name!
Who knows how soon your — and my own — cup of suffering will be drunk out? On the glad Easter-day of the dear sweet eternity, the Saviour will ask, of our sufferings too — as He said there of His own suffering: Must not Christ (and must not also the holy one) suffer these things? Have I not had to keep him by Me through such ways — small, pure — and make him capable of My heavenly glory? And how gladly shall we then be silent and say: The Lord has done all things well. Let then your faith — and mine also — strengthen itself under the cross in this expectation! Our Immanuel is with us, and we will keep close and cleaving to Him, that we grow not fainthearted, but through His support may suffer according to His good pleasure, and inherit the blessing. Amen, Jesus! So let it be!
German
Der vierundachtzigste Brief.
Trost- und Aufmunterungsschreiben an einen kranken Freund.
In der Gnade unsers süßen Heilandes geliebter Freund und Bruder!
Von deinen so sehr kränkelnden Umständen habe von Zeit zu Zeit mitleidig vernommen, und dir in Schwachheit den nöthigen Beistand, Gnade und Segen von dem lieben GOtt zugeseufzet; und solches thue ich noch.
— 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 tender letter to a friend who has been ill for years. Its comfort is quietly bold: nothing at all befalls us outside the hand of "our dear heavenly Father" — not a hair falls without his will — so the whole way of suffering can be trusted. The cup will soon be drained; and on "the glad Easter-day of eternity" the risen Christ himself will vindicate it, turning his own Emmaus question — Must not Christ suffer these things, and enter into his glory? — upon the believer too. It ends where it can rest: cleaving to Immanuel, "God with us," under the cross.
A few words and echoes.
- Not a hair shall fall. The Gospel promise of a providence that reaches the least thing.
- All things for the best. Paul's "all things work together for good" — the sure ground beneath the suffering.
- The ways of the Lord are goodness and truth. David's word (a Psalm), which the childlike faith says even when it cannot feel it.
- The Easter-day of eternity. Tersteegen pictures the Last Day as an Easter, where Christ asks of our sufferings what he asked of his own on the road to Emmaus.
- Immanuel. "God with us" (Isaiah, Matthew) — the name the letter finally leans its whole weight on.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-084 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.