Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

A letter of comfort to a mother on the blessed departure of her daughter.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 89 · Der neunundachtzigste Brief

Addressee — A bereaved mother and her family, addressed together as "Herzgeliebte Freunde, und Freundinnen!" (dearly beloved friends, men and women). The deceased is her daughter, named only by the initial "C." ("unsere C. von uns … zu nehmen"). None is identified — the 1773 anonymizes (as it does with "N. und N." elsewhere).
Date — Not given in the print, and not recoverable — the letter is 1773-only.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 239–240), in GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Eighty-ninth Letter.

A letter of comfort to a mother on the blessed departure of her daughter.

Dearly beloved friends, men and women!

So it has, after all, pleased the Lord, our God, to take our C. from us and to Himself, though we thought and hoped otherwise. I do indeed grieve, in Christian compassion, for you all, and for my own loss as well; yet I rejoice in her happy departure and blessed lot with the Lord. The dear mother loses a beloved daughter, a staff of her old age: may the Lord become her refuge and her stay! Her brothers and sister lose a more-than-natural sister, a helpmeet and peaceable companion of the house; I and those like me lose a gladdening, faithful companion on the pilgrim-way; and we all, with you, lose a good example of a simple walk in godliness.

Yet no! we lose little or nothing, if only we rightly know how to turn to our profit the good we have seen and had in her — for which, on God's side, much grace, and on ours, prayer and faithfulness, is required. Let us give her person up quietly to the Lord, who has loved her! The Lord had given her to us for a while; the Lord has taken her — the name of the Lord be praised! Yes, His name be praised for the time of grace and the grace given her; for the goodness, patience, and long-suffering shown her again and again, and that He stood by her so faithfully in trouble and in death, and preserved her faith to the end! Should we then not comfort ourselves with her believing departure, and now hasten on all the more, that we too may be furthered and perfected on the good way? The days of harvest are here: wheat and tares are being gathered, but not both poured together into one place. Soon the sickle of death will meet us: happy the one who is found as ripe wheat! May the Lord then teach us, from now on, to watch, to pray, and to die — that death may be to us no loss, but a gain! Amen, Jesus!

❦

German

Der neunundachtzigste Brief.

Trost-Schreiben an eine Mutter über dem seligen Absterben ihrer Tochter.

Herzgeliebte Freunde, und Freundinnen!

So hat es dennoch dem HErrn, unserm GOtt, gefallen, unsere C. von uns, und zu sich zu nehmen, ob wir gleich anderst dachten und hofften.

— 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 mother whose daughter — named here only by her initial, C. — has died, written to the whole grieving family. Tersteegen does not hurry past the loss: he names it, tenderly and precisely — the mother loses the staff of her old age, the brothers and sister a more-than-natural sister, the household its peaceable companion, and he himself a faithful friend on the pilgrim road. Then he turns it over: "Yet no — we lose little or nothing," if we make right use of the good we saw in her. The Lord gave her and the Lord has taken her; blessed be His name — blessed for her time of grace, for His faithfulness to her in death, for keeping her faith to the very end. So the grief becomes a summons: to be comforted by the way she died, and to press on all the harder along the same road, because the harvest has come and the sickle of death will reach us too — happy the one found as ripe wheat. It closes as a prayer to be taught, from now on, to watch, to pray, and to die, "that death may be to us no loss, but a gain."

A few words and echoes.

The Lord gave, the Lord has taken. Job's words at the loss of his own children — "the name of the Lord be praised" — the still centre the whole letter turns on.
Kept her faith to the end. The note of Paul's "I have kept the faith" and of the promise of faithfulness unto death (Revelation).
Wheat and tares; the sickle. The harvest of Jesus' parable (Matthew) and the sickle of the end (Revelation) — the final gathering, with the prayer to be found "ripe wheat."
Death no loss but gain. Paul's "to die is gain" (Philippians) — the reversal the whole letter works toward.
Watch and pray. Jesus' word in Gethsemane (Matthew), joined here to "and die" — a threefold discipline for the time that is left.
A staff of her old age. The daughter pictured as the support of her mother's age — the biblical image of a child who sustains a parent.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 89 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-089.html.

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