Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

Sickness, suffering, and dying are, to nature, terrifying; but looked upon in God, they become bearable and light.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 20 · Der 20te Brief

Addressee — N. N. — a sick "liebe Schwester" (polite plural euch/ihr); undated
Date — undated (no dateline or signature in 1773)
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 53–56), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Twentieth Letter.

Sickness, suffering, and dying are, to nature, terrifying; but looked upon in God, they become bearable and light.

N. N.

Although I have just now no time for letter-writing, I must nevertheless take this occasion to greet you heartily and to assure you that your little letter was welcome to me, and that the state of your soul lies upon my heart.

On the one hand I do indeed pity you on account of the continuation of your bodily weakness; but when I look at the same time to the intention of the divine goodness and to the wholesome fruit for your soul, then I must adore, praise, and love God's ways, and believe that your frailty is an answering of your prayer and mine. For this I cannot conceal: I would a thousand times rather see you sick and with God than healthy and far from God.

How very much it delights me, dear sister, that you too are so minded, and would gladly give yourself over to the cross, and that you experience in some measure the strengthening of the inward man amid the weakening of the outer. Think not, and take no care in any point, for what is to come; but rather love and suffer in the present moment, thinking more of God and His power than of yourself and of your weakness. Should more sufferings come, then more grace will come as well. And should it be God's will to take you out of time, we shall then see soon enough whether or not you can give yourself over into it: now is not the time to detain oneself with that and to be disturbed. To many, death appears terrifying from afar, and is wished for when it is present; others are heroes from afar, and quail when it comes to the point: all depends on God's grace. If God is present, then the smallest, poorest child can look upon death without fear even when it stands before him. Psalm 23:4. It is, among fearful natures, even when they are given over to God, no unusual temptation that they let themselves be so weakened and disquieted by fearful representations of what is to come, that often for this reason alone they cannot bear a present thing as they ought, because they pack a future thing onto it besides.

Your misery, your weakness, your enemies, your hindrances and dangers, the present and still-possible sufferings, death itself at last — all these things are weighty and to be feared when you stand alone, and when such a poor child as you are had to arm itself against them: but with God at hand, with God, in God, all these matters take on a far other and fairer aspect. You must therefore not take yourself, and all these aforementioned things, for your object of brooding, but rather our sweet and so inwardly-present God; accustom yourself to Him; sink yourself into Him; give yourself over to Him, and keep a good heart toward Him. Do, deny, and suffer everything that comes, with an eye to love for Him. In the life of the senses you are weak and frail; therefore it is not good for you to dwell there long. Our best and most delighting Heart-Friend waits for us in the spirit, to impart Himself there thoroughly to our hearts, and to form us after His own mind: pay Him often a little visit there.

I approve your faithfulness in setting apart some particular time for prayer, and I rejoice that such exercise is found to be blessed. O yes, dear sister! our time and our life must be devoted only to our God; in that consists our blessedness; to Him we belong, to Him our whole must also be brought back again.

See here, then, a letter written against all expectation, and under ongoing interruption.

❦

German

Der 20te Brief.

Krankheiten, Leiden und Sterben, ist vor die Natur fürchterlich, aber in GOtt angesehen, werden solche erträglich und leicht.

N. N. Ob ich gleich zum Brief-Schreiben jetzt keine Zeit habe, so muß ich euch doch mit dieser Gelegenheit herzlich grüßen und versicheren, daß mir euer Brieflein angenehm gewesen, und euer Gemüths-Zustand auf mein Herze geleget wird.

— 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 short letter of comfort to a chronically ill woman ("dear sister"), whose complaint Tersteegen had evidently written asking about. He refuses to treat her sickness as simple misfortune: seen from the side of God's purpose, her frailty is itself "an answering of your prayer and mine," and he would "a thousand times rather" see her ill and near to God than well and far from Him. The counsel that follows is his standard medicine for fear: live in the present moment, not in a dreaded future. Death terrifies at a distance and is often longed for up close; heroism at a distance melts when the hour actually comes — "all depends on God's grace." The remedy is not to brace against the fear but to turn away from the self and toward the ever-present God: sink into Him, keep a good heart toward Him, "pay Him often a little visit." The letter is unusually candid about its own making — its last line notes that it was written "against all expectation, and under ongoing interruption," snatched from a day with "no time."

A few words and echoes.

"looked upon in God" (the argument). The summary line turns on angesehen — sickness and death "regarded in God" change character. This is the whole letter in one phrase: the facts do not change, the vantage does.
Psalm 23:4. Cited, not quoted — "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Tersteegen invokes it for the child who can face death unafraid because God is present.
"object of brooding" (Vorwurf). In this 18th-century sense Vorwurf is not "reproach" but the thing one casts before the mind and dwells on — hence "do not make your weakness the object you brood over."
"a little visit" (Visite). A gently colloquial image, kept from Tersteegen's own French-derived word: the inward turn to God as dropping in on a waiting Friend.
"Heart-Friend" (Herzens-Freund). One of Tersteegen's recurring names for the indwelling Christ, "who waits for us in the spirit."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 20 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-020.html.

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