You are myself

Photo Credit: Catherine Yong

I came across a letter written by Helmuth von Moltke to his wife, Freya von Moltke 12 days before his death. It is one of sixteen hundred letters he wrote to her during their years of marriage. He wrote this one from a Nazi prison where he was awaiting his execution for his resistance against the brutality of Hitler's regime.

I do not pretend I fully understand his words, nor the love his had for his wife.
But I want to.

So, I am saving his testament here, in the hope that I might grow to understand. For I believe this is close to what the Lord means when he says that we are to love one another.

January 11, 1945

“And now my dear, I come to you, I have not included you in my list because you, my dear, stand in a totally different position from all others. You are not one of God’s agents to make me what I am, rather you are myself. You are my thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Without this chapter no human being is truly human... Without you, my dear, I would not have ‘had’ love. I should not think of saying that I love you; that would be quite false. Rather you are the one part of me, which would be lacking if I was alone…It is only in our union—you and I—that we form a complete human being…And that is why, my dear, I am quite certain that you will never lose me on this earth—no, not for a moment. And this fact it was given us to symbolize finally through our common participation in the Holy Communion, that celebration which was my last.”

Helmuth von Moltke was hanged in prison on January 23, 1945.