Etty Hillesum - Illness

Les écrits d'Etty Hillesum. Journaux et lettres 1941-1943 (The writings of Etty Hillesum. Diaries and letters 1941-1943. Complete edition). Paris: Seuil, 2008, 1081 p.

September 15, 1942, Tuesday morning, 10:30 a.m.
All in all, it may have been a bit much, my goodness. A human being also has a body, and mine is calling out to me. I thought my mind and heart of strength to bear it all alone, but now my body shows up and says, "Halt there!" And now I feel what it was, the weight you gave me to carry, God. So much beauty and so many trials. And always, as soon as I was ready to face them, the trials turned into beauty. And the beauty and the greatness were sometimes harder to bear than the suffering, so much they subjugated me. That a simple little human heart can experience so much, my God, so much suffering and so much love! I am so grateful to you, my God, to have chosen my heart, in this time, to make it undergo all that it underwent. Maybe this illness is a good thing, I haven't accepted it yet, I'm still a little numb, disoriented and weakened, but at the same time I'm trying to search every corner of my being to gather some patience, a brand new patience for a brand new situation, I can feel it. And I'm going to go back to the old tried and true method and converse with myself from time to time on the blue lines of this notebook. Conversing with you, my God. Is it good? By going over people, I wish to address only you. If I love people so much, it is because in each of them I love a piece of you, my God. I look for you everywhere in people and I often find a part of you. And I try to search the hearts of others to find you, my God. But now I need a lot of patience, a lot of patience and reflection, it will be very difficult. I have to do everything alone now. The best, the most noble part of my friend, the man who awakened you in me, has already joined you. There remains only the appearance of a senile and exhausted old man in the small two-room apartment where I experienced the greatest and deepest joys of my life. I stood at his bedside and found myself facing your last mysteries, my God. Grant me another lifetime to understand it all.

As I write, I feel it: it's a good thing I have to stay here. I have lived so much these last months, I realize it afterwards: I have consumed in a few months the reserves of a whole life. Perhaps I gave myself too recklessly to an inner life that broke all the dikes? But if I hear your warning, I will not have been too imprudent. –

p. 712-713