Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer?

[soso]

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On how to rehearse for death and how to diminish fear.

17 June 1963

Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? 

Can you not see death /as the friend and deliverer? 

It means ]stripping off that body //which is tormenting you:

like taking off a hair- shirt or getting out of a dungeon.

What is there to be afraid of?

You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved.

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret?

There are better things ahead /than any we leave behind.

Remember, though we struggle against things /because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round

—we get afraid /because we struggle.

Are you struggling, resisting? 

Don’t you think () Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace. Relax.

Let go.

Underneath are the everlasting arms. 

Let go, I will catch you. 

Do you trust me so little?’

Of course, this may not be the end. 

Then make it a good rehearsal.

Yours (and like you a tired traveller near the journey’s end) Jack

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack