Margot Käßmann: "To repeat Paul Gerhardt's words stabilised me"

Photo: epd-bild/Jens SchulzeMargot Käßmann"Entrust your days and burdens" is my favourite song. I got to know and to love it in three different contexts. At first, I heard my grandmother sing it. She had been through a lot: war, displacement, flight – and yet she belted out "Lift up your hearts, ye people", for instance while she was cooking. But it was that other melody which she hummed or softly sang when it became difficult, for example when someone had died: " ...will find for you a pathway and guide you all your days. "

Later, as a young pastor, the song gave me strength during the first funerals I held. Having to bury a child, a man who had taken his own life, someone who had died tragically during a car crash, I sometimes feared that my voice might break or that I might start to cry where I was the one who should give solace and support. Singing gave me the strength to find the attitude that is necessary in order to convey consolation and the hope of the resurrection: " … and at our end then bring us to heav'n to praise you there."

Finally, in my own life, I caught myself humming or singing quietly when I found myself in troubles that seemed to have no end. It encouraged me to be able to bring my own worries before God. To repeat Paul Gerhardt's words, to find myself in them, stabilised me. For he himself connected difficult life experiences and the confidence of faith in his songs in a unique way: "No anxious thought, no worry, no self-tormenting care can win your Father's favour …"

The first verse of the song goes: "Entrust your days and burdens / to God's most loving hand; he cares for you while ruling / the sky, the sea, the land. / For He who guides the tempests / along their thund'rous ways / will find for you a pathway / and guide you all your days." Text: Paul Gerhardt (1656), Music: Bartholomäus Gesius (1603).

Margot Käßmann, Born in Marburg in 1958, she was Bishop of the church of Hanover from 1999 until 2010, and Chairwoman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany 2009/10.