I really like the story of Anne of Green Gables.
Initially it was just a good story about a girl who was a kindred spirit. I was six when I first read Anne, and started spelling my middle name, Ann, with an e. That went on until my mother caught it and explained I'd been named without the e for a reason.
Then, as a teen-ager and on into my twenties, I began to feel akin to Anne, because I too was "of Nowhere in Particular." There is no particular place I felt I could say I belong to. Gradually, though, I came to accept that I was adopted into God's family. Like, Anne, I am no longer of Nowhere.
Recently, I've come to appreciate her wonder in life around her. Anne had been through a lot in her early years, and yet the beauty of the world around her never ceased to give her joy.
Later in life, it would be tempered and enriched and deepened by sorrow, but it was not destroyed.
A young man about to be executed wrote his fiancée that the natural outcome of sorrow is happiness, if one would let it. I think Anne wisely let it happen.
The world is a lovely place. Sometimes it seems too lovely.
I remember walking campus after hearing of human trafficking, and seeing the soul-stirring beauty around me, and almost crying out at the dichotomy. It is not always an easy thing to reconcile.
And yet--
in a way it speaks of hope.
There is much evil and wrong, but the God of beauty and order and love is still in control.
I know L.M. Montgomery struggled with life, and I have yet to read much of her life, but I like to hope that like Anne, some part of her clung to the wonder in the world and God's goodness.
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I feel like your post was a response to one of my later ones, for they both tell of this strange tension. Was it, by any chance?
ReplyDeleteI also remember this growing that Anne goes through throughout the Anne books, now that you mention it. Even when she is a mother (and has lost one child) she is still Anne.
Like you, I do have this crazy hope that the good face is the winning one.
I'm no longer sure, as it was late at night when I wrote it, and my motives are hazy. I think though it is quite possible that your posts did have something to do with this.
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