Anne of Green Gables - The Author's End

I [Heaven4sure.com author] live in Prince Edward Island – the home of Anne of Green Gables. Our tiny Island is a popular tourist retreat. Every summer thousands of people from around the world visit the red cliffs, white sandy beaches and green rolling hills of PEI. Some come on an Anne of Green Gables pilgrimage – so to speak. They have read the books and watched the movies. Anne fans come from all over the world wanting to tour the mystical island that provided the setting for the popular novels.

Back in 1908 when PEI author Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, it sold nineteen thousand copies in the first five months and went into ten printings that first year. It was translated into Swedish as early as 1909. It has since been translated into more than a dozen languages and over 50 million copies have been sold around the world. It has been a part of the school curriculum in Japan since 1952.

Movies (even silent movies in the early 1900’s), musicals, TV series, radio programs and other medium have capitalized on the outstanding stories written by one of Canada’s most famous and loved author, Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Annually Anne enthusiasts travel from around the world to attend the LM Montgomery Institute in PEI where the life and writings of the author are delved into and academically studied.

Writing fiction and capturing the imaginations of readers is one thing. Lucy Maud Montgomery excelled at that. But what she wrote in her own personal journals was starkly different from her famous novels. The diaries of her last few years of life have recently been published. She died in 1942 at the age of 67 in Toronto at a home she called: “Journey’s End.”

The opening paragraph in Rebecca Caldwell’s story in the Globe and Mail goes like this: “Lucy Maud Montgomery’s last chapters have finally come to light and they are harrowingly dark.” Her final entry in her diary was made one month before she died of a heart condition:“...my life has been hell, hell, hell. My mind is gone – everything in the world I have lived for is gone – the world has gone mad. I shall be driven to end my life. Oh God, forgive me. Nobody dreams what my awful position is.” (1)

Montgomery obviously had things haunting her and peace escaped her. But what about you? If you were to write in a journal your inner thoughts – what tales would be told? What dreams have gone up in smoke for you? What bubbles have burst? What castles in the sand have been washed away by the waves of life? What peace do you have? What security brings you comfort?

The Bible says in Romans 5:1 “therefore being justified by faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Friend, the peace you are craving to find is available to you through Jesus Christ and Him alone. You can be made right and fully accepted by God (justified) by trusting (faith) in Christ. This right relationship with your Creator is the only thing that can bring peace into your life.

You may never call your last home on earth “Journey’s End”, but when your journey of life does end – will you end in peace? Are you sure of an eternity of peace?

Peace and security and a bright future can not be obtained by success and attainments in life. Christ alone is the answer for your troubled heart. Christ alone is the sure foundation for your life. Jesus said: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Sources

Anne Author's Dark Side, The Globe and Mail, October 5, 2004, Article by Rebecca Caldwell