Will Heaven Feel So Different?
And how to play like Anne
My daughter inherited a lot of qualities from me, but perhaps the one that delights me the most is her shared love of Anne Shirley. Her zeal for the red-headed orphan of Green Gables has already far surpassed my own, which has of late compelled me to drop back into the series I once read so long ago.
While reading through the third installment, Anne of the Island, I couldn’t shake the moving death of Ruby Gillis. Throughout the series Ruby hasn’t been a particularly endearing character. While she’s a friend to Anne, it’s clear she approaches the world with a shallow lens—chasing the frivolous and gloating in the attention she gets over others.
As Ruby’s body slowly wears away from Tuberculosis, she ignores and sugarcoats her reality for weeks, yet one night she finally confesses to Anne, “I’m afraid to die!”1 This statement seems fitting for someone who fears a reckoning for their actions, but Ruby’s fear is rooted more deeply in something else. She’s not afraid of judgment—Ruby believes she will be free and secure in Heaven. Instead, her primary fear is for Heaven itself, for she replies, “It won’t be what I’ve been used to.”2
Ruby feared the unfamiliar, because in reality—life with God had been so very unfamiliar to her. She spent her days in frivolity and meaningless play. God was the person she appeased by going to church on Sunday and not much more. Every joy and delight she experienced in her life remained fixed to the earth in her shallow understanding. Naturally, the only conclusion would be that Heaven, and moreover, the God who resides there must be very foreign and unwelcome from the passing lovely and good things she’d known.
Ruby’s understanding contrasts so differently with Anne’s own perspective of the world—for Anne has never known such a distinction between Heaven and earth. For Anne, the things of the earth were never chained down, but they always knotted to a cord that wound up to the Creator above. Anne’s imagination pulled her upwards to an invisible reality—one that found meaning and profundity within every person, plant, and tree.
We see this faith within her childlike prayer at her bed when she first came to Green Gables. Absent of any “religious training” (as Marilla comments) Anne is told to thank God for her blessings, and she begins to exuberantly thank God for the White Way of Delight, the Lake of Shining Waters, Bonny, and the Snow Tree.3 To Anne, the lake and trees she gushed over just a few hours before are clear gifts from someone greater, and so when asked to pray, she thanks that Creator.
Of course, Anne matures in many ways throughout the series. Her imagination isn’t flawless, but it needs to be directed rightly. Still as she grows, she never loses her perspective that this world holds an otherworldly kind of magic, and she never ceases drawing everyone around her to see it too. Author and podcaster Heidi White noted that Anne continually “invites others into the veil between heaven and earth.”
It makes sense then that Anne should think so very differently from Ruby. For Anne, life in Heaven won’t be very unfamiliar. She tells Ruby, “I think, perhaps, we have very mistaken ideas about heaven—what it is and what it holds for us. I don't think it can be so very different from life here as most people seem to think.”
Of course we can go to Scripture to learn about the nature of heaven, the new earth, and what it might like to be with God. Yet besides the details of the afterlife, I can’t help but think through the way this conversation prompts us to think about how we receive the gifts of this present world and the way we play in them.
This world holds some beautiful delights. We can trek to the tallest mountain lakes and see the fiery sunset across the ocean. We can delight in luxurious food and labor over impressive creative endeavors. We can excel at moving our body in a sport and train our muscles to perform with precision. We can spend nights with friends filled with laughter and play. Yet this is meaningless if it all remains shackled to the earth. It will only leave us fearful in the end. We’ll end up like Ruby, merely fearing the unfamiliar once we left this world. For, as Anne surmised, “There had been nothing in [Ruby’s] gay, frivolous life, her shallow ideals and aspirations, to fit her for that great change, or make the life to come seem to her anything but alien and unreal and undesirable.”
Or we could take the route of Anne. Not by shirking all enjoyment and the beauty of this world, but by chasing every tether of joy in this world to the source—God himself. For he has given it all to us. Through him everything was made, and there was not anything that wasn’t made (Col 1:16). From him every good gift comes (Ja 1:17).
We don’t need to abandon the joy of a life on earth, but instead to see what else it tells us. Our God has proclaimed who he is throughout the Scriptures. He has revealed his mercy and his faithfulness. He shows us his gentleness and his delight. He demonstrates his mighty power, holiness, and his glory. His grace and love is on display through every story. Yet, sprinkled in every tangible gift of joy and beauty in this world are echoes of the same. The beauties of community and fun we delight in at the board game night are a reflection of our Father. The gorgeous vista at the lunch diner at Lake Tahoe are only a hint of God’s loveliness. The taste of the decadent chocolate or the warming espresso are a poem that speaks of the God who made such delights for his children. Everything good, joyous, and delightful in this world is an echo of the goodness, joy, beauty, and delight of our Father.
When we approach the world with this kind of understanding, it unties the knots that tether us to the dirt. No longer are our transitory moments of joy something to grip onto out of fear we will lose them. No longer are our momentary delights something to be anxious over leaving. Instead, they are harbingers of hope to come. They are signposts of a future with the God we have loved and known—a future that’s very familiar.
Created to Play
If you’re looking for more thoughts on play, hobbies, and our incredible God check out my upcoming book with InterVarsity Press that is now available for pre-order!
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, chapter 14.
I’d like to highlight that death is still a grievous reality, and it still makes sense for even a Christian to face death with a sense of grief (even fear) that can be still be very well rooted in the hope of Christ. In this piece, I’m more concerned with the unfamiliar portion of Ruby’s fear.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter 7.
I've only read the first book. But thanks for sharing this.
I don’t know if you have seen the Japanese anime that was just released, but they have a very beautiful episode of Anne and Ruby. Anne Shirley on Crunchy Roll. I can’t wait to read more of what you write about Anne!! Thank you!!