The other night,"The Diary of Anne Frank" came to our local theater. I’ve read the book and even been to Anne’s house in Amsterdam and walked in the attic where she hid for two years. Yet, the story of this young Jewish teenager continues to moves me. I guess any story about the Holocaust moves me. But this time something new captured my heart.

Like all young thirteen-year old girls, Anne had hopes for her future. She dreamed of someday becoming a writer, specifically a journalist. She said that she wanted to do something important with her life. Anne Frank did not want to settle for a life of mediocrity. She wrote, "I want to go on living after my death. And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift . . of expressing all that is in me." She didn’t record that wish in her diary because she expected to die young. She penned those words after the Allied invasion of Normandy, full of hope that her family’s hell would soon end. Anne anticipated release; not the death that awaited her in the concentration camp at the tender age of fifteen.

In 1999,  Anne Frank was named one of the Most Important People of the 20th Century by Time magazine. Anne’s life exceeded her aspirations. Through her writing, she  lives on. Yes, she became the journalist she dreamed of being. By documenting the inhuman treatment and inspiring the world, she did achieve something important with her life; she did live a life that mattered. How many of us can say that? I wonder how many of us put our childhood dreams aside, never to be fulfilled.  Anne Frank fulfilled hers. And she inspires me to fulfill mine.