Louisa May Alcott's Little Women

“The emerging woman… will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied… strength and beauty must go together.” Introduced to the novel of Little Women at the age of 11, I quickly fell under the trance of Louisa May Alcott’s astounding writing.

Louisa May Alcott… Teacher, domestic servant, feminist, army nurse, and most famously, a novelist. Her self-reliance openly resisted the cultural worldview of women’s equality. Her personal literary legacy made a great impact on her society. Alcott wrote Little Women, her most acclaimed novel at the age of 35. She also wrote Little Men, Jo’s Boys, Hospital Sketches, Moods and other novels as well in her lifetime. Her writing career began at 16 years old and the first success of

So when God uses those who are self-reliant, He uses them to show others how not to act. Just like 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God…” There is no way to accomplish anything without Christ. We are stuck in the sin we’ve created for our self and the only way out is through Christ. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…” The grace that God has given us is a gift, and He expects us to use it in the right way with reliance on Him as our only source. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” This is saying that we need to trust in the Lord that saved us, not ourselves who weren’t even able to save ourselves from the mess we made. God strongly disagrees with the idea of self-reliance because we are to rely fully on Christ. “His grace is sufficient for