Little Women, lifelong children

“My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning and may be many, but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother.”

Jo’s only answer was to hold her mother close, and in the silence which followed the sincerest prayer she had ever prayed left her heart without words; for in that sad yet happy hour, she had learned not only the bitterness of remorse and despair, but the sweetness of self-denial and self-control; and, led by her mother’s hand, she had drawn nearer to the Friend who welcomes every child with a love stronger than that of any father, tenderer than that of any mother.

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

No wonder Little Women is a widely loved Christmas movie!

My dear daughters, these words of Alcott’s are what I wish for each of you, during this Advent season, and throughout all the seasons of your lives.

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Source: One of the multitude of jewels scattered freely on Rachel’s blog, Onward Into Light. Thank you, Rachel!

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In the quotation above, Alcott sounds like George MacDonald, doesn’t she?

MacDonald’s fiction assists us in imagining what the world would look like if the Father’s love were ultimate, permanent and unconditional, and then we realize that our world is that world, and that our loving Heavenly Father is that way, and that we are little children after all.

“The wind was packed rather than charged with snow. Men said there never was a wind of that strength with so much snow in it. David began to despair of ever finding the road again, and naturally in such strait thought how much worse would Kirsty and Steenie be faring on the open hill-side…. Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the well-being of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that, for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about his children, he lifted up his heart – not to the Governor of the world; not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such as he had never before felt.” (George MacDonald, Heather and Snow)