Read More @HJ Previews: Trailer, Stills, Production Notes, Overview David Bruce, Webmaster 10 Reasons to Consider Kit Greg Wright Big Screen, Little Girls Mike Furches

When I was a little girl, I had an American Girl doll. Her name was Kirsten, and if I remember correctly, her story was pretty much Little House on the Prairie: life as a pioneer girl circa 1854. My friends had Samantha, the Victorian; Molly, from WWII; and Felicity, the Colonial girl. For most of us, our choice of doll had to do with our shared hair color, our common need for glasses, or the fact that she had the prettiest clothes. But whether we all fully appreciated it at the time or not, the most interesting thing about each girl was her story.

Unlike most other generic dolls which come to their owners with no other stories than the ones we make up, the American Girl dolls come with stories that are not only uniquely their own, but also historically rooted in the time period which they are from. They are inspirational tales about getting through whatever may come your way and being all that you can be. And while my own doll may be packed up in a box at my parents' house right now, the story of Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin), American Girl of 1930s Depression-era Cincinnati and the first American Girl to be brought to the big screen, may very well have made me smile just as much as her "sisters"' stories did fifteen years ago.

Kit Kittredge's story begins in 1934. The Depression has already started, but for Kit, its full reality has yet to be revealed. As she tells us at the beginning, "I was focused on one thing. I wanted to be a reporter." But after the economic crisis strikes her best friend—taking her home and sending her family to the country—and soon after her own family—taking her father's business, sending him to Chicago to look for work, and turning their home into a boarding house—both the story of Kit's life and the stories that she writes suddenly find the Depression and its effects at their center.

At its core, Kit's story is one of hard times—how we respond to them and what we do to get through them. At the Kittredge family home, we see what it looks like to make the best of what you have, to keep on keeping on, and to do so together. Despite economic troubles and several absent fathers, the residents of the Kittredge household give us a sense that every day becomes just a little bit easier when it is faced alongside others. Even though the Kittredges are struggling, Mrs. Kittredge (Julia Ormond) proves that we always have the ability to help one another by hiring two young hobo boys to do work around the house. And after Kit befriends the young laborers and gets to know their hobo friends, we see that the same spirit of sharing what you have with those around you and sticking together during difficult times becomes almost even more important the more difficult things get.

Of course, every story has to have conflict. And so enter the so-called "hobo robberies." Throughout the region, pick-pocketing and household robberies are being blamed on hobo populations. And when the robberies hit the home of Kit's friend Ruthie (Madison Davenport), and then the Kittredges' own home, the question becomes: Can you really count on those around you, or is making it through this life more about every man for himself than anything else?

Being that Kit Kittredge is a family-friendly inspirational movie, you can guess the answer. Refusing to see her friends as able to hurt others to get ahead themselves, Kit channels a bit of Nancy Drew to dig deeper into the robberies. And, when her story hits the press, her headline is that while there may be those who feel the need to take from others to help themselves, it is those who share each other's burdens and give of even the little they have who will always triumph in the end.

Although our current times have not yet become The Great Recession of the 2000s, the truth is that we are living in a recession that is daily making it more and more difficult for families and individuals to support themselves. In a world of politics and policies, our instinct is to protest, rally, and do everything we can to fix our state with the full force of the law. But as I personally find on many occasions, we all could probably benefit just as much by taking a look at our own situation from a kid's-eye view.

In the same way that Kit learns that there is no disgrace in entering into more of a communal style of living, we too should realize that things like living with more people, taking public transportation, or borrowing library books are nothing of which to be ashamed.

Instead of just waiting for the government to help us, we can follow the lead of Kit and her friends by helping each other in any way we can right now. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, God "comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us."

Instead of grumbling about the doom of our society day in and day out, we, like Kit, can embrace the fact that while life's struggles may be painful, they also make us strong. As James puts it in James 1:2-4, "When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."

And in the same way that Kit and her family find the strength to continue through their struggles by sticking together, we too can hold onto the promise that we need not face our struggles alone either. As Kit's father (Chris O'Donnell) realizes, the arms of love do not require us to have it all together to take us into its embrace. And as Paul says in Romans 8, even though there are many things that can be taken from us, God's love is not one of them. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?," asks the writer in Romans 8: 35-39. "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."