Cornelia Sorabji knew that being a Christian in 1800’s India could cost her everything. Her former Zoroastrian father had converted to Christianity and suffered intense persecution. Yet, his daughter remained faithful to Jesus, trusting that “God removes mountains.”
In 1892, a few years after Sorabji had traveled to Oxford to study law but was not allowed to graduate due to her gender, she met Florence Nightingale.
Nightingale, Sorabji wrote to her family, “put her hand on my hand and blessed me when I was coming away and said, ‘I am sure God is sending you to do your work my child. Don’t be afraid to go in his strength. He will bless you and use you to work his purpose.”
He did just that. In 1923, Sorabji became India’s first female lawyer, practicing in the Calcutta High Court. She fought gender segregation, protested child marriage, and advocated for female education. In 1929, she set her law practice aside and focused entirely on social work.
Sorabji’s life did not feature the ease many of us long for in our stories. But she beheld the goodness of God, loved what he loved, and cared for the people he brought to her. And she received encouragement like Nightingale’s, allowing it to give her the strength she needed to keep going. May Sorabji’s story be just such encouragement for us.
