When your good deeds feel too small to notice, one woman's decades of meals and blankets for strangers point to the Savior who counts each one as done for Him.
Faithful service often shows up in the quietest gestures. (Getty Images / Illustration by EEW Magazine Online)
Everyone in our St. Louis neighborhood knows my grandmother, Dottie Evans, as Miss Dottie. For more than 40 years, she has been showing up for anyone who needs a helping hand. Sometimes that means packing lunches for the hungry. Other times, it means handing out blankets to people facing bitter winter temperatures without a home.
She has spent countless hours volunteering at food pantries and soup kitchens, giving her time and energy to make life a little easier for someone else.
At 78, she moves more slowly than she once did. Her back is bent, and the years have taken a toll on her body. Yet her desire to serve is as strong as ever.
For as long as I can remember, she has told me the same thing: "Whatever my hands find to do, I do it as unto the Lord."
That one statement explains so much about the woman I know and love.
My grandmother grew up in a family of sharecroppers in Marshall County, Mississippi. Her early years were marked by hardship, and her family's journey eventually led north in search of work. She knows what it means to struggle, and that experience has shaped the compassion she extends to others.
A sharecropper’s house in Mississippi, with harvested cotton piled in the yard. (Library of Congress)
Despite the difficulties she has faced, she remains one of the happiest women I know. Giving has become such a natural part of her life that she seems to find another opportunity to help wherever she goes.
Watching her has taught me that faithfulness in the Christian life is often expressed through ordinary acts of love, repeated over many years.
In Matthew 25:35-40, Jesus describes works of compassion with extraordinary spiritual significance. He speaks of feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, clothing those in need and visiting the sick and those in prison.
Then He declares, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (verse 40, KJV).
The way we treat others matters deeply to God. The hungry person receiving a meal, the neighbor in a trying season and the person longing to know someone cares all offer a chance to follow Christ's teaching.
My grandmother has done exactly that.
Her consistency encourages me more than anything. A single kind act can bring relief on a hard day. Years of them can help strengthen an entire community, and the person giving may never fully know how much those simple gestures meant to the people who received them.
These days, her memory is not as sharp as it used to be. One saying still comes to her without hesitation.
"You can't beat the good Lord giving, no matter how hard you try."
She has spent decades putting those words into practice.
She has helped shape my own passion for giving. Through her, I've learned that generosity begins with a willingness to notice another person's need and respond with whatever we have available.
For Miss Dottie, that has meant a meal, a blanket, a few hours of her time or a steady hand for someone who is overwhelmed. Gifts like these can mean the world to someone who needs them.
When I think about my grandmother's life, I think about all the ordinary days she chose to make herself useful to someone else. I think about the people she has helped and the example she continues to set for those of us blessed to know her.
At 78, Miss Dottie is still showing up.
She has shown me that faithful service is built one act of kindness at a time.
