Real Life Real Faith Wisdom for Everyday Life January Issue | Página 24

I KNEW A TRUE
SERVANT
Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college
degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You
only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Linda Wattley

One evening, Willie Mae was home alone
sitting in the corner chair in the living
room with the lights turned off. At the
age of forty, she was fighting depression.
Though she was married, Willie Mae felt
alone and unloved. Tears rolled down
her face while negative thoughts invaded
her mind; all of a sudden a voice was
heard saying from this day forward, you
will be a servant. Hearing those words
caused her to sit up straight in the chair
and wipe the tears from her eyes. Life
was never the same.
Willie Mae is my mother-in-law. I met
her while on leave from the United States
Army. My husband and I stayed in her
home while on leave. Each morning
when we woke up, she had a big and
delicious breakfast waiting for us and
during the night, she gathered our worn
clothes, washed, ironed and folded them
and had them waiting for us at the
bedroom door. There was never a time
she was not busy tending to people. At
church Willie Mae was well known for
her dutiful way she cleaned the church in
the wee hours of the night and made sure
the church had an appearance of royalty
by providing flowers and decorations
regularly to enhance the atmosphere.

This woman never slowed down her pace
of serving others. There were times as
the years went by I would find her
shoveling the entire sidewalk on her side
of the street in their cul-de-sac with a
shovel in the late hours of the night. She
helped her family stay strong by tending
to their needs while they were given
opportunities to relax. From grocery
shopping, house cleaning, purchasing
large gifts, listening to them vent,
anything it took she did it. It was nothing
for her to give away her last penny to
help someone through hard times.
By her late sixties, Willie Mae was still
giving her all to others now others were
the care of her great-great grandchildren
and grandchildren. From picking them
up from school, feeding, clothing and
babysitting through weekends, anything
to ensure care was provided. When she
would be in a store and see anything out
of order, she would stop shopping and
put the shelves back in a state of
perfection. In restaurants, Willie Mae
would stack the dishes and clear the table
off as much as possible to make it easier
for the waiters/waitresses to do their job.
Even on her job servitude carried over as
she spent many extra hours of working
doing other people’s work

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