Calling His disciples to Him, Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on."

Mark 12:43-44, NIV

 I met her shortly after moving to Happy, Texas to preach for the church of Christ in 1995. She had worshipped with the church here for a number of years, but had not attended for a while. So when I learned she wanted to visit, I really didn't know much of anything about her other than she wanted to talk to me. When I got to the house, a black woman in her late fifties met me at the door and introduced herself as Alice Malone. 

She was a bit hesitant at first, but after we visited for a while she got to the point: She was wanting to come back to the church, but wasn't sure how to go about it. Would it be alright, she wondered, if she did come back. Would people accept her?

Now, don't get me wrong. Alice was not asking these questions because she was black and the congregation was mostly white. I don't remember ever having any sort of conversation with Alice in which she even hinted at racial matters. Nor was Alice asking the question because I was some sort of religious authority from whom permission must be granted in order for her to come back. Alice had likely discerned very quickly from our brief conversation that I was just a fledgling preacher who didn't know all that much anyway, so she knew that she didn't need my say so on the matter.

But what Alice was very concerned about was doing this in the right way. She had been "out of service" for a long while and she needed to know if it was appropriate for her to come back. I assured her that it was. She wondered how she should go about it. I suggested that she just come on back. So she did. And her church family could not have been more delighted.

I got to know Alice pretty well over the years and we established a friendship that I will always value. She had lost her husband several years earlier, and I asked her if we could put her on the list for the teen mowing during the summer. The year I moved to Happy, the teens began mowing the lawns for our widow ladies so that they would not have the trouble or expense, and we asked if she would like us to mow hers as well. 

Now Alice's lawn was immaculate and she had taken care of it herself for years. But she was delighted to let the kids mow her lawn and thus began a series of regular conversations either before or after the worship services. Quite often our novice mowers would make a mistake or two in the cutting of her grass. She had a patch of grass in the front yard that she had planted herself and it looked like a picture from a magazine. So when we cut it too short one night and nearly killed it, she brought me over personally and showed me how it should be done. She also had flowers and a vegetable garden, and these plants would all too often be mistaken for weeds by one of our eager mowers. We usually only made each mistake once or twice, but the kids did make a mistake or two.

Anyway, Alice and I always had a fresh topic to discuss whenever the church met, and we both enjoyed our visits. By the time the Covid madness swept through the land Alice was approaching eighty, so she had to be particularly careful. For a number of months I had the privilege of taking communion to her house since it wasn't wise for her to get around too many germs. Still, she was back at the worship as soon as it seemed safe to come, and everyone was glad to see her and she was glad to see them.

When Alice passed, things just didn't seem the same. She had always sat on the same end seat on a pew just a row or two back from the center. She was there every Sunday morning and every Sunday night, and then one Sunday she just wasn't there anymore. And while Alice was never one of the "movers and shakers" of the congregation, she was a fixture all the same. She never knew how much she was admired and she would have been surprised to hear all of the comments of those who miss her so much now that she is gone. She was just a simple and dignified woman who loved the Lord. And while she might not have stood out amongst the ones who have a reputation for doing great things, I have an idea that she was just the type of great lady that Jesus was referring to when He said that she put in more than all the others.