Success depends on your standards. What is success to some, might not mean a hill of beans to another. However, Significance is another matter. Significant means to be noteworthy, remarkable, consequential, uncommon, rare.
Today, My mother would have been 100 years old. She might not have been successful to the world’s eyes, but she was very significant in many ways. she was a world changer. She never traveled far from home, never went outside of the United States. She was fun, serious, a marvelous singer, a terrific mother. But above all else, she loved the Lord with all her heart and had a zeal for His Good News to reach the world.
I’d like to share with you her story of how my mom influenced nations.
She was born in a large city to a lower-income family who struggled to make ends meet. After turning down a voice scholarship to The Juilliard School of the Arts in New York, she eloped at age 16 with my father, Floyd Carroll, and moved to central Mississippi. A year after their marriage Floyd was in a body cast for almost a year following a terrible motorcycle accident. The young couple moved in with his parents who really were not pleased with the marriage, and certainly let Doris know this. It was quite a difficult time in Doris’s life. However, even in these uncomfortable circumstances God was moving and had a plan for her. She spent much of this time with her husband’s grandfather, Bro. McCaleb, who had been a circuit-riding Presbyterian minister. Brother Mac could no longer drive to speak at various churches on Sunday, so Doris drove him. The two of them discussed the Bible and on the drive home from the churches, Doris could ask him questions and delve deeper into his messages. In fact, you might say, my mom was Brother Mac’s best disciple. This Godly man so enriched her life with the love of Jesus that she would never be the same. He instilled in her a burning desire to study the Bible and a zeal to reach others for Jesus. During this time, God planted nations in her heart.
After his recovery, Doris and Floyd moved to their own home and eventually had four daughters. Doris was very active in her local Baptist church and became the music and choir director, but her heart was always drawn to missions. Anytime there were visiting missionaries, Doris invited them to dinner. As these missionaries told stories of their activities, Doris’ heart burned to go. But her circumstances denied her that privilege. After all, she was the mother of four young girls and had a family to raise. But as she talked and dreamed about missions, she imparted that love and zeal to her children. To Doris, the highest call of the Lord was to be a missionary in a foreign land.
Doris never went to a foreign land, she never went on a mission trip, and as far as I know, she never left the United States.
BUT GOD! He brought missions to her doorstep. A young man from her home town met and married a Japanese girl and brought her home to Mississippi. After discovering she did not know Jesus, Doris did not rest until she had secured her a Bible in Japanese. She continued to love her, witness to her and eventually won this young Japanese wife to the Lord.
But that was not the end of Doris’s influence. Her love of missions was passed on to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation.
Back in 2015, as my sisters and I talked about our mom, we began to count the nations to which we, our children and our grandchildren have carried the gospel. At that time we counted over ninety nations to which Doris’s generations have carried the Good News of Jesus Christ. Now Doris’s great grand-daughter, husband and two sons serve as full-time missionaries in an Asian country. My Mom’s legacy continues. Since that day, we have added more nations and the count is continuing to grow.
Doris’s circumstances dictated that she stay at home and so she did. But from that tiny little hamlet in central Mississippi, this very significant woman reached the world.
Success? Maybe. Significant? You’d better believe it!
Doris Rae Williams Carroll left a legacy that only eternity will tell.
Thank you Lord, for my mom! May I, too, release a legacy to my children, the legacy of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations. One heart at a time.
Hope Accademy, Nairobe, Kenya 
Hope Accademy, Nairobe, Kenya 
My Son-in-love, Rich
A what beautiful story. It encourages me for my generation of my childrens, and theirs to come children. Even though it seems the person offers nothing but yet the intercessor groan and trailing is doing the unexplainable.
THANK YOU JUANITA. YOU ARE RIGHT. so many unseen people make a huge difference in our communities and in our family! blessings to you and thank you for your comment.
Dear Ruthie … I loved reading about your mother.
What a wonderful legacy she left her family … and it continues from generation to generation. ❤️ Trenda
Thank you Trenda. She was an amazing woman and our family is so blessed. amazing how blessings are multiplied down family lines! blessings to you and Richard.
What an amazing woman! I loved reading about her. Thank you for sharing your mother with all of us!
Thank you Mary. you are a blessing to your family too!
Ruthie, that is precious.
Thanks Carolyn. appreciate you reading it. blessings to you!
What a beautiful story, Ruthie, and what a legacy! I believe that you can be successful without being significant, but being significant will always being you success. Thanks for sharing this about your mom.
You are right, Michael. Blessings to you, my friend
What a heritage you received from her! And you, Ruthie, have been so faithful to pass that baton on to your family and to others outside that loop. So many people are grateful for your life well-lived in faithfulness to Jesus. Thank you for your significance to us, your friends.
Thank you Anne. I did receive and amazing heritage from her and I appreciate your comments. You, too, my friend, are leaving a legacy!
So loved this! Made me think so much of my mother. She too was so beyond her time. She too had never been out of the country but her youngest daughter me; have been out of the country 5 times! She never drove a car but at 60 became an ordained Methodist Minister after attending Emory University in Atlanta. With my daddy being her private driver as he was when she was pastor of two little churches. Long before women were pastors. Always her main purpose was sharing Jesus whether from being a hair dresser in my growing up years, to Directors of Camp Lake Stephens to being a pastor! And later years from her home where ever it might have been. We were truly blessed with out mothers. My mother would be 110 years old.
Oh Lisa! Your mama was my mentor, my prayer partner and my friend. She was such a strong influence in my life. She taught me HOW to pray!!! and I loved her dearly. and you are so much like her!!! love you too
I loved this, Ruthie …. and it is so true. Some plant, others water, and then comes those who harvest. This thread runs through generations in families – all part of God’s plan …. and the planters, and waterers are signicant.
yes it does, Janet. passed on and multiplied. blessings to you and to your family!
Thank you, Sister, for telling our mother’s story !!Beautiful!!! Yes, she was a most significant women and to me the best mother in the whole world. I still miss her, greatly!!
Me too! sister, me too
Thank you for sharing, Aunt Ruthie! What a testimony of your mother that continues to multiply through you and yours. Such a great reminder that God sees success and significance with a completely different lens than what we can see in the moment. Love you!
You are so right, Brittany. and your grandmother (BJ’S MOM) was another woman in my life, who also was a woman of significance! love you