When I was finishing high school, life was pretty good. We were state champs in Texas, and I was a little stud muffin with a six-pack to prove it. Now, let’s just say I’ve traded that six-pack for a couple of kegs!

Our high school football chaplain was a Baptist preacher, and he played a huge role in my life. I got saved when I was seventeen—March 15, 1971—right in the middle of the Jesus Movement. That same chaplain wanted me to go to Baylor, so he took me up there for a visit, and it changed my world forever.

Now, before they let me in, they made me take the ACT test again. Can you believe that? The first time I took it, I made a 16. The second time? Another 16. But if you add them together, that’s a 32, right? Thankfully, I was an athlete—and they let me in anyway!

Not long after that, a man named Marshal Edwards came to Columbus Avenue Baptist Church as pastor. When he arrived, he baptized me and made me his youth pastor that same spring. I barely knew Jesus, but I was fired up and eager to learn. I stayed there for four years before heading off to Southwestern Seminary. Three years later, I met my wife, and the Lord’s been good to me ever since.

But here’s the rest of the story—and it’s the part that changed how I see everything.

Marshal Edwards grew up in Covington, Georgia. He had an appointment to West Point and a full scholarship to Harvard. But he turned both down because he felt called to preach and decided to attend Baylor instead. His father told him, “If you do that, I won’t give you one penny.” And he meant it.

Marshal worked three jobs and pastored a small church to get by. Still, at the end of every semester, he always came up short. Yet somehow, every time, a check would arrive—just enough to cover what he owed. This happened semester after semester until he graduated.

Two weeks before Marshal took me to Baylor, he received a letter from his old high school English teacher, Mary Leila Ellington. She wrote, “Dear Marshal, I was up in my attic going through some things and came across the canceled checks I sent to Baylor to help you out. Yes, I was the one who wrote those checks. I never intended to tell you, but the Lord told me to let you know.”

Marshal called her immediately. She told him, “Marshal, you are the greatest investment I’ve ever made in my life.” She had never married and never even been on a date. She told him, “You’re like my adopted son.”

That woman planted a shade tree for my father in the ministry—a tree she would never sit under herself.

A few years ago, I had the honor of burying Marshal, my hero. And as I reflected on his life, I realized something powerful. When I was riding in the back of Marshal’s yellow LTD on the way to Baylor all those years ago, Mary Leila Ellington was there, too. She was there when they made me take the ACT again. If she could have spoken, she probably would’ve said, “If I’d had him for one semester, he could’ve made a 22!”

She was there when I became a youth pastor. She was there when I met my wife, when my boys were born, and she’s still with me today—because she planted a shade tree that she never sat under.

When she paid for Marshal’s Baylor tuition, she wasn’t just investing in him. She was planting shade for me, for my family, and for everyone who’s ever been touched by the ministry that flowed from that act of generosity.

And that’s how it works.

We may never see the full impact of the seeds we plant, but someone down the road will find rest in the shade.