On the first Wednesday morning in December, a vivid hard frost greets the day in northeastern Kansas. Not only the low smooth of yards but even the rough thick of field and pasture are coated white. The cold that came in the night grabbed hold of the wet still lingering from last week’s melted snow and froze it in place. Fences, rooftops, cars and trucks out of luck for a garage to stay in, are all crusted and white.

Feeding the horses, I happened to catch a glimpse of a tiny shimmering, a quick trace of reflected light from the metal gate fastened open, leading from the round pen into the paddock. It didn’t take long to realize that the low sun was shining on the metal tubes of the gate frame. Bits of frost melted on the horizontal pipes, sagged down to the bottom curve, collecting. When the weight of each drop surpassed its surface tension, it fell. Either to the next tube or to the ground.

If you looked closely enough, you would see tiny circles of melted frost on the dirt, a brief testimony of the phenomenon above. Within an hour, with the frost completely melted on the ground and from off the gate, there’ll be nothing left but the memory of a solitary witness who happened to pause during his morning chores.

Much that we do in life in the way of small kindnesses, gentle touches, slight encouragements, and a hundred other things of similar manner, will carry no lasting trace of general remembrance. Many will not even be noticed to any large degree at the time. Some, perhaps, will barely even be noticed by the ones involved.

Doesn’t matter. Tiny traces of melted frost against frozen earth—these, too, bear witness of life’s passings.

Kindness, gentleness, encouragement, and a hundred other things of similar manner, are not done in the hope of monuments and memory. They are done for the good of doing them. They are done not to change the course of time but rather for the good they find in the moment. Even when those receiving them pay little or no attention, and even if they fail to express any appreciation, we are better for having done them.

Furthermore, the One Who Has Shown Us Great Kindness once said that even a glass of cold water given in his name would not lose its reward.