Dottie Rambo had a song about grace that she couldn't finish. It sat half-written for years, until her brother told her God could never forgive a man like him.

     Around 1970, Dottie — already one of gospel music's most prolific songwriters — had started the song and set it aside, stuck. Then her older brother Eddie was hospitalized, given only weeks to live. She visited him again and again, reading Scripture, praying at his bedside. But Eddie wasn't convinced grace was for him. "After the wicked life I've lived," he told her, "the Lord won't raise a person like me." He'd struggled for years with addiction, and spent time behind bars.

     Dottie reminded him of the parable of the lost sheep, how Jesus left the ninety-nine to go find the one. After that conversation, she finally finished the song. Later, while she was away performing at a concert in Ohio, she felt certain something had changed in him. On her next visit, he confirmed it: he'd given his life to Christ. He died not long after, and Dottie sang the finished song, "He looked beyond my fault, and saw my need," at his funeral.

     A song about grace she couldn't quite finish became real the moment grace became real for someone she loved. Decades later, that song is still one of the most recorded in gospel music, sung at funerals and altar calls by people who have no idea it started at one.

     Has a hymn or gospel song ever meant more to you once you learned the real story behind it? Tell us which song, and what you found out.

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