Monday, June 19, 2023
I'm Richard, Jim's only brother. I could not have asked for a better brother than Jim. He led by example. He was always kind, caring, and a great encourager. All of you that knew Jim understand what I'm talking about.
Jim invited me to be his audience one beautiful summer late afternoon about 65 years ago on his back porch. Jim said he was rehearsing for a message he was going to deliver before the Methodist men's class.
Jim had about 8 ounces of clear water in a small glass. Jim had about a half once of red, green, blue, orange, and black food coloring in the communion glasses.
As Jim begin to speak about the sins of mankind, he would pick up one of these little cups of food coloring and pour a little bit into the bottle of clear water. As you can imagine the water in the bottle was really looking nasty by the time he had poured some of all the colors of dye into the bottle.
Jim said, guys this water represents what your lives will look like without Jesus. But then Jim picked up another small Jar of clear liquid, which was Clorox. Jim poured a small amount of Clorox in the nasty water. The water was immediately transformed in to
clear beautiful water. Jim said that you will never get so bad that a little bit of Jesus can't cleanse your soul.
As a printer and editor, Jim has written thousands of articles. But I think the one that is the most important was at the close of his message to the Methodist class when Jim said "if you ask and repent, Jesus will forgive and cleanse your soul."
That's how I want to remember my brother Jim.
