In today's episode, we're going to be chatting with our friend Jim. 

Yeah. 

A history teacher, a husband, a father of two young boys, and someone who's just trying to live his faith in real life. Welcome to the Beautiful View podcast, where we encourage you to look for opportunities in your life to see a beautiful view. I'm Candy. 

And I'm Paul. This episode is called Building a Life That Matters, and what we love about Jim's story is how normal it is, in the best way. 

In the best way. 

Yes, he's not standing on a stage or writing books. He's grading papers, packing lunches, showing up for his family, and trying to follow God in the middle of it all. 

And honestly, that's where most of us live too. 

Yes, so we're going to talk with Jim about the pressure of wanting to be better as a husband, as a dad, and as a man of faith, and what it looks like to walk with God in the everyday moments at home and at work. 

So if you've ever wondered whether God can use you right where you are, or if the life you're building actually matters, this conversation is for you. 

Yes, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful view.

All right. As we mentioned, we had the privilege this week of sitting down with Jim in our living room to hear his story. Yeah. Jim is deeply involved in our community and he and I have worked together at the brewery for about a year and a half. Like many of our staff, he balances A full-time job while picking up shifts here and there as his kind of quote unquote fun job. 

And it is a fun job. 

It is a fun job. And he has been one of those just steady, faithful faces. 

Over that time, we've really enjoyed getting to know him. We've had some deep conversations and built a genuine friendship. 

Jim is such a humble guy with a true servant's heart. Last summer, the two of you teamed up to Piles of fish flies. 

All of that kind of stuff. 

He's always willing to jump in and just help wherever needed. As a manager, I deeply appreciate that, but as a friend, it means even more to know that I can always depend on him. 

Yes, that was quite a job. Those piles of dead fish flies. I can tell you there's nothing that smells like that. So join us in our living room as we sit down with Jim for a relaxed, real conversation about his journey toward building a life that matters. All right, Jim. Yeah. Thanks for joining us here. Absolutely. And it's a privilege to have you a guest in our home and on the podcast. And we have talked many, many times. And so I just, I feel like you have just a great story to share. inspirational to me, and so I feel like inspirational to our listeners. So why don't we start off by, like we all wear many hats, like myself, I'm a dad, I'm an uncle, a son, et cetera, et cetera, right? So tell us a little bit about yourself as a brief introduction. What are those hats for you? What hats do you have that you wear on a daily basis? 

that's a great way of putting it, the different hats that you wear. I am a history teacher. I'm a proud Christian, a hopefully supportive father and loving husband. Those are the different hats I wear, but I've been here in the great little town of Bellevue, Iowa for nearly 15 years now. Graduated from Loris, didn't really know much about this time, this part of the state. when I went there, ended up here in Bellevue, took a practice interview at Marquette as a non-Catholic, not coming to this little town, just to stop along the way. And God's kind of had different plans for me than I had for myself throughout those years. So fast forward from 2011 to 2026, I have My wife, Audrey, and I just celebrated 8 years of marriage. Congratulations. Congratulations. Been together for about a decade, over a decade now. The fruits of that love has brought in our seven-year-old first grader, Richard, and our five-year-old, Wayne. And through all that, I've been able to really build a great life in my life. not only in my family life, but in teaching high school social studies at our small little Catholic school here in our small little river town. I get to moonlight for the last couple of years, working Friday nights and summers at River Ridge Brewing, 

which is how I've gotten to the house. 

It's a great time. 

Your boys are getting to a really fun age too. I love it when they come in the brewery with you and they want to help clean or whatever. For tips, of course. 

Of course. For a share of the tips. 

For a share of the tips. Yep. So what does parenting look like to you in this season of life compared to when your boys were tiny, when they were little babies and that kind of stuff? What do you How do you see that kind of changing from, do you feel added pressure? Do you feel higher expectations as your boys get a little bit older? How old are your boys? 

They're seven and five. 

Seven and five, okay. 

So like you said, very fun age right now. Yes, absolutely. Turned a corner kind of in that they're not so little anymore. You're not necessarily hovering over them. Make sure that they're not going off this ledge or doing this anymore. Play a lot of baseball and play and throw the football around and do the fun things that... as a young father, you kind of dream of having with your sons. I don't have to tell you guys this. Fathering a son and fathering a daughter are two. 

Very different. 

Very yet incredibly different experiences. 

Absolutely. 

And having two boys with all the energy and ramboyness of their father, but also having a lot of the great qualities of Audrey, my wife and her family, I see all those different, that different mixing go in. But as far as them and how parenting is different now, they're little men. It really puts, as you say, added expectations on, which is good. But it's not me just being always their protector now. It's about letting them fail. And that's such a hard thing to do as a parent. I agree. To know, to look at them and know this isn't going to go well for you. That's how I learn though. But guess what? I'm excited to see how it turns out. Absolutely. 

And I'm sure that you see a lot of yourself coming out in them. It's like looking in little mirrors and you're like, oh dear, okay. So you're like, I'm sorry, Audrey. 

Yeah, so Richard loves doing this thing when he works with me at the brewery where he gets our little dishwashing stool out and the belly flies across. You don't realize when it's empty, but when there's people there, it makes a lot of noise. It's pretty distracting. And I've had that kind of look before, like, what does he think is so fun on that? But thinking back to me 30 years ago, like, I know exactly what that is. 

So you wait until everybody leaves and you close the door and you do it? 

Yeah. Oh yeah. There's so much space for activities on that. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, but they're... Little men. And I think there's a lot of pressure on young families, young parents. You guys, I'm sure, were there, where you want to be perfect. Yeah. Not that there's any perfect parent, but you put that weight and that expectation on yourself. And as they start growing older, I think one realization that's really been strong for me is that in the moment, the things that are going wrong, them skidding across the brewery, them taking a golf ball and chucking it across, or them climbing on a roof while we're watching a basketball game, which happened this weekend. They figured out so they could get out their window and they're on the roof of the garage. Those types of things, you take less in stride and start realizing, like, what's the foundation we're running here? Like, we don't want to see this continue into your late... or your later elementary years and into those middle school and high school years that are going to be trying for sure for Audrey and Mia's parents. But I think just seeing them as the little men that they're going to grow up to be, seeing them and the overall story that will be their life, that realization and that way of looking at it tends to make some of the harder moments seem a little easier, but also tends to give you a little bit more conviction and resolve when you're like, I got to put my foot down here. Like, this is not us. This is not how we act, or this is not what I want to see out of you and your future. Sure. 

So I know in our conversations, you have, and we can already tell from what you've said so far, Like that responsibility of being a dad is something that you take very seriously. I mean, of course, have fun. And you do. But there's a certain degree of seriousness that we as dads all should have. Where do you sort of like set that standard for yourself? Where does that come from? That seriousness about being a dad? 

So I think at its core, it comes from my father. My dad, a little bit about him. He passed away in 2019. Happened to pass away 48 hours after my first son, Richard, was born. 

Oh my gosh, yeah. 

So going into that stage in life, you talk about stages of life and your different chapters as you turn the page. I was turning a major page at that time in 2019. Middle of the polar vortex. I like to joke. So Richard was born at 9 P.m. It was negative 77 degrees with a wind chill at the time. So he's born on, I believe it was a Wednesday. And so family doesn't, family usually comes flying in from all over the place to hold the babies. Well, it's dangerous to be outside at that time. 

Of course, yeah. 

But Audrey's Mom, she braved the weather despite recommendations. She comes in. My parents came up from Iowa City. I mean, you have a vehicle go out. We just had an alternator go out in our car. You have something like that go on when you're driving at negative 75 degrees. It's dangerous. It's 50 degrees warmer in the Arctic Circle at that time. But they came up. We got to spend a great day with my mom and my dad. They took me out to a restaurant in Dubuque and had supper that night, the next night. Got to cheers the new family that we were starting. And he left the next day and ended up going home. It was a little warmer, about negative 35. A little warmer. He goes out to shovel the driveway and he ended up passing away of a heart attack. Oh my gosh. through that. And it was exactly 48 hours after my son was born. And one of the things that stuck with me during this part of the story is Richard was born from an emergency C-section. And the doctor said after everything had settled and he was healthy and he was in the ICU and everything was good. They said, we're glad that it happened this way. We know it wasn't the goal that Audrey and I had in our birthing process, but they said he would have been holding on for 48 hours before he was born. And so then to get the call literally 48 hours later from my mom, I was devastated. Obviously I collapsed. It was to have a 59 year old man that was just healthy and just in the hospital and just seeing you the day before or that day of was devastating. But there was something about that piece of information that it was 48 hours later that sent me down to the basement of Findlay Hospital. There's A chapel down there, a kneeler and a crucifix. And in what I would say is one of the probably darkest moments of my life with the lightest moment of my life on the other end, my father and the gift he gave me was his faith. It was that when things seem insurmountable, when things feel like life has thrown you a curve ball that you just won't hit, you go to the cross. Yeah, that's good. And so I guess the expectations, the pressure I put on myself as a father is from my wonderful and imperfect father. Yeah, sure. So that gives me strength when I make mistakes, when I lose my temper, when I know that I'm not perhaps doing the right thing for my sons. But I got to learn from someone who was very honest with himself. He leveled with me later in life on the mistakes he made and his infallible nature. And so Through this, I think the weight of wanting to be better was my dad, who wanted to always be a better Christian, a better husband, a better father, and then everything else comes from there. What a gift. 

That's awesome. I think that, often as men, we think about all the times where we screwed up. And those moments can, like when we're not at our best, those moments can kind of weigh on us. And we start to define ourselves by our mistakes sometimes. Hearing you talk about your dad, what you're saying is, like he was honestly telling you, like, you know, hey, I'm not perfect. But if you take the whole picture of his life and the whole picture of your life, the whole picture of my life, the whole picture of your life, then that's the beauty, right? You know, when you look at a painting, It often has imperfections if you look closely enough, but the whole picture is what you are impressed with, what grabs your attention. So I think that's wonderful. And just to have the gift of him meeting your son. Yeah. That's really cool. That's fantastic. 

His final picture ever taken. Yeah, that's awesome. Something we treasure in our household. He used to always be the guy, maybe you're like that when you're traveling, you're on the other end of the camera. You're getting the picture of your wife and your kids and whatever else. Like, let me get a picture of you in front of the Grand Canyon. Let me get a picture of you in here. And his thing he used to always say, we'd be like, dad, like, now you get in the picture and he'd say, I know what I look like. I know what I look like. We're getting ready to. They're getting ready to leave the hospital on that day, January 30th, 2019, January 31st, excuse me. And they're getting ready to leave. And we say, like, granddad, get, sit on down, get a picture with your grandson. And he says, I know what I look like. And my wife, who's still bedridden at this point, she's not allowed to get up or do anything. She just goes, granddad, Sit down, get a picture with your grandson. And he kind of coyly smiles and sits down. He gets this picture, but just something we'll treasure for forever with my family. That we got that one picture, the last picture he'll take and that they got to meet each other and that we got to pass that torch in some way from one generation to another to another. 

Yeah, what a legacy he left. Has there been a time in your life where your faith started to kind of feel more real and personal and not just something that you believed because you were supposed to? I know that in my life, I grew up in church and it was just like always what I was taught. I just believed everything that I taught, but it wasn't until I was probably, goodness, my late teens, early 20s or so, where my faith really became my own, where I really was, I wanted, I got hungry for the word and just really wanted to know more, wanted to know what I believed. Is there a time in your life that you remember where things just kind of became your own in your faith? 

That's A loaded question. That's a great question. I also grew up in the church, in the Methodist Church in Davenport and Williamsburg and so on. I was blessed to have great pastors, great youth ministers, a great example set for me by my parents. They brought me to church every Sunday. But there is a time in your teens where it comes in and it's like, am I, do I believe this? Or do I believe this because this is what I'm supposed to believe? 

Sure. 

And I would say that I definitely grappled with things through those hard years. I'd say into my 20s, I dabbled in agnosticism, atheism, whatever you want to call it. There was times of extreme doubt. But I think Starting my own family. Not that I was a long way away from Jesus at that time, but starting my own family started to create a value that I wanted to pass on to my next generation the same way that had been passed on to me. 

Because then, now you're the head of the house. 

Yeah. You're the faith leader. 

You're the faith leader. And I know for me, I felt that way as soon as you, know, wife and kids. And yeah, it's a weighty moment. So as you walk out your faith as a dad, as a husband, as a teacher in the school, we do get those fantastic times where we get to go to church and be with our church family and we all share the faith together and we can talk about things freely and openly. But we are really called to be be lights in a dark place. We all have areas where we're able to walk out our faith in very real, everyday situations. What does that look like for you? 

Well, I'm blessed with the opportunities to have so many of those situations throughout throughout the day, whether it's interacting with my wife, interacting with my kids, my friends, or going to school and dealing with, high schoolers every day that are going through often heavy stuff, stuff that adults don't normally give credence to. Don't often look at it and be like, that's real. They see it as, like, you're in the glory days. Come on. But I think in my career and in my time as a husband and a father, I've been blessed with opportunities to bear witness. for what I've gone through, my imperfections. I mentioned earlier my kind of wave of faith. I don't think I ever necessarily was completely away from it. was always there. My parents built that into me. And while I maybe wandered and came back, I think being able to share my story, I think you guys would agree. I'm an authentic person. I wear my heart on my sleeves. I'm not sugarcoating anything. In fact, you might get more than you bargained for in a conversation. And in that, being able to talk about my faith with my wife, being able to sometimes, as I've been told, talk over my kid's head. I have children. I am so blessed to have the boys that I have. They are crazy. They will be the end of the hair that I still have up here soon enough. But I think they have a spiritual identity that is sometimes years above them, years above where I might have been at that point. And just being able to talk to them, sometimes like they're just little adults. I'll say things to them where I'll think afterwards, just like, they didn't get any of that. 

A lot of times kids understand more than you think they do with that stuff. 

So just being able to talk about the struggles in life, to be able to teach them how to pray, to teach them how to talk to God, to teach them that they have guardian angels in there, their granddad Jim and their Papa Ron and those people that are that are there with them, that are looking over and that are praying for them, that are trying to bless and support them in their future. I think walking out my faith looks so can look so different day-to-day and from situation to situation. 

Depending on the context you're in. 

Depending on the context. But the last few years. 

Which could be school, I mean the brewery, I mean lots of different contexts. 

The last few years I've become more confident in being able to do that, being able to come out of a shell that most people that know me wouldn't have realized was there. Yeah, that's awesome. And just, yeah, being able to talk about the greatest story ever told, the story of Jesus, and how it might relate to us here 2000. 1,000 years later with our smartphones and our social media and all the craziness around us, and that there are lessons that are there, that are relatable, that are relevant to our lives, and that our Savior wanted us to know. 

So we all have areas where we feel like we could improve on ourselves, right? So be better, whatever. What is 1 area right now that you feel like God is stretching you or working on you? Is there something like that? 

It would probably be in all my, all the different hats I wear, it would probably be my reactionary tendency. 

Okay. 

Rather than responding. 

Okay. 

I tend to be very passionate in what I believe in. 

Sure. 

In that I can I'm very aware of my personality and who I am, I think, at this point in my life. I can be abrasive. I can come off as aggressive. I can. 

I'm never seen that side of you, Jim. 

But at times when I want to stand up for something, and it could be in a variety of different things, I need to, I have, Prayed to God to guard my sharp tongue, to maybe let me step back, take a deep breath, go into gentleness and self-control, and especially in fatherhood, trying to... control my anger. And I wouldn't, I'm not out there just going at the haywire. 

But that's part of the reactionary thing you were talking about. 

But yelling when you've said it four times and they haven't listened to the death? 

Right. 

You know, not being aggressive, but being loud and intimidating at my children who need me to breathe life into them. That they need to show them the the patience that really I'm called to give them. Sure. And I think that's probably one thing I've really struggled with in my seven years of fatherhood. And... I like to think in the last few years, with some growth that I've done, I've been able to move away from that. I had to make peace with a lot of the things that had happened within my story. It took me three years, I think, to make my peace with God about losing my dad. And coming out on the other end of that, and then being more intentional, more focused on just my everyday interactions with my children, with my wife, with my family, with the people that I work with at the school or at the brewery. These are things that I still struggle with every day and I pray on and hope that each day I get a little bit better. Yeah, love it. 

That's good. That's good. So being a husband and a dad can be difficult sometimes. I know you have younger kids and we have older kids. And there are definitely different challenges with both age groups. And then you add to that list that you're a teacher as well. Do you have moments where you think to yourself, do I even know what I'm doing here? I mean, you know, like the reality of the situation maybe strikes you and you're like, what is the right path forward here? Are there ever times like that for you? 

Absolutely. I'd say every single day. Some days it's all fatherhood, some days it's teaching, some days it's being a husband. But I think there's a lot to being a man. where there is this, they call it imposter type thing. 

Imposter syndrome. 

Where you're just sitting there and you're like, at some point, everyone's going to figure out that I've just been faking it till I'm making it. I'm not making it yet. 

He has no idea what he's talking about. 

But I think in actuality, whether it's me looking at you, Paul, or Paul, you looking at me, that imposter syndrome is is kind of a snare of the devil. That it's them trying to put doubt into your head on what you're doing is the right thing. 

Sure. 

And we've talked already about like, you're not trying to be the perfect parent. 

No. 

You'd like to be as great as possible. But if each day you get a little bit better, that's great. And one thing I've learned in my last few years, so after making peace, With the loss of my father, I've gone through quite a bit of transformation over the last few years and refocused my energy and realized that I was... for a while trying to, go bottom up. I was trying to be a good friend, a good teacher, then maybe a good father, then maybe a good husband. And at the end, if I could be a good Christian too, that would be good at times of difficulty. But when I was able to flip that around and go top down, and be like, if I can get my life right with God, if I can get my walk with Jesus right, then that's going to make me a better husband. And if I can be a better husband, I'm going to see God in my children, and I'm going to treat them with grace, and I'm going to be slow to anger, quick to understanding, and I'm going to be a better father. And if I can be the best father that I can be, I'm going to be a pretty darn good teacher. And I'm going to, even if they're 10, 15 years older than my kids, I'm going to be able to positively impact their lives. And if I can be good in my 9 to 5, or 8 to or whatever, I can be good in my day job, then I can be a better friend. I can connect better with our customers and our coworkers at the brewery. I can positively market our amazing little town, our amazing... settings, our amazing schools, our close-knit, family-like community. And I can positively project that to people that I come into contact with, whether they're my closest friends or people that just met me. 

Absolutely. Following that, we all have the desire to make our lives matter in some way, to influence others for good, those kinds of things. What does it mean to you to build a life that matters. What does that mean to you? 

Over my life, that's probably meant a lot of different things. 

Okay. 

I think in the stage, in the chapter of life I'm in now, it's not about the first days, it's not about the middle days, it's not about the hardest or even the best days. It's about the last days. 

Yeah. 

It's about seeing my children through so that when they lose me, that when they're dealing with that, they go to the foot of the cross. Sure. If they go to prayer, that they grapple with extreme loss the same way my father taught me to grapple with that. If I can be a good witness and a good testament to the people that I work with, the people that I teach, maybe some little bit of that. Granted, they have people that are far more impactful in their lives, but maybe a small bit of that might Sharing my faith with them might help them find theirs or influence theirs when the days get dark and the future looks bleak. Sure. Yeah. 

So you're talking legacy, right? 

I would hope so. Yeah. I would hope that the legacy that Jim Sr. passed down to me would one day be on to my children and on to their children and on to their children. And one day, no one's going to remember my name or know who I am. But decades and generations down the line, if that's something I've passed on, then that's a life that's impactful. That's a life that's meaningful. 

What would you say to someone who is feeling stuck, who maybe just feels like I'm just an ordinary person, like what impact do I have really? I mean, what would you say to someone like that would encourage them to maybe leave a legacy themselves? 

So I think the best way to inspire others is using the words of others. I think sometimes acting like I got all the answers or I got all the quotes, whether it's for my students or my children or my wife, like it's a little conceited. I'm not trying to act like I got all this wisdom up here. It's from people that I've followed, people that I've connected with before. So one of my favorite leaders and coaches in history is Jimmy Valve. If you don't know his story, he was one of the original Cinderella stories, brought a low-seeded NC State team to the national championship in the 1980s. And I've watched a lot of his speeches and a lot of what he shares. And he shares something about, I remember if it was a Catholic priest or a minister, whoever was speaking at a camp he was in. And the guy comes up and he says, you know, God must have loved ordinary people because he made so many of us. Which at first hearing you're like, that's a demotivation. We're all just like whatever. But then he follows it up with every single day and every walk of life, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things. 

Yes, good. 

And so finding where we can accomplish those extraordinary things, realizing that we are normal, that we are God's children, that he has made us ordinary like so many other billions and billions Millions of people that have walked this earth over millennium, but finding your own little spot where you, as a normal guy, as a normal woman, as a normal kid, can positively affect your surroundings, can leave a place better than you found it, can leave people that... don't speak good of you because you're popular or because you're well-spoken and because you just have that magnetic personality, but because of the impact that you make. 

Yep, absolutely. I love that. 

So we're talking about legacy. What is one thing that you hope your kids will see in you, not just hear from you, but see, like actions, in your faith, in your life? What is one thing that you hope that they pick up from the way you live life? 

I mean, in a word, I hope it's love. As cliche as that sounds. Every day I tell them, I say to them, we got a 15 minute drive into school. And it's to a point where I'll start saying it, and my elders will be like, we know, we know. I'll say, no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, daddy will always love you. And while I want them to hear that, it's up to me to show them that. It's up to me to show them what real love is. And that's not fake, that's not idealized, that's real, that's genuine, that's authentic. I share my story with them. Not all of the ins and outs, not a couple of things that I can maybe share for when they want to interview me on the past you interview from my 22 year old kids. Could come. Then we could get there later. But just to share with them, it's like, yeah, I'm a real guy. I've had struggles. I've failed. I've flopped flat on my face. 

You know what, though? Our kids know that. But I think sometimes it's really nice for us to say those things out loud. So it just kind of confirms what they already know, I guess, but it makes us more authentic to them. 

Be ready to apologize to them too. Like there's often been times where I've said to my kids, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that, you know? Because that's kind of That would have been a big deal to me if I'd heard that from my parents. So that's what I try and do. 

Well, I mean, it's just like what we need when we make mistakes. What do you need from your wife or from your kids or from your friends? Like, okay, you did something you're not proud of you. acted irrationally and kind of had a knee jerk. reaction type. So what are you going to do? I would like the people closest to me to give me grace, to forgive me, to be like, hey, you're not defined by what you just did. Right, exactly. Like, okay, so you just yelled at me. You just lost your mind on me because I climbed out on the roof or did something incredibly naughty. But being able to, after the fact, sit down, I think children are, you say authentic, I think children are excellent judges of authenticity. 

Absolutely. 

They don't even realize how good they are at seeing what is real and what is a front that you're trying to show them. So yeah, I hope if there's one thing my kids can gain from me, it's that I love them unconditionally, that God put me and chose me to be their father. And that I have a lot of different hats in life. And being Audrey's husband and being Richard and Wayne's dad are by far the joys of my life and are something that I love, that I am proud of, that I will, that I'll speak Endlessly about, and I hope that they're able to see that. I think they are, of course. I think they'll exceive that with who they are as people, yeah, and... I think it's all about love. It's about what you can leave behind. I'm 36 years old. I'm hoping that's a long, way. 

I hope so too. 

But I think at 59, my father was probably thinking at the same time. I got a lot of time. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

And I think God has already picked our start day. He's already picked our end day. We don't know it. 

We're living the dash in that there's some kind of little poem or something we're living in. in between on the tombstone, the two dates, we're living in the dash. So you. 

Got to make the most of the dash. It's tough to make that dash the best we can. 

Absolutely. 

We had a visiting priest here this week here at St. Joe's. And he talked about eternal life. And it really got me. Sometimes you can kind of hear that. You can, your mind can wander or whatever else. But he said something that really stuck with me. He said, maybe what we're doing right now is literally a part of eternal life. Like it's not just the end when we're in heaven. It's about what we're doing up to that. How we're bringing those people that have hooked their cart to our wagon or whatever the phrase is. It's about bringing them along with us. Absolutely. And whether that's friends or family or maybe that random person you run into, you have a conversation with and you don't even Absolutely. That's, I think that's what we're all put here for. We're all put here for a mission. We're all put here to positively affect as many people as we possibly can. And it's an opportunity that we would be remiss to squander and that we need to take seriously. 

Absolutely. Jim, thank you so much for being here. We so appreciate you sharing your story with us. And appreciate the time that you've given us, the insight that you have. It just brought a lot to the conversation. And I think that it's a real gift to hear that, to hear your story. And I think that people that listen to this episode are really going to be blessed by it. So thank you. 

I know they have. 

Well, thanks so much for having me. It's been fun. 

What we love about Jim's story is that it reminds us that a life that matters isn't built in big, flashy moments. It's built in faithfulness in the small things. 

Yes, it's built in showing up for your family when you're tired. It's built in doing your job with integrity. It's built in trying again when you fail. It's built in community involvement. 

Scripture tells us in Colossians 3.23, work willingly at whatever whatever you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. That includes being a parent. That includes being a spouse. That includes being a teacher, a friend, a boss, a neighbor, a co-worker, a student, whatever phase of life you're in. 

And another verse that really fits Jim's story is Micah 6, verse 8. And it says, what does the Lord require of you? to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. 

And that's what we heard today. Not perfection, but humility. Not having it all together, but trusting God in the middle of ordinary life. 

Scripture tells us in Galatians 6, verse 9, Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 

Sometimes the most meaningful lives aren't built in big moments, but in faithful everyday ones. 

So wherever you are right now, whether you feel stuck, unnoticed, or unsure, we hope this episode gives you a beautiful view of what God can do right where you are. 

Thank you for joining us today. Our hope is always to inspire and encourage our listeners. So today, we want to remind you that the life you're building right now matters more than you probably realize. 

Whether you're showing up for your family, doing your job the best you can, or just trying to take the next right step in your faith, God sees it and He can use it. 

So here's our challenge for the week. Are you ready? 

Yes. 

Pick one ordinary part of your life, your work, your parenting, your marriage, or even just your attitude, and intentionally offer it to God. Ask Him, how can I build something that matters here? 

And then take one small step in that direction. 

If this episode encouraged you today, we'd love for you to share it with someone else who might enjoy it. As always, thank you for being a part of this community. We are grateful you're here and honored to walk this journey with you. 

If you like what we do here at the Beautiful View Podcast, you can show your appreciation by becoming a supporting member for only $5 a month. Your support helps cover our production costs. The link for you to sign up is in our show notes. 

Also, be sure to follow Beautiful View Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Those links are also in our show notes. 

Yes, and at the end of each episode, we like to find out what the next one will be about. So what's it going to be next time, Candy? 

Well, we're going deep in our next episode. 

Yes, we are. 

Deconstructing without destroying is a conversation about asking hard questions without walking away from your faith. We're gonna talk about church culture, then and now, what actually triggers deconstruction, and what this journey has looked like for us personally. 

If you've ever felt tension between your faith and church, you're not alone. And this one is for you. 

Thank you once again for joining us today. We hope you have a great day. And remember to always keep an eye open for opportunities in life to see a beautiful view. We'll see you next time. Bye.