As a young lad fishing on the creek banks of Wilkinson County, MS, I faced many dangers such as snakes and drowning. One time when the water was really too high from a flood rain to be fishing, my friend Junous (June) Lewis and I took a chance and went. He was about four or five years older than me, and he always tried to teach me how to hunt and fish.

That day I disobeyed him, got too close to the bank, fell in a big hole of water over my head and could not swim. I screamed out in desperate fear, “Help, I’m in the creek” over and over as June ran from downstream as fast as possible. He ran up and held a fishing pole down to me. I grabbed and hung on as he pulled me to the edge of the water. June extended out the most beautiful black hand I ever saw and saved my disobedient life. As he arrived, I was sinking to rise no more. Thank God for June.

I think of the song writer James Rowe, who wrote a beautiful song, “Love Lifted Me” back in 1912 which describes a lost sinner who is sinking in a sea of sin. But Jesus rescued him from an eternity of Hell. I quote a few lines from his great song with a message:

I was sinking deep in sin, Far from the peaceful shore,

Very deeply stained within, Sinking to rise no more;

But the Master of the sea Heard my despairing cry,

From the waters lifted me, Now safe am I.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me, when nothing else could help,

Love lifted me.

Yes, it was the caring hand of June Lewis that saved me from drowning. Later in life it was Jesus, Master of the sea, land and everything that saved my soul and made me whole. Surely, I was going down the last time to spend an eternity in Hell when the Lord Jesus saved me from the sea of sin. “I was sinking to rise no more” when the Master rescued me from damnation to salvation.