Introduction

                I have never dated.  Of course I never had a girlfriend. Not only the people around me, I also wondered whom I would marry.  Nevertheless, I thought I would prepare for my marriage so as I was praying to God, I started to read books about marriage.  Among the books that I read, I still remember the book titled "So You Are Getting Marry."  One day when I was reading that book at the church, my friend came to see me and saw me reading that book and said, ‘You don’t even have girlfriend, why are you reading that book?” haha.  But I kept reading that book because even though I didn’t have a girlfriend, I just wanted to learn and prepare my future marriage.  It was because I didn’t know anything about marriage and I had a lot of thought about learning.  Then I got married in about 6 months after I met my wife by matchmaking.  It is totally God’s grace that I married my wife.  And my wife and I prayed and anticipated that God would give us four children as the gifts of God.  Of the four children, the first baby fell asleep in my arms due to her severe sickness.  After the first baby died, God gave us Dillon, Yeri, and Karis and enabled us to experience the love of God.

                I had been praying for two things even before I met wife: (1) ‘God, help me to love my future wife with God’s love and help her to love me with God’s love’ and (2) ‘God, help her to see little Christ in me and help me to see little Christ in her.’  And I am still praying with these two prayer topics continually.  I will continue to pray these prayers until the day I live in this earth with my wife.  My earnest prayer is that God will answer my prayers and let me become more and more like Jesus so that I may be able to give the best gift to my wife before I die, that is my resemblance of Jesus.  It is because I earnestly want my wife and my three children to remember little Jesus in my life after I die.

                I devoted myself in building the Lord-centered family.  It is my hope and prayer that the Lord builds my family in which the Lord reigns over and is in control, all the family members are submissive to the Lords’ authority and thus experience the presence of God.  The purpose is so that my family can become a role model and a witness community in this era where so many families are collapsing.  It is my prayer that as the Lord continues to build my family, my family can show how God’s grace is overwhelming to such sinners like us and we are living by God’s grace alone.

                As I was preparing a seminar on "Dating, Marriage, Family", I found many of my writing regarding dating, marring and family that I wrote as I was reading many daring, marriage and family books.  I also found many writings that I wrote as I was meditating on the Scriptures relating to those topics.  Since I had been writing my family stories from 2009, I wanted to add some of those stories in “Dating, Marriage, Family” seminar.  As I was doing so, I thought about making this seminar material into a book.  And that’s what I did.  I divided this book into three sections: (1) Dating, (2) Marriage, and (3) Family.  Each section covers several topics.  All those topics may not apply to all of us.  Even so, I hope that you can think about the topics that apply to each of you so that you may pray and apply them in your life with the wisdom God gives you.  May the Lord use this book as a tool to make it a little bit better daring, marriage and family for those whom He loves.

With gratitude for the grace of God in leading me to meet my beloved wife, to get marry and to have three precious children so that we may continue to build good memories in the Lord for His glory,

Pastor James Kim