Description "He was always there with me in my early mornings." Attorney Kim Yu-jin, who sparked a nationwide early-rising movement in Korea, admits there was one crucial story she had never truly told. With two bestselling books—including My Day Begins at 4:30 AM—and over 200,000 YouTube subscribers, attorney Kim Yu-jin has spent years sharing her early-morning routine with hundreds of thousands of readers and viewers. But she says the story she truly wanted to tell, the very heart of it all, was something else entirely. One online bookstore's author bio describes her this way: "To attorney Kim Yu-jin, she herself is her best pacemaker, her strictest teacher, and her warmest companion." It's a description that centers entirely on "herself" and her many accomplishments. But spend just a little time talking with her, and you'll realize this "self" is actually fruit that has slowly ripened through her relationship with God. That understanding allowed her to feel grateful through every process and outcome—and that gratitude, in turn, made her bolder, stronger, and more positive. While she never made a point of revealing her Christian faith on YouTube or in her books, she says she always carried a quiet conviction: "Someday, I have to tell this story." The moment she laid down every burden before the God who knows her better than she knows herself, unimaginable things began to happen. Today, as a lawyer at a major corporation, a bestselling author, and a YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, she appears to others to be living a life of success. But the wilderness she once walked through was as bleak and barren as anyone's. She endured constant racism alone in a foreign country from a young age, crying nearly every day. She had to give up dream after dream just as it seemed within reach, when impossible circumstances intervened. She watched her spirit collapse under the weight of a family member's serious illness, and battled the depression and anxiety that come with adult life. That was simply her life for a long time—and the hours of anxiety, worry, and pain far outnumbered the hours of joy and laughter. Perhaps it's not just attorney Kim Yu-jin, but all of us living in this world, who are quietly enduring lives this hard. Yet she says, "All of that time turned out to be the seed and the nourishment for a brighter version of me within God's plan—and it was actually the fastest shortcut of all." God's timing and God's standards, it seems, are different from our own. "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" These are the words Jesus spoke to Peter when he began to sink into the water in fear while walking toward Him. Had Peter not doubted, he could have walked straight across the water to Jesus. In the end, the only thing we truly need to do is simply believe and walk alongside Him. No solution we devise on our own can ever replace that. "When I laid everything down before God and trusted Him with it, things ended up flowing in the best possible direction—without a single error." Awake is the story of attorney Kim Yu-jin, who reached this very conclusion through a life that was, at times, unbearably heavy. You might think, "She's a lawyer who studied abroad, while I'm just an office worker or small business owner here at home—our experiences must be completely different." But once you read her story, you'll be surprised to find that though the details differ, the thoughts and attitudes she carried through her struggles are remarkably similar to your own. (This is something the editor, marketer, and illustrator who worked on this book all agreed on immediately.) Worry and anxiety are not feelings given to us by God [2 Timothy 1:7], and He only allows us to face trials we are able to bear [1 Corinthians 10:13]. Young adults in their 20s and 30s are especially vulnerable to hardship. The road ahead looks dark, the future unclear. Problems come crashing down like a storm, unlike anything faced while still being cared for by parents, and it can feel overwhelming. In moments like these, even the parents we once leaned on and the closest friends in the world can feel powerless to help. Thrown into the world alone, we're left to build and achieve everything ourselves—and that is no easy task. Even when we push with all our strength to meet the world's standards and succeed, there inevitably comes a moment of emptiness, and the next step feels even more uncertain. Life only seems to get harder from there...