Reviews

Jim Kasen’s voice will be for readers what it’s always been for me: warm, honest, faithful encouragement to “look to God and live.” With wisdom fashioned in a remarkable life’s peaks and valleys, this book will be a welcome friend to Latter-day Saints looking for a fellow traveler. Readers will be glad, like I am, to have such a friend.

– J. Spencer Fluhman
Executive Director, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Tender and generous, this volume is more conversation than memoir—it offers up the conversation you would hope to have if you sat down with a beloved friend and asked him to distill the hard-won wisdom of his life. If you happened to have a friend as wise and kind as Jim Kasen, you could hope that he would be willing to share his most vulnerable moments to help you feel less alone in the world. Maybe you would even be fortunate enough to have a friend who could tell you how to endure such vulnerability with patience and grace and offer the steadfast hope that comes from a deep sense of belonging to God. From such a friend, you could learn what it really means to know yourself as God’s own beloved child. This book is an offering of such friendship—a gracious gift for seeking readers.

– Kristine Haglund
Senior Editor, Wayfare

This book is a sacred culmination of a life well lived: in a beautifully autobiographical way, Jim shows that, notwithstanding temporal unfairness and the imperfections common to mortality, God is there and is the anchor to anyone striving for true belonging. This book, like the author himself, is a priceless gift.

– Brandon A. Wernli
President, BW Events, LLC

To Belong to Him is the personal account of one man’s struggle to find the sense of belonging that we each seek in our journeys of faith. Jim teaches about making choices along a path filled with anxiety and fear that lead him towards faith and hope. His vulnerability in sharing his own story leaves one with a sense of comfort in knowing that whatever we may face, there are many others walking with us, and that while much of what we encounter must be faced alone, even the most isolating battles are familiar to our Savior.

– Nancy B. Pratt
Associate Clinical Director, The OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center

Acknowledgments

The work it has taken to author this book has not been a solitary effort on my part. It has included countless contributions of many of my dear and priceless friends. So, I list them alphabetically and give them my deepest and most profound gratitude for all they have done. They know well what their contributions have been:

Darren Averett, Lisa Bliss, Sam Brown, Tom Draschil, Josh Fillmore, William Fillmore, Spencer Fluhman, Paul George, Kristine Haglund, Wendy Heim, Laura Holt, Ryan LeCheminant, Devin McClean, Jessica Mitton, Ryan Murphy, Joseph Peeples, Nancy Pratt, Brandon Wernli, Jason Wernli, Mark C. Williams, and Steven Wright.

About the Author

James C. “Jim” Kasen is a Nevadan having been born and raised in the desertscapes of Las Vegas. He left there in 1975 to fill a mission in the Philippines. Two years later, he moved to Provo, UT and has resided in that area ever since. His education includes undergraduate degrees in Music (Organ Performance) & Communications and graduate degrees in Social Work, and Music (Choral Conducting). He is a published composer and to date has written 12 organ volumes and numerous choral arrangements. His life has been richly filled with service as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He rather recently retired (2022) and is now living the life of one who has been repurposed.

Choral Compositions at Jackman Music

Organ Compositions at Jackman Music

Contact the Author