Dale Carnegie on Making Lemonade

By Rod Anderson , CP Cartoonist

At a time of rising unemployment, anxious and volatile financial markets and shrinking personal retirement accounts, the story of Dale Carnegie's life -- and his wisdom -- serves as an inspirational and encouraging lesson.

How to Stop Worrying

Where to unload life’s heavy burdens

In his famous book, Believe and Belong, Bruce Larson tells how he helped people struggling to surrender their lives to Christ: 

	Cast your cares on theLORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. — Psalm 55:22

“Often I would suggest they walk with me from my office down to the RCA Building on Fifth Avenue. In the entrance of that building is a gigantic statue of Atlas, a beautifully-proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. 

“There he is, the most powerfully-built man in the world, and he can barely stand up under this burden. ‘Now that’s one way to live,’ I would point out to my companion, ‘trying to carry the world on your shoulders. But now come across the street with me.’ 

Sweet and Powerful Moments of Prayer

Lucy Neeley Adams


Before I left church Sunday, my friend Linda asked if she could come to my house later that day and talk with me about prayer. Since she was a very busy person, I was glad for the opportunity to listen to her and share what I had learned about that all important subject.

I knew that for some Christians, prayer comes easily. It depends on one's relationship with Jesus since childhood. Heartfelt prayers can be a natural part of growing in the faith. For others, their life of prayer needs to have a definite beginning.

That afternoon Linda and I sat at our cozy kitchen table as we sipped from our mugs of coffee. She got right to the point. "Lucy, I am ashamed to tell you this since I am so active in our church. But I do not know how to pray! If I am asked to pray in a group, I read a prayer, but I can't say the words that will form my own prayer."

I told her about the time I too discovered I did not know how to pray. I was the wife of a minister and was often expected to lead a group in prayer. So I read the closest one at hand. The day I discovered a booklet entitled Adventures in Prayer by Catherine Marshall, I discovered the reason I could not pray: I had no relationship with God the way that Marhsall did. That is always the turning point of one's prayer life. First, develop a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and then talk with Him as if talking with your best friend.

Linda laughed as she replied, "Yes, I imagine you see me talking with many people. But how can I talk to God like that?" I opened the Bible to the Psalms. We discussed the psalmist's conversations about everything from heartache to praise and thanksgiving. His love for God and his reliance on Him was straight from his heart.

We discussed coming to God with a clean heart free of any trash of the past. "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened, but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer" (Psalm 66:18-19). Sometimes we forget to pray first for ourselves so that God knows we desire to be pure vessels through which His power will flow.

Turning to the window, I said, "Look at that sparrow slowly hopping along the rock wall." We smiled as we noticed the leaf in its mouth was almost the size of its small brown body. The nest hidden among the ivy was probably its destination. But during the short flight there, the bird sank to the ground and dropped the leaf.

"Linda, sometimes I am like that bird," I said. "I stumble under the weight of worries and thoughts that I am not able to carry. Prayer is always the answer to that heaviness, as I call on God's wisdom and ask for His will to be done in the situation. Then I try to let it go," I sighed.

The remainder of our time together was joyful and filled with excitement about a new life of prayer. Before she left, Linda prayed a prayer of thanksgiving because her burden was gone. She talked to God straight from her heart not from a book of prayers.

After she left, I continued to think about our visit, and realized we did not discuss the hymns that we sing. Many of them are actually prayers put to music and they feed the deep needs of my soul. The well-known hymn, "Sweet Hour of Prayer" is a perfect example. I am encouraged as I sing its powerful invitation:

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! That calls me from a world of care.
And bids me at my Father's throne make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief, my soul has often found relief.
And oft' escaped the tempter's snare, by thy return, sweet hour of prayer.

My burdens are not so heavy when I know that this hymn writer found relief from his distress and grief through prayer. An English lay person, William Walford, was the author of these beautiful words. He showed his work to a visiting clergyman from America and asked that he take the poem with him when he returned to his country.

So it was that Rev. Thomas Salmon returned to his home in New York and immediately sent the lyrics to the editor of a newspaper. It was printed in The New York Observer in September 1845. There is no doubt that many readers were touched by its simple but profound message.

However, it was a musician who made the difference in the poem's travels through the church worldwide. The lovely tune was composed by one of the most outstanding musicians of his day, William B. Bradbury.

Oh God, we thank You for wanting to express Your love to us from our birth. We come in humble adoration that You make this possible with the living presence of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is an honor to talk to You in prayer and to sing to You in prayer. It is too marvelous for words, so we softly sing a loving "Hallelujah." We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Lucy Neeley Adams has always loved music. She began telling the story of hymns on Christian radio WWGM in Nashville, TN, in the '80s. She then wrote a newspaper column titled "Song Stories" for five years. During that time Lucy's book, 52 Hymn Story Devotions, was published by Abingdon Press in Nashville. Each of the 52 stories contained in the book is written in a devotional format, with the words of the hymn concluding each devotion. Lucy lives at Lake Junaluska, NC, with her minister husband, Woody. They have four children and fourteen grandchildren. She may be reached for comment at lucya424@aol.com. Visit her at 52hymns.com

http://www.crosswalk.com/church/worship/sweet-and-powerful-moments-of-prayer-11541259.html 

BySelf Magazine

Three Things You Should Do When You Wake Up

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What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? If it's a work day, you probably hit the snooze button a few times, then spring out of bed in a panic, propelling yourself into your day with your mind on everything you have to do to get out the door. Or maybe you find yourself in the shower, without any real memory of how you got there. Sound familiar?

Turns out, just a few simple movements can help you relax and ground yourself for your day, rather than zooming through your morning full of stress and a racing mind.

Jack Wiener, a certified and licensed psychoanalyst, founder of the former School for Creative Movement in NYC and author of The Way of the 4th Toe: Into the Feeling Body, believes that the most important thing you can do as soon as you wake up is to gently bring your awareness fully into your body, so that as you move through the rest of the day, you maintain a sense of grounding that can help you cope with the physical and mental stresses of daily life.

"When you sleep, your body goes into itself," says Weiner, explaining that while you're snoozing, the sensations of your muscles become very minimal. In other words, you're not consciously aware of your body; you're not in a physically or mentally grounded state of being.

This state of being works for the purposes of sleep, but not for your waking hours. You want to be "in" and aware of your body during the day. When you experience stress or anxiety throughout the day, says Weiner, these emotions and sensations can cause you to instinctively "pull in" to yourself, which, ironically, is the opposite of being grounded in your body. Weiner describes this process as a literal contraction and tension of your muscles. If you're not aware, this happens automatically, and can affect everything from your breathing to your circulation to how the events of your day affect you. 

If you can bring yourself back into your body and release the tension in your muscles, then, says Weiner, you're more able to cope with stress, and you're more emotionally aware and alive. Not only are you carrying less tension in your neck and shoulders, but if you can maintain an awareness of being in your body, then it's easier to not get caught up and swept away in the worries and anxieties. "It's so simple, yet so profound," says Weiner.

So, how should you start the day? By doing these three simple things:
Before you even get out of bed ...

1. Gently flex and point your feet for 15-30 seconds. This, says Weiner, is a good way to gently begin to activate your musculature and to bring your awareness to your feet, which is literally grounding. Then, wiggle your fingers and gently open and close you hands into a fist shape for 15-30 seconds. "Those are small little things," says Weiner, but they can really help you if your standard MO is to immediately activate your whole body by springing out of bed with your mind on what you have to get done.

Next, as you get out of bed ...

2. Consciously place your feet on the floor. Stand there for a moment, fully aware of the floor beneath you, and concentrate on feeling grounded.

Finally ...

3. Do a gentle hamstring stretch. "This will sustain your connection to the ground," Weiner says, and delay the pulling up into your upper body that leads not only to a lack of feeling grounded, but to tension in your neck and shoulders. The more grounded and "in your body" you can start your day, says Weiner, the more you will be able to carry this feeling and awareness into the rest of your day. Good morning, indeed!

 http://www.youbeauty.com/body-fitness/three-things-you-should-do-when-you-wake-up?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=OutBrain%2BCPC&utm_term=Three-Things-You-Should-Do-When-You-Wake