Often, I'm plagued by worry.

Does this ever happen to you?

I've never really understood it.

Never understood where it came from or how to handle it.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's been a real and present constant in my life for far too long.

Recently, it's been worry about our new baby, William.

He was born a little early and he's been struggling to gain weight.

A lip tie and some pretty severely tense shoulders and neck muscles due to a hurried, induced natural birth because of very low amniotic fluid in the womb all combine to result in a pretty poor sucking ability.

He's the happiest little guy, which is so great. But in a way, that's made the worry even worse.

The stress on my wife has been severe with pumping at all hours and working with nursing specialists and other specialists to help baby William.

Plus, the rest of our 6 kids being home all day due to the quarantine, well, it's been rather a lot.

But I didn't realize quite how much "worry" has played a regular part of my life over the past 15+ until a few days ago when I began reading a new book.

New to me, anyway.

It's actually a pretty old book by Dale Carnegie, the author of "How To Win Friends And Influence People."

It's called, "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living."

But even in the first 20 or 30 minutes of listening on my morning walk, some real icebergs have chipped off.

I'm understanding why I've been so worried and how to get rid of it entirely.

Thank goodness!

And one of the early, helpful examples Dale Carnegie uses is one of my all-time favorite hymns, "Lead Kindly, Light."

Dale Carnegie talks about how important it is to, as even Jesus recommended in the Sermon on the Mount, to focus only on TODAY.

And the 5 words from the hymn, "one step enough for me," rang through me as I walked around our neighborhood park a few mornings ago.

And I heard President Monson in my mind, quoting one of his favorite poems, "The Gate of the Year" by Minnie Louise Haskins...

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."

Maybe that's one definition of faith... "one step enough for me."

Maybe that's why I love this hymn so much.

And maybe that's why, when I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be a composer, one of the first pieces I wrote was an arrangement of "Lead Kindly, Light."

Well, I hope you can find some calm, some faith, and some ice-chipping anti-anxiety medicine when you need it from all of this.

To help, maybe have a listen to my arrangement for violin, cello, and piano.

It does "go out into the darkness" a bit.

But in the end, it finds "the hand of God."

Just click below to listen.

https://dougpewmusic.com/lead-kindly-light-duet-for-strings

And I hope you have a great day!

Doug