Cast Your Burden Upon the Lord

If you are reading this, there’s a good chance I owe you a sincere apology. Please allow me to explain.

I’m an introvert by nature. Please don’t translate ‘introvert’ as anti-social, shy, or unfriendly. I am happy to socialize and have deep meaningful friendships. However, I do find socializing draining and need time to recharge my batteries before I go out and ‘people’ again.

Another struggle as an introvert is that my inner world is where I tend to mentally live. The past, the future, or even inside my imagination are preferred happy places. I’m not incapable of living in the moment. I just know that if I have to stay locked into the present too long by prolonged emotional stress, my default response is to fixate on the external world instead. This sort of hyper-focusing outwards usually ends with me making choices that I would normally never make and when I look backward at that time it is with a sense of looking at a complete stranger. It’s never a good feeling.

I don’t write all this to abdicate my personal responsibility. Rather own up to it.

I’ve been struggling with a heart-breaking problem that I did not know how to handle, quite frankly. I was betrayed by a close relative and they hurt my child deeply in the process.

 I know I am not alone when I write that I should have taken the wise advice in the Bible written by King David when he was betrayed by someone he trusted.

“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” — Psalm 55 v. 22.

My ‘burden’ exploded on me like an atomic bomb on Christmas morning last year. This detonation was systematically and maliciously planned for several years in advance by a relative (I’ll call her Maleficent) who wanted to inflict the most hurt on me possible.

As a writer, I can compartmentalize those horrible moments into a painful retrospective timeline. I would title this book A Series of Unfortunate Events, but that has already been claimed by Lemony Snicket.

 Foundation. For the past two years, I have been buttered up. Maleficent made sure she was there for my ups and downs, holidays, special moments, sweet confidences, and secrets shared.  Quietly cataloging my insecurities and vulnerabilities. Waiting.

Confrontation.  October brought enough red flags for me to speak up. Maleficent was spending a disproportionate amount of time with one of my children, and I sensed trouble. I spoke out. Maleficent’s accomplice lashed out.

Revelation. November brought about the time when the child who was being groomed by Maleficent felt safe enough to speak up about what had been going on behind my back.  My child explained that Maleficent was only pretending to be nice to me for these past few years in order to have access to my child. Upon my child’s 18^th birthday, the spell would be broken, and Maleficent would have shown me her true form had she not been prematurely exposed for what she was. Maleficent wanted my child’s allegiance and I was an inconvenient legal burden that my child’s coming of age would eliminate.

My child told me that Maleficent had spent years trying to engage my child in bouts of trash-talking me, all under the guise of having girl time. I was utterly heartbroken when my child wept and told me how torn she had been, wanting to please both of us. Her sense of divided loyalties had caused her such an unnecessary burden. My child was a shell of herself, and I knew my naivety was partially to blame.

Devastation –  On Christmas morning, a day that is rightly one of the most joyous days in the life of a Christian, I was informed by a different relative that Maleficent had not stopped in her attempts to spy on my child’s life. Maleficent had gained access to my emails and had been reading them since the summer. She had been reading my personal thoughts, stealing my new phone number, attempting to gain whatever knowledge she could about my child.

I watched my children opening their gifts while trying to rein in my scattered emotions – trying not to cry. Maleficent had gone from betrayer to stalker and my peace was shattered.

Here is where my inner peace began to unravel, and for which I may owe several of you a deep apology.

Fixation – The past, future, and my imagination brought me no solace. The present was horrifyingly inserting itself into my daily thoughts like an unavoidable drumbeat.  Betrayed. Foolish. Betrayed. Sucker. Betrayed. Failure.

Have you ever wanted to run away from a problem – only to realize that wherever you might go, your problem has traveled right alongside you?

Conditioned by my introverted nature, I began to make attempts to avoid my inner problem by fixating on my outer world.  My choices were myriad, I could have chosen food or sex, or any other external to comfort myself.  

I chose the news. I became focused on the news to an unhealthy point. I wanted to ensure I wasn’t being “tricked” again – by anyone. The government, the media, the pandemic.  I failed to see that I was subconsciously trying to drag order from the outside world into my inner world.

I pestered friends and loved ones with e-mails begging them to see the news from ‘my side.’  My side seemed safe to me, made sense.  I wanted someone else to validate me – but for the wrong reasons. And definitely the wrong someone.

The epilogue…..

Alleviation – In January I fell ill with Covid, February and March brought along their own distractions. Yet my soul was so restless within me – God felt so far away, and I knew He had not moved one inch away from me.

I called a sister in the Lord and poured out my heart. I knew I was grieving – for my child’s broken heart, for my shattered trust, for my default reaction, even for Maleficent as I knew she somehow felt justified in her actions.  

My sorrow was overwhelming me and there was no outrunning it anymore.  I shared with my friend that I was heartbroken and that it was too great to bear, knowing it was a loved one who had birthed this plan, nursed it and cared for it, unleashed it for maximum hurt.

If it had been a stranger, I think I could have born the hurt and grieved it faster. If you throw a rock at me, at least I can see it coming.  I have learned first-hand the meaning of the old adage, “It’s better to have a thousand enemies outside of the tent than one inside the tent.”

My sweet friend pointed me toward Psalm 55. King David had “blogged about betrayal” long before I was born. David wrote that he was betrayed by someone very, very dear to him. I could easily identify with his heartbreak.

“If an enemy were insulting me,
    I could endure it;
if a foe were rising against me,
    I could hide.
But it is you, a man like myself,
    my companion, my close friend,
with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
    at the house of God,
as we walked about
    among the worshipers.”   (V. 12-14)

David also wrestled with his feelings as I did –

“My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught because of what my enemy is saying.” “My heart is in anguish within me.”  (v. 2-4.)

David also wanted to escape his problem –

I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest.
 I would flee far away
    and stay in the desert,
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
    far from the tempest and storm.”     (v. 6-8)

David reiterates the sting of how wretched it is to be sucker-punched by someone in your closest circle.

My companion attacks his friends;
    he violates his covenant.
 His talk is smooth as butter,
    yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
    yet they are drawn swords.    (V.21)

David was ‘buttered up’ too like I was. Or as Charles Spurgeon said – “Lauded and larded.”

Then David writes the blessed antidote to the poison.

“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” — Psalm 55 v. 22.

I knew I had not cast my burden upon the Lord.  And whether I am righteous or not, I had certainly allowed myself to have been moved. That was MY FAULT, not His.

I had looked to the world and its inhabitants to take my burden and sustain me. I needed to cast my burden upon the Creator of the world.

It was a simple conversation. I laid in bed, in the dark, with all the heartache and devastation bedeviling me out of sleep. And then I simply told God, aloud, in the dark –

“Lord, my heart is broken. I have been betrayed and slandered and it just kills me that my child has suffered. It saddens me that Maleficent has chosen this awful path. I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

I can honestly say that there was a miraculous palpable peace that filled the room at that moment, and I drifted to sleep with ease. The Prince of Peace was by my side and I knew it.

He shall NEVER suffer the righteous to be moved.

In my research of Psalm 55, I learned something else.

Don’t pick up the burden again once you have cast it upon the Lord.

“When thou hast done this, then leave thy burden with the Lord. In the process of trusting God with thy burden, get to this point, that thou hast done with it. If I cast my burden upon the Lord, what business have I to carry it myself? How can I truthfully say that I have cast it upon him if still I am burdened with it?” Charles Spurgeon

I am so very relieved to say that Jesus has taken my burden and is sustaining me. I am at peace, and I am no longer moved.

I wish to make amends to any I have hurt by my placing my focus on the wrong things and attempting to find healing through you. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.

The healing continues for me and my child. Without the daily whispers of Maleficent in her ear, my child has come to see me with open eyes and she no longer believes the slander.

My child said to me, “Maleficent said you were (insult, insult, insult) but you’re not. You’re really not.”

Our relationship grows stronger with each passing day. My child has ignored Maleficent’s repeated text message attempts to lure her back to the dark place they were sharing together. I continue to pray for healing.

Instead, my child recently gave me roses and told me how much she loved me. She allows me to cuddle her and talk to her now whereas before she was a prickly cactus.

If you have ever been betrayed – I hope my journey, with all its faults and flaws, has helped you. You are not alone. Cast your burdens on the Lord. Jesus loves you and will sustain you.

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