What I'm Learning About Trust While My Husband Has Cancer

Releasing My Burden on LORD

I'm teaching a Bible study on how to cast your burdens on the LORD while my husband has stage 4 cancer.

Talk about being tested on what you teach.

Here I am at 77, preparing to teach women about Psalm 55:22 - "Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you" - while carrying the heaviest burden of my life.

It started with a simple question: What's the difference between "LORD" and "Lord" in this verse?

When Faith Became a Formula

For years - honestly, for decades - I heard the teaching: "Find a promise in Scripture, claim it, and hold God to it." It sounds biblical. It sounds spiritual. And I've probably taught some version of it myself over the years.

But recently, I came back to Hebrews 11 again. You know, the "hall of faith" chapter. It lists all these people who lived by faith - Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, and more.

So I did what I always do when I get stuck: I went back to the Old Testament and read every single one of their stories.

And I couldn't believe what I found and it still blows my mind.

Noah didn't hunt for a promise in Scripture. God SPOKE to him directly about the coming flood and told him exactly what to do: build an ark with very specific dimensions.

Abraham didn't claim a promise from a book. God APPEARED to him and gave him personal instructions.

Moses didn't search the Scriptures for encouragement. God SPOKE from a burning bush.

In Hebrews 11, everyone got a direct message from God and they acted on it. That's what real biblical faith is about—not just boosting our confidence by picking the right verse, but actually responding to what God tells us personally.

Then it hit me: we've turned our faith into a Bible scavenger hunt instead of building a relationship with a Living God who still communicates with us.

The Africans Who Put Us to Shame

This reminded me of something Dick and I saw years ago on the mission field in West Africa with our dear friends Marietta and Richard Walters.

The believers in those bush villages couldn't read. They had no Bibles to search through. They couldn't "claim promises" the way we teach it in America.

Yet their faith put many of us Americans to shame.

How?

They knew a LIVING GOD. Not a God confined to pages they could flip through. A God who speaks. A God who shows up. A God who provides what they need when they need it.

I'll never forget watching one African man's reaction when an American in our group pulled out his white handkerchief and blew his nose into it. The African asked in broken English: "What you do with that?"

What he meant was: Why do you blow your nose into that cloth, put it back in your pocket, take it home, and then WASH IT with your other clothes?

The Africans would just pinch one nostril shut and blow the other one onto the ground. Easy, practical, and when you think about it, pretty hygienic!

Who was more "clueless" - the educated American with germs in his pocket or the African using common sense?

Anyway, we Americans think we're so advanced because we have multiple Bibles in our homes. But sometimes I wonder if we've made faith so complicated that we've missed the simplicity of just knowing the One who still speaks.

The Foundation That Changes Everything

Here's what I'm learning as I study Psalm 55:22: "Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you."

David isn't giving us a formula or a technique. He's writing from a LIFETIME of watching God be faithful.

And here's the key I keep coming back to: Without trust, there will be no casting.

Think about those African believers I mentioned. They started in bondage to village witch doctors who controlled them through fear, witchcraft, spells, and even beatings. They looked depressed and sad. They didn't know what real love or joy was.

How did they learn to trust God?

For 30 years, they kept an eye on Marietta and Richard, day after day. They noticed the contrast between the fear and control of the witch doctor and the love and freedom that comes from God.

Richard taught them practical things - how to raise chickens, how to dig wells so they didn't have to walk miles for water. Marietta and Richard loved them genuinely, prayed with them constantly, and lived what they preached.

Trust wasn't built through information. It was built through demonstration.

The Africans saw God work through people who trusted Him. Over time, they built their own history with this faithful God. The transformation was real and visible.

What Hit Me This Week

And then it hit me this week, right in the middle of preparing this Bible study.

The same pattern is happening right here at New Hope. As Dick and I walk through his cancer diagnosis, we're living what the Africans learned from Marietta and Richard - that trust is caught more than taught.

When people ask us, "How are you holding up?" or say, "I could never make it through what you're going through," all we can tell them is the truth: "God is sustaining us day by day."

None of us knows what tomorrow holds. But I know WHO holds tomorrow.

That's Psalm 55:22 lived out. Not just quoted. Not just studied. Lived.

Dick will be 82 this year. I'll be 78. And here's what I can tell you after all these years: we've learned to cast our burdens on the LORD because we've watched Him be faithful for decades.

We're not walking this alone. Christ in us is our hope of glory. We're not orphans - we're His son and daughter.

This isn't us being super-spiritual. This is what happens when you build a history with God over a lifetime. When you watch Him provide when you had nothing. When He delivers you from impossible situations. When He sustains you through ministry challenges, family crises, financial pressures, and now cancer.

You learn to trust Him. And when you trust Him, casting your burdens becomes natural, not forced.

How Christians Learn to Cast Their Burdens

So here's what I'm discovering about how we actually learn to cast our burdens with confidence:

We watch others who've learned to trust. The Africans watched Marietta and Richard. Some of you are watching Dick and me. That's not pride - that's just how God designed the body of Christ to work.

We start small with our own experiences. We trust God with something manageable, and we see Him be faithful.

We see Him be faithful over time. One experience builds on another. One deliverance leads to another. One provision reminds us of the last one.

We build our own history with the Living God. Not second-hand faith from someone else's story, but first-hand knowledge of His faithfulness in our own lives.

We learn that "Christ in us" isn't just theology - it's reality. Especially when life gets hard and uncertain.

This isn't about finding the perfect verse to claim. It's about knowing the Living God well enough to trust Him when you can't see the outcome yet.

What Psalm 55:22 is Teaching Us

I'm realizing that my Bible study on Psalm 55:22 isn't just about teaching women how to cast their burdens.

It's about helping them build TRUST with the Living God - the kind of trust that comes from watching Him be faithful over time, the kind of trust that comes from seeing others live it out, the kind of trust that makes casting natural instead of a struggle.

And here's what I didn't expect: Dick's cancer isn't interrupting this study.

It's TEACHING this study.

You're watching us live out what I'm preparing to teach. You're seeing both our struggle and God's sustaining grace. You're learning that casting burdens isn't about having perfect faith or finding the magic formula - it's about trusting a God who has proven Himself faithful time and time again.

And after 49+ years of ministry and a lifetime of walking with Him, I can tell you this with absolute certainty: He is trustworthy. He sustains His children. And when we cast our burdens on Him, He doesn't drop them.

That's not wishful thinking. That's not positive confession. That's not claiming a promise I found in a book.

That's relationship with a Living God who has never failed us yet.

As you watch Dick and me walk through this valley, here's what I hope you see: Two people who've learned over a lifetime that God is utterly trustworthy. Two people who've built enough history with Him to know that He'll sustain us day by day, whatever comes.

And here's my prayer for you: That you'll start building that history with Him today. That you'll learn to trust Him with small things so that when big things come (and they will), you'll know WHO to cast your burdens on.

Not because you found the right verse.

But because you know the Living God who still speaks, still provides, still sustains, and still loves His children.

Love, Cindy Blog