Before & After God's transformation

In my last blog post, I shared a short version of what happened to my husband when he got sick and died. You can read it here if you want to know more about it: https://before-and-after.blog/2023/10/12/the-story-of-how-my-husband-got-sick-and-died-how-it-all-started/

This blogpost is translate into Swedish here: https://before-and-after.blog/2023/10/22/inte-i-min-egen-styrka-utan-i-den-kraft-som-jesus-ger/

I don’t want this story and pain go to waste, I want God to use it for people to come closer to him.

The Storm of Life

When I started this blog my intention was to share before and after projects that I was working on, which made me feel better mentally during this hardship season of my husband being sick. Life of his disease took over and I didn’t have the time or strength to do these before and after projects or document them. I also have the responsibility of being a mother to my two children. And they need a lot of me for different reasons. They are also grieving their father. Even though I feel like I’m never enough as a mother, we are doing pretty good if you think about everything we went through. I don’t have any career success to boast about. Life as a widowed mother with the grief process and recovery takes a lot of energy. But I do have some projects that I’m slowly working on, this blog being one of them.

In the middle of this storming tornado that these years were to us, I also got help for my depression, burnout, OCD, and exhaustion. I like peace and quiet, I need this to recharge my batteries and process my thoughts and feelings.

Having a lot of people working to assist my husband was extremely hard for me. I could not get the downtime of peace and quiet to recharge my batteries because they would ask me things day and night. My husband could not speak at this point. And then I had the kids who were very little and had many needs and made a lot of sounds when they played and screamed.

During the covid 19 pandemic, it all got worse for us. People working for him could not come to work due to symptoms, so I had to care for him and the small children now 4 and 7. At one point I worked 24 hours, up at night helping him turn in bed, going to the bathroom, etc. And I couldn’t ask anyone to take the kids. I fed them all, but I don’t remember this nightmare much. I was stressed out. I just wanted everyone to be fine and in a good place.

I started to get a lot of health problems. I was so stressed out, I got migraine attacks 5 times a week. The doctors gave me strong migraine medicins that would make me so tired I had to sleep. When I woke up it was better. But I was in a blur. Just trying to take care of the kids and worrying about my husband and whether the assistants would show up to work for him. He was totally helpless and fully dependent on assistance. He could not be left alone.

My relationship with Jesus

As the vers: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. This vers is set into my late husbands headstone, because he could also not have gone through what he went through with out Jesus carrying him.

Philippians 4:13 WEBUS

I had a relationship with God, he carried me. But my prayer life was only: “Help me Jesus, I don’t know how to make it.” And maybe some Bible vers here and there.

At a turning point were I felt Satan tempt me to give up, I prayed to God. “How am I going to make this? It is impossible because I will break. Either I take care of the kids or I take care of my husband. I cannot do both.” I knew I had to walk in the power God gave me. Because it is impossible in my own power. As the verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. This verse is set into my late husband’s headstone because he could also not have gone through what he went through without Jesus carrying him.

“Ok, I’m going to do this the way you would Lord, but You have to help me. Even though I am beyond tired and beyond my own strength, help me to treat everyone like you want me too. And not out of my exhaustion that makes me not want to even speak to people anymore.”

And He helped me. I didn’t succeed perfectly because I’m only a human. But I had made a decision to pass this test. Not in my own strength, but in the strength God gives me. That was a lesson I learned. I cannot walk like Jesus without Jesus. I cannot. I am an awful person without him. When life presses every decent behavior out of you because of enormous stress and trauma you have a choice: Ask Jesus to help you if you want to walk according to his word. Or you say it is impossible (because it is in your own power) and dismiss every truth in the Bible. You have a choice. Will you let Jesus help you walk according to His Word or will you not ask Jesus and dismiss him? Something to think about.

I know I would not have made it through without Jesus, I don’t know where I would have been without His help. And I don’t want to know. All I know is that Jesus is Faithful, no matter what happens.

I hope this helps you in some kind of way. Maybe you don’t understand it now, it’s ok. But please remember this when you too are being pressed to the extreme. Choose Jesus to help you walk like a follower of him and his Words, because you cannot do it in your own strength.

God bless you,

Annika