Grief and a Fragile Hope

Matthew 10:29–31 — not one sparrow falls outside your Father's care.

My father died unexpectedly. Nearly a year has passed, and grief has made me harsh in ways I am still learning to name.

Part of that harshness lives in what I believe about where he is now. My father followed shamanic beliefs. As a Christian, I carry a painful certainty that he did not receive God's gift of eternal life. But I also hold the other side — the part that quietly reminds me: I am not God. I do not know his last breath. Even the thief on the cross turned to Jesus in his final moment. I was not there. I cannot know.

So I carry both. The hard truth and the small, fragile hope.

My brother and I are Christian. In Hmong culture, a soul release ceremony guides the departed — without it, that passage is left incomplete. Recently, our uncle told my brother that *he* could retrieve the funeral funds and carry it out himself. My brother, as a Christian, cannot. The audacity of that request was not lost on me.

A few days before this, I dreamed of my father — healthy, aged, at peace — standing beside my brother beneath a sky so blue and bright you could feel its warmth.

Then a sparrow flew into our garage and stayed three days. When I finally asked what it might mean, every thread led me back to Scripture — Matthew 10:29–31, Psalm 139, Psalm 91. Verses I already knew. Verses that found me again.

So I cried. And I prayed.

Maybe this is coincidence. Maybe I am looking for what I want to find. What I know is that these moments brought Scripture to the darkest corners of my anxious heart — and brought me to my knees.

If I am wrong, You have already blessed me.

If I am right, You have already blessed me.

Help me trust You, God, all the days of my life.