Written by Kylene Wee
In January 2025, I lost my dad.
where everyone had hopes and resolutions set for the new year, I only had one:
I hoped to bring him on a road trip.
My dad had many health complications, and he struggled with his balance and his diet. He was frail, weak, and often cranky.
Things got worse at the end of November 2024, and before I knew it, I was clinging to the thinnest thread of hope.
On 1 January 2025, at noon, that thread broke.
I lost all hope.
I lost my dad.
and with him, I lost a part of my world I never thought would go quiet. The days that followed were strange. Some days I felt nothing; some days I felt everything. I suddenly forgot how to hope, I forgot how to pray, and I wasn’t exactly talking to God either.
I thought that maybe having hope would make grief easier, but hope felt too fragile to carry. What was I even hoping for? That he might somehow come back, that the ache would disappear?
The truth is – grief doesn’t play by rules, it doesn’t follow a schedule.
And hope? It wasn’t about feeling better. It was about trusting I wasn’t alone.
Romans 12:12 says ” Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.”
Today, hope holds a different meaning for me. Hope is often quiet in grief, but here’s how I’ve come to recognise it, subtly showing up in life:
It’s waking up in the morning and choosing to keep going.
It’s showing up in church assemblies and opening up to worship, even if participating is sitting quietly, listening, and praying.
God doesn’t rush over grief, He empathises with us. John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”
He knew Lazarus would rise again. He knew resurrection was coming. But still, He wept.
God doesn’t skip over sorrow or grief, He helps us to cope and comforts us.
That changed how I viewed my grief. It wasn’t something to “get over” so I could get back to being strong. It was something more than that. It was believing and trusting that God is with me, through every pain, and every tear.
Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have contrite spirit.”
This doesn’t mean that the pain is gone. It means trusting that even when I don’t feel God near, I trust He is still here – gentle, patient, holding space for every tear.