Goodness, what do you do, and what do you pray for when there’s more bad news? Another hospital visit. A new prayer request. A sympathy card (or a pile of them). It takes endurance to pray hopeful prayers when the recent reality has been more hurt than healing.
It feels unnatural to rejoice, to praise, to hope.
In the weary thick of it, I’m trying to ask, “Lord, where is Your heart in this?”
Because that’s the delicate part. I don’t want to misinterpret this season as His neglect. Though, can I be honest? It can feel like it. It feels long and crushing. And right when I’m teetering on questioning His character I read things like, “The Lord will fight for you” (Exodus 14:14) and “He will be with you” (Deuteronomy 31:8).
So where do we go for a better view of His character? Where do we find hope at a time like this?
Flip to Romans 15:13. It says “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (CSB). Did you catch that? He’s the God of hope! Thank goodness. And the God of hope wants to fill you with all joy and peace until you’re overflowing with hope again. And it’s not by a new routine, or more sleep (though that may help). It’s by the power of the Holy Spirit. He just asks us to believe in this God of hope.
These are your reminders to hold onto hope. Nature will show up as a steady reminder of a steady God. You will walk barefoot in the green grass; you will once again feel the sun warm upon your face. You will see peonies bloom and strawberries turn ripe. You will have fresh vision for where the Lord is calling you, and it will be personal, beautiful, and full-circle. You will feel life again, like jumping into a pool on a hot summer day. You will be refreshed and taken care of.
Because the God of hope is also the God of redemption and the God of joy. And with Him, new life always, always comes.
Click here to download the wordsearch that accompanies this devotion, both from The Wordsearch Book: Hope!
The wordsearches found in this book are for the one in the weary winter. The one feeling ache after ache, just barely holding the tears back. To the one like the psalmist in Psalm 88 whose “eyes are dim with grief,” as they call to the Lord for help. To the one who sees no signs of life yet but knows that Scripture promises it.
See, a few years back, Margot Groner stumbled upon a wordsearch book in her local grocery store and started a routine of solving one before bed each night. She quickly realized that word searches weren’t living up to their potential. They could be more than just little books to help pass the time. They could be a way to pause, reflect, and enjoy; they could even be a way to spend time with the Lord if what was inside them was intentional.
So that’s what DaySpring and Margot created! The Wordsearch Book: Hope pulls together quotes and Scripture on all things hope, and creates word banks out of them. In this book, you’ll find over 70 word searches, along with devotions and journaling prompts for you to soak up all the goodness. As you search for words from verses on hope, you will simultaneously be meditating on the Scripture.
The Wordsearch Book: Hope is your childhood wordsearch book all grown up and gorgeous!
So fun, right? Well, good news — we’re giving away FIVE copies*!
To enter, leave a comment on this article sharing how you stay pointed toward hope, and we’ll choose five winners.
Then this weekend, be sure to tune into the (in)courage podcast for a GREAT conversation with Becky Keife and Margot Groner as they talk all things hope, words, and more!
Hope is my word of the year. Hope comes from Christ and Faith in whatever can’t yet see . May the Lord of Hope fill us with all Joy and Peace . The Power if the Holy Spirit provides this Hope . God bless you all.
I love this! What a great idea for word search.
I am so thankful for the hope we have in Jesus Christ. Romans 15:13 is one of my favorite verses. Everyone have a blessed day!
Sitting still and in my thoughts and reading Gods word through devotion each morning always brings me hope, reminds me of Gods continued love for me and sets the tone for the day!
“Hope” has been the recurring theme in my life lately. Even in my darkest moments, the Holy Spirit has given me words of encouragement that show the parallel in natural and spiritual seasons. For me, “Hope” represents removing the heavy winter cloak and all that it represents, and basking in the warmth and light that this Spring will bring.
I have Romans 15:13 printed on card stock and sitting in my bathroom vanity to remind me every day there is hope to be had!
Thank you for this opportunity! I love words and consider myself a true “word nerd.” And I really needed this reminder today.
This message came right at a time when I prayed for some hope in the healing of our broken family. I’ve been praying for years with no light at the end of this dark tunnel I’ve been in. Sometimes I just want to disappear. Please pray that the Lord sends some hope to hold on to.
Julie,
I believe the God of hope hears your prayers and has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11. I’m watching this very thing unfold in the past two days in a branch of my family after witnessing brokenness for years. Only God could intervene in the divine way He has to open a door for healing. I marvel at His far-reaching hand.
Hold onto the vision of God’s fatherly hand on you and your loved ones.
His blessings upon your family’s life,
Kathleen
Thank you so much for your encouraging words, just what I needed today ❤️
My life has been full of challenges. Physical issues with cancer and chronic neurological problems as well as life. I fell into a “seeking love desperately” pit for awhile and that is when God showed Himself to me as my Father. That is when i learned about His hope which washes away shame. He sent a friend and together they pulled me out and set my feet upon Him, the Rock. I am still learning about not just the kind of Hope rope you hang on by but now I experience more of the overflowing hope Jesus talks about in Romans that carries me along in His peace and joy. Hope is Jesus the lifter of my head.
This is so timely. I really do not enjoy the month of March and not just because of the weather or the long winter that doesn’t seem to end. Besides thinking about the anniversary of my husband’s death, my dear friend who died a year later almost to the day, 2 dear people/neighbors/friends died this last week. This is on top of a couple of deaths earlier in the winter. I am trying to remember Easter is coming up, and the crocus were peeking through until more snow the past few days- there is reason to be hopeful. I need to paste the verse from Romans throughout my house. So I thank you for reminding this- God is good. And what an interesting idea for a word search!
I love the article , i am in recovery 32 years and still looking for ways to grow spiritually and this article ,is a gift and helps more people than you know as i forward it out to others, God Bless you .
Romans 15:13 is a verse that I often reassure myself with and share with others to give the needed encouragement to trust in the God of HOPE. If I win this book, I think I will share it with an older family member who does regular word searches every day. She could use some biblical hope.
Hope is my crown of glory, which gives me strength to walk in my narrow path before God. Being the matriarch of my family & to help build God’s kingdom one day at a time for believers & non-believers, I have been blessed with this title. I truly love God for bestowing this assignment on me, to spear head life with my crown of hope & love, with the salt that season souls especially during painful and weary moments in life & to be the light of hope to give guidance in this broken world. Praise God for selecting me to fully armor up with His hope. I use all scriptual tools necessary to do His works.
Thank you for the opportunity to win this book. What a wonderful idea, to take an everyday activity and use it to turn our thoughts towards God. This time of year all of nature is showing us hope, but in times of physical winter, reading the psalms always brings me hope. Also, it helps me when I remember that hope is God’s gift to us when we have a desire or need. If everything was perfect then I would have no reason to hope in God’s mighty power!
Each beautiful sunrise and sunset gives me hope.
Hope Joy and peace help me so much! I wake up and say I’m having a good day!
After the death of my husband of 37 years Hope is all I have to hold on to!
What a wonderful idea! God is certainly using you to help with our much needed and continual search for hope these days. Our prayer requests seem to be growing with each day, sometimes weakening our longing for hope as we wait or maybe do t receive the answers we’d hoped for. Your Word Search sounds like a way we can say no to Satan’s discouraging words and invite in the encouraging words of the the Holy Spirit. Thank you!
Looking up! My hope is in the Lord God Almighty! Worship music, intentional prayer, reading the Word, especially the Old Testament miracles! And trusting and hoping in the future He has planned for us! Thank you for the opportunity to win another resource to be encouraged in the hope of the Lord!
Hope is the difference maker in every day. Each morning I greet the day with “This is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it!” And that proclamation and praise is all about Hope and knowing God is good and is in control. These word searches are awesome. I give them as gifts all the time.
Fellowship with other believers is key to letting Jesus speak hope to my heart! Thankful for his love in his word and Body.
‘Hope’ is my word for 2025. I want To find more of it & to seek it out God’s hope . This is a great idea! A new way I can “Search” for hope !
This sounds like a wonderful book for my husband, who is a stroke survivor. Thank you for the opportunity to win it.
We all need to hope, hard as it is sometimes. Today’s devotion was just what I needed to encourage me to keep hoping, hoping in the Lord. The new book sounds like the perfect way to keep hope alive as well as a fun way to do it!
My heart has been seeking hope in this season of waiting after the loss of my husband and all the life changes that accompany that. The devotion today has made my heart lighter and hope is filling it. I love the description of this book. I hope to win one!
My hope in the Lord is constant because He is faithful and true and fulfills all of His promises. He never fails!
HOPE, it has been the only thing that kept me going through some tough seasons. I am Thankful to have Hope in Jesus as I live in my day to day.
What a morning to hear this word hope. Hope in Jesus. I have a daughter in ICU. All I can do right now is put her in Gods hands and pray and that new beautiful word hope. Thank you for your words and most of all your faith in God so you can share with us.
Lately holding onto hope has been tough- your podcast really resonated with me this morning. Then you mentioned the word search and I knew God wanted me to listen. My mother in law has been doing crosswords as she sits with my father in law at his cancer treatments. He’s in a lot of pain and it’s been a really tough season. What a great idea to integrate hope into a word search!
The reminder that God is a God of hope was much needed today. It is beautiful how gently the Spirit can hold and encourage us in many ways, so often through words of Scripture and words of others.
The word search would be another way of those reminders and encouragement.
I stay pointed towards hope in knowing that the Holy Spirit has watched over my special needs adult children their whole lives. My son has had 3 near death experiences (cardiac arrest at age 3 with CPR for over 30 minutes on the second day and ECMO for one experience) and I knew that God was ALWAYS with us to give us hope. He will never leave us.
Surrender is my word for the year and it has been a daily battle to actually surrender to Him. This book sounds like a wonderful way to memorize and immerse ourselves in God’s Word. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to win a copy.
I have great hope. My grandson is in prison and he is learning braile to translate print; for school books for blind children. He got baptized.
I believe God has great plans for him.
Praise God.
Linda Barton
I stay pointed toward hope by looking at the ways the Lord has come through so many times in the past. All the times I couldn’t physically see an answer and than something would happen in the midst of it and I could see God’s hand moving.
Dear Margot……………I have one of the (incourage) community stand up cards of a different word every day of the calendar and either a scripture or words of wisdom from this wonderful group of women. I read that card everyday when I wake up, no matter how sleepy I still am, but with all the things I am going through, the word “HOPE” has been my word for the last 4 years now. There are too many things to into here, but it goes from my son disowning me as he was calling me a liar about his father, as my husband has violent dementia. My son also told me that I would never be able to see my one grandchild ( a boy of 11 at the time” nor could I even talk to him and he and his wife have blocked all my phone numbers, email and even mail from the post office. So cards that I send to my grandson who will be 15 this year are destroyed before my grandson gets home from school. There has been NO communication from them for 4 years now. Besides that which is heart-breaking enough, there are so many other serious problems I am dealing with. I pray often and always and my faith has never waned, but I do sometimes question God’s timeline. I am 77 years old and things seem to get harder as I get older than when I was 35. I would love to have a chance to have one of your books because I just feel like it would give me more HOPE and maybe stop me from crying so much. This was a wonderful devotion for a Monday, the beginning of the week and the last day of March. Thank you Margot and I send you and all of the (incourage) community women my love as you are a large part of why I can KEEP hoping……………………..Betsy Basile
Covering you in prayer. I have two adult sons and cannot imagine the heartache you must feel.
The word hope can be used as noun or a verb. Like so many words, how we use it and to whom we are speaking makes a difference. Hope is not passive. Hope requires action. Prayer, notes, phone calls, offering help. God is and was a God of hope and expects us to follow up by doing our part. Hoping for change requires us to be a part of that change.
Adding some FUN TO hope? Count me in! What a creative idea.
This sounds like a wonderful book!
Wow this came at the right time. My 27year old daughter who has been battling health issues the last 12 years passed away last Thursday. She is leaving behind her husband and 16 month old daughter, her twin sister, brother parents and many relatives. There is definitely a whole in our hearts. I know with hope and the Lord’s love, strength and guidance we will get through this very difficult time and in the future. Knowing she is in Heaven and that we will see again is giving us hope and peace. Please keep us in your prayers and especially her Husband and daughter.
I’ve been afraid to hope recently because of some scary life situations, but over and over, I feel God keeps reminding me (like through this post!) that He is the God of hope and I can put my trust in Him.
I find hope in a sunny day when I’m sorry. The sun is so inviting and so warm. It gives me encouragement to my soul and let me know the arms of God is like the sun embracing me with courage and hope.
Prayer. Talking to the Lord. Reading scripture. Worshipping. All of these things keep hope alive in the midst of struggle and doubt.
I received a bad report from my doctor and this book will be one more tool used to keep me hopeful. I wish the word search book was paperback. I would not want to write in such a beautiful book.
What a wonderful way to engage our brains while we contemplate God’s Word 🙂
A way I try to focus on hope is to get out in nature. Watching buds start to open in spring, planting seeds and bulbs in the fall with faith and hope that they will show God‘s handiwork in the spring … All the different stages Give me hope that God is with us through all of our stages too.
I would like to receive the Word search book. I am 75 . Have recently been diagnosed with macula degeneration and to receive a new cornea in the other eye.
I love this article! As I looked over for list of people to pray for this morning I stopped for a moment and said “ Oh God, there is so much suffering!” Then I remembered Romans 15:13. Several years ago a fellow believer shared this scripture with me and I have hung onto it ever since. Hope is a confident expectation that good things will happen. He is our Rock!
I find renewed hope when I spend time considering all the ways God has been there for me in the past. Scripture also serves as a powerful reminder especially verses Isaiah 40:31 and Jeremiah 29:11. I can place my hope in God because He loves me more than I can even imagine and wants what’s best for me.
The word ‘hope’ is a recurring theme in my life. It was my word of the year last year and it has flowed into being my word of the year in 2025. This devotional resonated with me. I recently celebrated the 3 year anniversary of my final IV chemotherapy treatment from breast cancer with a renewed sense of hope. This is the first year that I celebrated more than the ending of the darkest time in my life. I celebrated HOPE. Every one of the reminders to hold on to hope brought joy to my heart, especially the one that reads, “You will have fresh vision for where the Lord is calling you, and it will be personal, beautiful, and full-circle.” I am seeing His promises fulfilled right before my eyes and it is wonderful.
Would love to have this book.
Great reminders about searching for HOPE in scriptures and nature!
Yes, I think ALL of us need hope and w/o Jesus in our lives many of us would have NO hope..only the reality that life will probably just get harder,especially as we age! I recently had a heart attack and of course surgery and did it ever “wake me up” about being aware that everyone needs to rely on God for some serious challenges that they may face. And just reading about many of these precious women who are also going through many trials, God is our only hope and a refuge in times of trouble! We must rely on Him and know that He is our amazing healer for ALL things!! Thank you for your comforting words every day!
Thank you Margot for the devotion today. I know we as the saved can say God why did you let this happen to me or us as family. No matter what it is. Should it your ill or someone in your family is ill or you have other problems or someone in your family has passed away too young or through illness. You have prayed to God about it and stood on the word of God.. You feel God is not answering your prayers and you begin to say why God is this happing me or us as family. It not easy but you still no matter what you go through should it be you or you and your Family. You still have to keep trusting God looking up and praying plus Standing on the promises in his word no matter what you or you and your family are going through. It not easy but as follower of God you have to do it. You have to know in all this God is still beside you and with you or you and your family holding your hand through it all. You are not to ask questions why God just trust God no matter what. Yes it is hard and you have to know God has been through it with you and God knows what you are going through and he loves you. I know people that are good friends of mine that have lost alot through there lives. They could keep asking God why why us through the years it is one thing after another. Like one who lost their Mum to illness the same ones lost their Dad to MS. Then in my family my Aunt lost her Husband suddenly. All could have said God why did you have all this happen to us. Like my Sister in-law Husband she looked after him for years and years as was not well. All of them have never blamed God or even my Aunt who is not saved and the others who are saved. Even though they don’t have their loved one on this earth yes it hard on them as they can all say why God but they never. I don’t know we’re I heard this but I know it helps people I know like them. You might not have your loved on this earth anymore. But you have good memories of them in your heart of times spent together. If saved you have something nice to look forward to. You have not lost all. You have this to look forward too. That when your time up on earth you will see them in Glory with Jesus one day. Then you will be together and see them again. If it was an illness they died of and they were saved like you. You will see them with a brand new body no more sickness. That is something to look forward too. Yes it hard but with God help you can do it. So you can search for the hope in this most of everything. I say Amen to that. Thank you again for today’s reading. In my prayers all incourage. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little Enniskillen Co.Fermanagh N.Ireland xx
Thank you so much for your words, Margot. I am a tea sipper too! I actually find hope in the sweet moments of drinking tea and journaling to the LORD about HIS goodness towards me. It is in the quiet moments ‘with” HIM that He breathes fresh hope into my heart as I eat HIS words and let them settle deep and feed my soul with life-giving promises such as 2 Corinthians 12:9 that anchor me in hope.
Some days I can find my hope waning more than other days….work responsibilities, family concerns, news from around our country and around the world. The only way that I can find a bit of hope is to lift these concerns up to God and to look for scripture that points me back to Him. I love the idea of a book that combines scripture, devotions, and word searches sounds like a wonderful idea! Thank you so much for today’s devotion.
Oh my, I’m gonna need more than 1 copy! My recently widowed friends all need this & then Christmas is coming (269 days away!). What a great idea! Thank you! Blessings (((0)))
Oh my, I’m gonna need more than 1 copy! My recently widowed friends all need this & then Christmas is coming (269 days away!). What a great idea! Thank you! Blessings (((0)))
I stay pointed toward hope by just staying in the scriptures daily and always searching for the answer in the Bible !
Cultivating and continuing to hope and wait for His promises by starting each day with Him, more time in prayer and leaning on Him now more than ever.
I stay focused on hope by recognizing the Lord’s daily reminders in my life of how he cares for me even in the midst of valleys and trials. Remembering that He is always good and loves me.
I would love one to send to a dear friend who moved away 3 years ago & is in the midst of a horrible storm within her family. I try to encourage her daily with texts, letters & small gifts through the mail. This would really encourage her as she has been trusting the Lord daily but also struggling as she’s being in the midst of sorrow & despair.
I stay pointed on hope by listening to this uplifting podcast daily! But more than that – I stay pointed on hope by keeping my eyes on the Giver of hope! Jesus! Spending time in His Word & prayer daily ❤️
Hope is hard right now until I remember how much I am loved. I start each morning in Psalms, reminding myself self of who I serve. Thank you for this great resource and great devotion.
I think I try to stay focused on hope by connecting with the lord in some way and remembering His promises. Also, I try to focus on the positive.
I focus on hope by reading my devotional and spending time with Him. I intentionally look for ways He has sustained me and my loved ones in the ups and down of life.
It is 3:36 AM and once again I find myself word searching for grief relief. (in)courage is a treasured companion in my journey for solace and support sources. Thank you all for providing support and access to a community of safety and hope.
May His love and Light shine on your path today and give you peace.
Thank you
Hope and Scripture word searches? What a great idea!
My six-year old granddaughter was just diagnosed with Type 1 juvenile diabetes. This word search and devotional would be something fun that she and mommy could do together to remind them of the hope and good things God has for them. Even diabetes can bring glory to God.