Spark Hope: Gifts for Working Women That Unleash Lasting Peace & Joy in 2023

December 13, 2022 Meg Applegate

11 Recommendations by Women for Women

“Hope is not a strategy” is a popular quip. But without hope, life is futile. Take one glance at your favorite news outlet and you’re inundated with headlines of a looming recession, skyrocketing inflation and imminent layoffs.

It’s easy to get fearful, caught up in the rising tide of uncertainty that can leave you wading in your own personal pool of anxiety. We need a solid foundation in the calm and the crazy - An immovable hope that lasts.

Now, the hope I’m talking about isn’t wishful thinking, an aspiration or something we conjure up on our own. I’m talking about confident expectation, a hope that saves.

But first, we have to recognize one problem. We have a broken relationship with the God who made us. It affects our insides and our outside. But the story doesn’t stop there…

Cue the manger scene. You know the one - The bundled baby Jesus in swaddling clothes tucked in a trough of hay. It isn’t just relevant at Christmas. No. He brings us back into a right relationship with God through his birth, death and resurrection. Jesus transcends the manger to modern day, cornering the market on hope. He IS the cornerstone of it.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them… But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2: 8-10, 13-14 & 19-22

No matter what you’re facing, His hope won’t let you down or change with the current of the culture or job market. Prepare Him room now (and always).

Ten working women share their favorite resources (and products) to do just that on the daily. Give yourself (or your fav woman in your life) lasting hope that sparks peace and joy no matter what 2023 may bring.

Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash

And finally, I want to share my game-changing resource. Bonus: It won’t cost you a thing. I’ve always wanted to read the Bible in its entirety, but failed. You know where those New Year’s resolutions go to die?! Through this podcast and corresponding Bible plan (see the YouVersion Bible App), I’ll have read (and/or listened to) the whole Bible by the end of December (cue the confetti!).

Most of all my hope for you in 2023 is that you make your home in Him. One built on a rock so when the storms come and the wind howls, you do not fall because you are on solid ground (Mathew 7:24-25). Christy Nockels says it best in her new song Home (one I have on replay in my earbuds). Cheers to your 2023!