Five Books Worth Reading

Welcome to another Coffee with Chrystal Hurst. I want to talk to you today about 5 books. That's 5 books that I think you should read. So the cool thing about this is I have just been on for about 20 minutes with the Inner Circle talking about all things pipes blowing up and firewood and the kids and me teaching them not to be lazy young men and all the things. And so I'm really hyped today. So forgive it. We've already had all the conversation about, uh, all the things that have happened in my house in Snowmageddon, Texas, 2021. But I'm happy to be back with you. My intention last Monday, February the 15th, was to give you book ideas because I knew that many of the people that follow me would be in places where it's cold. And so I wanted you to have ideas of books you could listen to, books you could read, that you could get shipped to your house from Amazon quickly before, you know, Snowmageddon happened. But that didn't happen because I lost power. But I'm here today to still talk to you about 5 books that you should read, because even if you are with power, praise the Lord God Almighty, you still need to know about these books because they are some of my faves. I had the hardest time, the hardest time narrowing down, um, books to read simply because I have so many that I love. Right now my boys and I are reading through The Hobbit. I've actually had it on my shelf for years intending to read it with my kids. It hasn't gotten done until now. But it is in progress. I'm really excited about that. We read— we try to read over lunch as many times as we can. So that is something that we're doing. We're spending a lot of time around the kitchen table, um, so I'll continue doing that. But I wanted to share some books that I've, uh, pulled off my shelf that have been good reads for me in the past, because I was looking for reads for right now, and I was like, oh, this is good, this is good, this is good. And I wanted to share them with you. So, um, the temperatures last week in Texas got down below all the things, just below. It doesn't even matter what the temperature was. It was just down below. Below what? Below where it needs to be. Below. That's all I need to say. And so yes, we had some pipes burst. Yes, we lost power. Yes, we were roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire. Not together, separately. And just in case you didn't know, uh, a marshmallow with a s'more is awesome, but a marshmallow with an Oreo is basically just as good, if not better. So just in case you didn't know that, now you know. All right, so reading. I'm a bibliobore. This is basically how I go to my room. You know how when you're a kid and you're like, you want to go to your room? I can go to my room anywhere I am, like block out the whole world as long as I have a book in my hand. And so this was— I mean, I could go to a— my dad was the chaplain for the Dallas Mavericks. I could go to a Dallas Mavericks game and sit on the front row with a book in my hand, and I could care less about the game. And I would totally not know what was happening in the game because I would be totally engrossed in my book. So I, I mean, I could go to dinner with my family when I was growing up and I'd have a book in my lap. Christmas Eve dinner, fancy restaurant. My dad was like, are you reading? Yes, I'm reading. So it's a thing. I love it. I have way more books than I should. I've read many of them. I would say the large majority of them. I'm trying to catch up on the ones I haven't read. It's a little bit of a problem now because as a podcaster, I receive multiple books every week to review because people are asking to be on the podcast or to be interviewed somewhere else. YouTube, Inner Circle, whatever, Facebook. I don't know, just all the things, but I have a lot of books and I can't really get through them all, but I try, I try. Uh, bottom line is I'm your girl for book recommendations. So maybe let's just call this part 1, because after this I may have other thoughts about what I want to recommend to you. Okay, so here we go. Curl up with a book and read. It'll do your body and your brain good. Okay, first book, Redeeming Love. This is a fiction book by Francine Rivers. It is a book that is so very good. You're not going to be able to put it down. It is a love story. It is actually a love story, um, that has to do with the book of Hosea, but you wouldn't know that unless you've read the book of Hosea or unless you know your Bible. But the point is, it is one of the best books I've ever read. It is a page-turner, and it is so very well written and very good. Okay, it talks about, um, basically a man who's chasing after his wife. I mean, that's the bottom line. She's having issues. I mean, you know, a lot of wives have issues, but she's having issues and he's like, "I love you." And like all the things that go into love and you just want them to be together. It's like good romance novel. So if you've never heard of it or you've never read it, you should totally get it today. If you're fiction, if you need fiction in your life, you should get that today. If you are on my email list, it'll be in the email, so make sure you're on my email list. So this is a fictional novel that's set in the 1850s, but it emphasizes God's love towards us as sinners. Now, I love fiction, y'all. I'm not saying that you need to read Christian fiction. I'm not saying that, but this actually does— Christian fiction or any fiction— happens to be one of the best books I've ever read. Okay, here's a quote that I love from this book: Love cleanses, beloved, It doesn't beat you down. It doesn't cast blame. Oof. It cleanses and it makes room for you to be intimate with the one that you love. That's a whole thing right there that could preach. Redeeming Love. That's book number 1. Book number 2, book number 2. Um, it is Successful Women Think Differently. Successful Women Think Differently. It is by Valerie Burton. Um, she's a friend of mine. She actually is a great writer as well. It's a practical guide to help you create new ways of thinking and to make that thinking a new habit. Because how many times have you realized you just have a bad habit of thinking negatively? It's just— you just go to the worst all the time. Well, her whole point is that you need to have a growth mindset in life instead of a fixed mindset in life, and that you need to decide that you can be successful and that you can be forward-facing in your life, but you have to change the way that you think. So it is not just a book to read. It is a book to work through. Go on, come and say hi, Joe. Come on. Just go on, say hi. Lean in. Go ahead. Say hi. Hi. Bye. All right. So it is like— it's more like you read and then you work. She gives you work to do, like to examine your thoughts. If you've actually never gone through the exercise of looking at your thoughts and determining, are these the thoughts that I want to think? And then understanding what kinds of thoughts to replace them with. I mean, it is the renewing of your mind, but not just in a biblical sense. Like, it's in a success-driven, positive thinking— like, she's a believer, but she also has a master's degree in positive psychology. So it's just, it's really, really practical and great. Okay, so that is a book that you should read if you need to get your thinking together. Um, one of the things that I love about this book, she said this, and I actually quoted her, I think, and she's still there, God made no mistakes when he created you. He did not. You were uniquely designed for success in your purpose. When you align your life with your strengths, those innate qualities that you were gifted with, you tap into a level of grace and power that empowers you to achieve things you never could have accomplished on your own. But this can only happen if you learn how to think differently. So if you know that's your issue, pick up that book. All right, here's another book that I want to tell you about: Disciplines of a Beautiful Woman. This is an old book, y'all, old. My mother read it, she recommended it to me, I bought a copy, I read it. It is like, like, and it's thin, like it's an easy read. It's something that you can get done quickly, but it's like, here are the things that if you want to be a godly woman that you should do, how you should be. How you should think, how you should act, what you should say, the habits you should have. It's like a primer for biblical womanhood. That's the best way I can say it. It's geared to both the hows and the whys of living your life beautifully. And when I say you, I'm talking about a woman who loves God. If you want to live your life with intentionality and know what he says about you being a woman, then this is the book for you. Okay, it says, "Quiet is a blessed gift in this frantic world." This is a quote from the book. How we, how we must cherish every moment of it, the quiet, and carve it out for ourselves every chance we get. The discipline of being still. Like, these are the things that, you know, the world's not going to tell you. Some of us did not know certain things about being a godly woman, and you simply need somebody to tell you. So books like this are important because somebody is telling you. This is why sometimes reading old books are good books, because they're going to say it in a way that the new books aren't. They weren't afraid to say it the way it needed to be said. So I wanted to make sure you had an old book in the mix because I'm just saying, you want to know what it means to be a beautiful woman? Anne Ortland told you. All right. Book number 4, Sacred Rest. This is by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, who's also a friend of mine, a really, really smart lady, like on a lot of levels. Not only is she a medical doctor, She's like a whiz at all things PR. I've actually called her, spent money with her. Teach me all your ways, Dr. Sandra. Listen, I don't believe— I love learning things, YouTubing, you know, reading books, teaching myself new things, all that. I, I love teaching myself like the next person, like I encourage you to do. Hasa mela. Sometimes I'm just like, how much do you want to charge me to spend an hour with me to tell me what you know? So that's how smart she is. 'Cause I was like, I don't have time to figure it out the long way. Just tell me what you know. So the point is, is rest, we understand. We understand sleep, we understand stillness, we understand quiet, we understand. Okay, but did you know that there are 7 kinds of rest? Let's see if— focus, ma'am, focus. There we go. 7 kinds of rest, 7. And she goes through these in her book because she's like, did you realize that you might be well rested with sleep, but you may not be spiritually rested? Mentally rested? Like, do you know what all the ways are? And she breaks that down and then says medically, when people are coming into her office and they're like, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, she's like, you're stressed out and you're tired. But they would try to get more sleep. And sometimes more sleep is not what you need. There are other kinds of rest, other kinds of stillness that you need in your life. So if you feel like you're overworked, you're stressed out, that you are totally like, um, always at an anxiety all-time high, that you just can't seem to get ahead of your thinking, your mind is racing, you're worn down, you're exhausted, you are ho-hum, you're in a funk, it may be because you need rest. And if you want to know what that means, what that looks like and how to do it, you want to pick up her book. Okay. That's Sacred Rest. Dr. Sandra says, we were not made for rest, rest was made for us. Come on now, somebody. Rest is actually a gift that God has given his people. It is how he connects with us and how he gives us a prescription for our well-being. All right, last book of the 5 books. Come on and focus. You see how this finger is bent? That's because one time I fell off of a bike on my way riding through San Francisco, but we're not talking about rides, we're talking about books. I did put that in my book though. She's still there. The Best Yes, Lisa TerKeurst. If you have problems making decisions, you need a prescription, a plan for how to make decisions. No shame, no harm in that, right? So she walks you through, yes, there's good things. And sometimes we have trouble deciding what's the best good thing to do, but out of all the good things, there's a best yes to give. And how do you isolate that decision-making process? Great book for you to read if you need to make decisions. And if you want to make decisions that mean that you're spending your time in a way that is best, not only for you, for the people that you love, but for God wants you to do with your time on earth. So these are 5 books that I'm recommending that you read at some point. If you need an easy, fun read, oh my goodness, grab Redeeming Love. If you are like, oh my goodness, I need to get my mind right, grab Successful Women Think Differently by Valerie Burton. If you're like, I just need a primer on biblical womanhood, Okay, that's the one that you should get, Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman by Anne Ortland. If you need rest, you're tired, you're worn out, and you need to understand the layers by which you can bring rest into your life, get the book from Dr. Sandra. And then Lisa TerKeurst, author, speaker extraordinaire. If you need to make better decisions in your life so that your days and your minutes are spent well, pick up The Best Yes. This was so hard for me to narrow it down to 5 choices for books that you should read. Howsoever, I did it. And I hope you have read or pick up one of those books on my list if you have not. Now, that said, those are not the only books that I would recommend. You know that I've written some books. My sister has written some books. My mother has written some books. So I wanted to give you 5 titles from my mom, my sister, and me that you should pick up. She's Still There for Me, Kingdom Woman for me, The Resolution for Women from Priscilla Shirer, then from my mom, Seasons of a Woman's Life and Stones of Remembrance. I would love for you— I would love for you to tell me, uh, in the comments what books that you have read that you love, fiction or nonfiction, it doesn't matter, that have encouraged you to live your best life or have simply brought you entertainment and joy. Because reading can do that, you know. And if you don't read, or if you haven't made time for, for reading, um, I wanted to give you a couple of tips for being able to do that because some of us will say, I don't really know. Okay, so here's the thing. You, you may not have time for reading because you're not making time for reading. So find time for reading, even if it's 15 minutes. Keep a book in the car when you pick up your kids from the carpool line. Keep a book in the bathroom. I mean, real talk. Also keep a book by your bed, and before you go to bed, make 15 minutes to read. Um, when you get to work, get to work 15 minutes early, read there before you start work. If you're working from home, decide what the time is that you have to read, and then you'll be surprised how much you can get done consistently reading for 15 to 30 minutes a day. Pick the longest line in the grocery store. My mother used to pick the longest line in the grocery store so that she could read magazines. Okay, well, bring your book, pick the longest line, and just take your time in the store while you wait. Set goals for yourself, maybe a number of pages a day or a number of books a year even, or a month. Set a goal, tell a friend— accountability is great— and then work towards that goal all year. So Find time to read, make or set a goal, and then have a reasonable plan in place. Like, if you know that you don't like to read, okay, maybe so it's not reading with your eyes, maybe it's reading with your ears, picking up audiobooks, maybe it's joining a book club. But the point is, you become a better person when you read. And when we say we don't have time, then we're missing out on one of the greatest opportunities that we have to grow, to learn, and to be entertained. You can find time to read. You can set a goal and work towards it. You can also decide that you have a plan in place, reading the books, uh, or listening to the books, or using Scribie or, um, uh, some kind of other audiobook site. So have a plan and get it done. You need to walk every day, you're working on your health, listen to an audiobook. Don't talk on the phone every day, listen to an audiobook. All right, so I'm so glad to see you sharing some of your favorite reads with me. That's awesome. I hope you've enjoyed this. I hope it gives you 5 books you can read, and I hope that you pick up even more ideas in the comments because here's the deal. I always say it. We are better together. Thanks for watching this episode of Coffee with Chrystal. I go live every Monday morning with my inner circle. I share the replays here. Want to join me and an awesome community for the live recording? Go to chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle.