How to Forgive What You Can't Forget
In this live, Chrystal Hurst greets her community with high energy, shares personal updates (travel, a new wedding ring, coffee sponsorship, podcast hiatus), and announces upcoming offerings (a $19 meal‑planning workshop, a Sister Circle live summit, a Caribbean cruise, and Inner Circle membership). She then moves into the core teaching on forgiveness, framing unforgiveness as "chains" that keep women from making their mark. Using the metaphor of a key, she explains that forgiveness is a continual, muscular practice that separates releasing the hurt from forgetting the event. She outlines practical steps: naming the wound, journaling, verbal release, repeated affirmation, and using supportive community or therapy. Chrystal addresses specific relational wounds—mother wounds, marital divorce, sibling conflict, church hurt—illustrating how to forgive oneself and others while still setting healthy boundaries. She interweaves personal anecdotes (marathon experience, tumor in toe, buying her own diamonds) and biblical references (Matthew 18, Romans 12:19) to reinforce the spiritual dimension of freedom. The session also includes a prayer, a “fiery darts” metaphor for overwhelming stress, a top‑three goal check‑in, and encouragement to practice daily release so that women can live fully in their design.
Chapters
Good morning! Good morning! Guten Morgen! Guten Morgen! Morning tea! Good morning! Happy first Monday in May. Very glad to see all you pretties, all my pretties. It's mostly pretties. Every now and then a guy will walk up to me in church and say, don't tell nobody, but I be on there. Mostly, as the Wicked Witch of the West would say, my pretties. I can't say it like she said it. My pretties. Something like that. It's close enough, you know what I'm talking about. Good morning! It is the first Monday in May. That means we are in the fifth month of 2025, and today is kind of a fun number day. It's 5/5/25. So in case you missed that memo, happy Single Day Mayo! Um, if I had not had a crazy week full of travel, I would have been on here with my maracas and some Cinco de Mayo music and all the things. But as it stands, last week was crazy. So if you are here and you are of Latina or Hispanic descent, uh, happy Cinco de Mayo day to you. Arriba, arriba! How about that? That's my, that's my, my— just stop, Chrystal, you're already getting ahead. Praise the Lord, saints. It is first Monday. Now is a great time for you to do the thing where you share this and tell somebody else, girl, what you doing driving to work? Tune in, Chrystal's live. Ain't no telling what she's gonna say. This is what we do. If you're here and in the inner circle, any chance you get, drop the yellow circle anytime you place a comment. Just if you do it once and it'll be in your recents, and then you can say whatever you want to say. And when you say it, you drop a circle so that way I know Who's saying what? I know some of y'all are here because you join me every first Monday, and I already know that some of y'all have not been happy with me because I have not released a podcast in a while. There's a reason for that. Not, not necessarily a, a reason that was planned, but there is a reason for that. We're just out here doing the best we can, and in 14— let me see, 10, 11 years of producing podcasts, I don't think I've ever taken a break this long. And I certainly haven't taken a break that wasn't planned. So, um, I, I have had some of y'all emailing me and saying, ma'am, what is happening? I found you on YouTube. Where'd you go? I've been listening to your podcast for 10 years. You release weekly without fail. What is happening? That's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, what is happening? So let me greet some of y'all in the chat because I'm here and I'm here on today I am drinking Rise Coffee this morning. No, they are not paying me. Should they be? Yes, they should. But I've been drinking tea for a minute and I'm old, so I started traveling with my own teas. Like, just no on the plane. No, I don't need a coffee or orange juice or a Pepsi or a Coke. Just bring me a cup with hot water. I brought my own tea bags. Here's my ASMR for the morning. And you know the drill. If you're in here drinking something, share what it is. The weirder it is, the better, because inquiring minds want to know. We all want to know what you drinking. So while I do that and stir this up, I want to greet a few people. Let's see. Diane Alexander Bell from Maryland drinking green tea. Amazing. Some of y'all are putting us to shame. Admiration Day walking on the track. Uh, good morning from Orlando, Florida, drinking coffee. Come on, drinking with the coffee. Let me go back here because some of y'all were already obedient. You knew the drill. Hi, Jennifer, my friend from Tampa. Beautiful Tampa, beautiful Jennifer. Glad you're in the room. Hi, Meredith, Miss Meredith Shepherd, because you in the CA and it's 5 AM, so you get stars. You don't have to say what you're drinking. You don't have to get out of the bed. You're just here. Praise the Lord, saints. Wisconsin, Miss Gloria, I was just there. I'm glad you're here and in the room. We've got Chris and Steph. I'm assuming it's more Steph than Chris from North Carolina. Big H in the room. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. San Antonio, Muncie, Indiana, Southern California. All right. What you drinking? Where you, where you from? All right. Caramel Frappuccino iced coffee. Uh-huh. Okay, now here's something special from, um, where'd it go? I clicked it and then it disappeared, but it was cool. Oh, where'd it go? Okay, here we go. Kathy Horton says Sunvera coffee from Starbucks with, with cream. I'm assuming that's what that is. Now I want to know what Sunvera coffee is. You're drinking boring black coffee on your walking pad. That's what I need. I need a walking pad. This desk is already a desk. That can rise up. Now I don't know when I rise it up what— how that's going to affect the equipment because I got equipment and wires everywhere. But that's what I need to do, join y'all on my walking pad in the mornings. If we're going to be on here for an hour, hour and a half sometimes too, you know what, you know what kind of movement that would add in my life? Get my 10,000 steps in. Water cranberry juice. What is water cranberry juice? Does that mean you added water to your cranberry juice to kind of cut the sweet. Hey, Windy City, Chicago. Rise for your second cup. That Rise is addictive, isn't it? It really is. My husband accidentally got on a, uh, on a, um, subscription plan. We had to take that off because Rise, of course they want you to be subscribed and addicted. That joint is like a $25 bag of coffee that you have to buy every month. What is happening? Iced Coffee from Alabama, we're glad you are in the room. Hi, Miss Brenda from Michigan, always good to see you. All right, what kind of smoothie, Angela? We need to know. Inquiring minds need to know. Wacko is in the house. I mean, Waco. We love Waco. Now this is different. Hot Tea Be Well by Just Add Honey Co. All right, Johannesburg in the room, we're glad you joined us. So many of y'all from so many different places. It's so cool. DMV, we know where you are. Praise the Lord. Okay, Kathy has given us the answer: a new coffee blend from Starbucks. It's a light roast, much like the blonde. So for those of y'all who are interested in the coffee details, there you go. And Ajay Nay, what up though? Faithful to show up. We're grateful for you. Okay. Glad that y'all are here. If this is your first time in the room, we always like to say welcome to our first-time visitors because I'm a good church girl. So if you've never been with me on a live, whether you are in the Inner Circle or not in the Inner Circle— if you're in the Inner Circle, just throw your yellow up, your yellow dot. If you're not, just say hello. We want to greet you appropriately. So girls, if somebody says they're new, if y'all can hunt them down, say hello and say we're glad you came. We'll be grateful. Mm, this sounds good. Southern pecan coffee with hazelnut. That's my kind of coffee. That's great. All right, y'all, just to give a quick update on what has been happening. So I can't remember if I've ever been to Wisconsin or not. I feel like I might have been once a long time ago, but I'm not really sure. So we're going to say this was either my first or second time. To go to Wisconsin, and it was, it was pretty, you know, it was pretty great. Let me see here. Let's bring over a thing or two from my trip. Ee, ee, ee. Hold on a minute. All right. Mm-hmm. So we went to, let's bring this over one at a time. Make sure this is off. Okay, so basically, this— I traveled this weekend with a young lady named Ashton who was so excited about me putting the camera in her face. And then also with her on the— in the passenger seat is Shonda. Shonda, Miss Shonda, who's like, why are you putting the camera in my face? Because I was going to talk about y'all this morning and I knew I was going to talk about y'all this morning. Because normally I travel with one person, but if it's going to be a lot of people or, you know, we need really to divide and conquer because there's a lot of work to be done at the book table or what have you, then I'll travel with two. So we had a fun time this weekend, but here's the thing, the event that we were at was great. The praise and worship was great. They had this painting guy, so he was painting what he hears. It was the artist that was painting the whole time. Great opportunity to listen to a young lady named Shalini, who I got to meet, who has a voice like an angel and knew what she was doing with worship. Because you want somebody who knows what they're doing with worship, and a room full of women who were happy to praise. And that was great. The weather was great. But here's the thing, when I go on a trip with Shonda, with Shonda, Um, Shonda does not believe in going to cities and not going to see something. So it's only because of Shonda that we went to the water. She was like, I found a place, we have time, the plane doesn't take off for 5 hours. And I was just like, okay, whatever. But it's fine as long as I don't have to think about it, I don't have to plan it. Um, Shonda is committed to planning things. And that's good. So we got a chance to roll up on Lake Michigan and see the sights. And that's Shonda getting her picture taken because she's a content creator. Here's the thing. Can you say you're a content creator if you take all the photos, take all the videos, and never actually produce the content? Because that's what Shonda will say. She was like, I take all these videos and I just don't produce the videos. Y'all, I have so many thoughts about videos that I want to make that are like talk to camera like this, but also mainly they are— I have this list of vlogs that I want to make because I want to take you on some journeys with me. And then we come back with all these things on our phones because I feel Shonda's pain. And we then struggle with getting the actual content produced. So we went to Wisconsin. Here's my favorite thing about Wisconsin. I think it's not on the table yet, but we went to a great restaurant and I don't think I'd ever had cheese curds. Why didn't somebody tell me about cheese curds? I need to know about cheese curds. So it's official. I now know what cheese curds are. They're amazing. This book is, this is just cute because I wanted to share this with you because it's just cute. At this event, they had this arch full of books. It was the cutest thing. So I took a picture here because y'all, if you have never been around me long enough to know this, I love books. Like, books are a problem. I have now, I added two bookshelves in my bedroom and yeah, those are now out of space too. So when I saw this book arch, I thought, that's cool. I like that. That's enjoyable. So I have pictures and videos of my children. However, I don't know that they want me to show those, so I'm not, I'm not. But what I will say is I have a great team that allows me to take photos and videos of them. This is us at our last strategy meeting thinking about and planning for you all. Isabel, who is just shaking her shoulders, is doing what she does. She is an intern from last year who joined us for a second year. Her gift One of her many gifts is hospitality. And she made sure that we ate good for breakfast and that we had snacks, fresh baked cookies as a snack. Fresh baked cookies are a problem for me. And it's really a problem because, so I've been being obedient. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute. And trying to, you know, do my best to be out in the wild, walking and doing all my things. But you know, and eating is fine. Eating healthy is fine until I travel. Once I travel, my body says, you're on vacation. You're on vacation. That's my body registers I'm on vacation. It's a problem. One last little thing, y'all. I get so many— I probably shouldn't be telling the world this, but I get so many compliments on this ring that I'm wearing. This is my ring that's being worn on my wedding finger. But here's what y'all need to know. I get so many compliments and I need to just say thank you. But this is where the ring came from. Brighton. I was in the airport and my other, it's a whole long story about a Greek moment where, you know, where the lady took some Windex and pulled my wedding ring off of my finger. And then once she pulled it off, I couldn't get it back on. I don't take that ring off. But she got it off with some Windex and I couldn't get it back on. So I've been wearing this beautiful ring and I get compliments on all the time. But y'all, we were at the airport and I was not wearing a ring. I just felt naked. I was like, let me go to Brighton and see if they just have something I can put on my finger. And I bought the ring from Brighton and people are like, oh my gosh, your ring is so beautiful. And then I don't just say thank you. I say, girl, I got this for $75 at Brighton. The first issue is Brighton was my mother's store. So that's the first issue. The second issue is, Chrystal Hurst, quit telling the people all your business. Okay, for those who want to know, this is the creamer that I'm putting in my coffee. It's great. Sweet and Creamy Oatly oat milk creamer. I'm not getting paid for this either. One of these days I'm going to get my sponsorship act together. But basically, coffee is no good without creamer. What's the point of coffee if there's no creamer? Y'all who are out here in these streets drinking black coffee, I think y'all are amazing. Do you hear me? Amazing. All right, saints, let that get a little cooler. Praise the Lord. Let me see if this is doing right. It's not. So let me unplug it and plug it again. I don't know why it wants to register. Okay, not now. Let's see. There we go. Now it's going to register. So let's see, y'all, if I go over here, because y'all know I'm producing myself here. All right. No, no, you're not right. Not now. I need to change that camera. There we go. Back to the right camera. All right. Now, this is the part where we get to have fun with our— now, there we go. We get to have fun with our fun and foolery. My take on all the things that I'm seeing on the webs. Not all the things. But a few, a few things, because we all need a little laughter in our lives. So is it okay if we do that? Uh, this is me, y'all. When I've— I try really hard to plan my menus on a Thursday. I try to plan my menu for the following week on a Thursday. I use Plan to Eat. It is a lifesaver. If you want to know more about Plan to Eat, you can go to chrystalevanshurst.com/plan-to-eat. And check that out because it is not only amazing for planning your recipes, keeping your recipes, making sure that while you're in the grocery store, that if you have something, that all of your recipes are with you, but it's a great way for you to keep your shopping list. And better yet, once you have your shopping list done, you can click the little button and it'll load up your Instacart with everything you need from the store. It is a lifesaver. I love Plan to Eat, and I try to plan to eat on Thursdays so that I can get a grocery order that arrives over the weekend or on Mondays, and I'm ready to go for the week. I try to do that so that my family knows what's eating. I post the menu, what they're going to be eating. I post the menu for the week because I don't like them asking me all the time, what's for, what's for breakfast, what's for dinner? They know it's for breakfast. Nobody's really here for lunch, but I need healthy lunches. If I don't plan for my lunches, I'm in trouble. And then of course we want to know what's for dinner. So I try to plan, but this week, y'all, I didn't plan. I didn't plan. I'm behind. When you are traveling for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then running around on Sunday, it just throws your whole— so the whole beginning of my week is off. So y'all praise the Lord and pray for me. But, uh, I understand this right here. I really do. This is what it looks like to meal prep for the week when you haven't planned appropriately. This is like, get your gift cards together. So if you know you're going to eat out, here's the thing I think you just have to be honest about, okay? We have to be honest and just say we gonna eat out. Like, if I'm not going to cook today I think we just have to be honest. I think you have to just be honest instead of running through as a last minute, oops, I didn't think we were going to eat out today. I think when you plan your menu, I plan a leftover night. And when I know that we're going to eat out, like let's say there's sports or something happening, I write it down because I don't know why we act like we surprised when we eat out. So this is my PSA to you. If you know that you're not ready for the week, uh, go ahead and just decide in advance what you're gonna do. Put some healthy stuff in there and just be honest and think ahead. Like, instead of going out and deciding while you're in the drive-through line or while you're sitting at the table what you're going to eat, why don't you plan it? Plan— everybody put in your order, pick it up, come home and eat it. It's just my encouragement to you. Do what you will though. Do what you will. This is, this is something that I think, let's see here. So as I mentioned, I have been walking with obedience in the month of April. The Lord asked me, I don't exactly know why, well, I kind of know why. Um, to walk 3 times a week, 3, uh, each time an hour, no music, no headphones. The, the obedience wasn't the walking. The obedience was making the time to do it. Um, the walking is no big deal, but the— where's the hour? That was— and no distractions. That was no music, no phone call, no podcast, no audiobook. Just be alone with your mind and your thoughts. I loved it. May is here, so I now have permission to do some other things, but I really enjoyed that. And if you've never done it, I highly recommend. I highly recommend. So let me— You train for months to run a local race only to tie with a mom who's pushing her baby in a stroller. Running with her 6-year-old. That would be me. That would be me, y'all. I would be running my hardest in my running heyday days, and the walkers would pass me. Does anybody else feel me on this? So I'm in my new season of what am I going to do next. I have found a spin class. I'm enjoying this spin class. I have a spin bike in my living room. I have a membership to Peloton, but I only get 3 rides a month because I refuse to pay more than $12.99 right now. Um, I got— I figure I have taught spin classes before, I could teach myself, okay? But I did find a local spin class to break things up. So I'm trying to figure out for the month of May, what is my rhythm? I do think it's time to run again. I do think it's time for me to start working on my C to 5K situation, because I found myself wanting to run while I was doing my walking. And here's how you know it's time for you to graduate, because you just are like, okay, I can do more. You expand your capacity and you're just like, I want to do more. So after walking for a month and really wanting to do more, and the Lord was like, no, just stay consistent with this one thing. It's time for me to do more as I'm working on my May schedule. According to many of you all who are in the season of all the things happening in May, Maycember, because kids have graduations and recitals and plays and finals and all the things. So I'm trying to ease into Maycember slowly because there is a lot happening. And so we'll see, it'll be some combination of walking because I feel like the Lord wants me to maintain some obedience there. Riding my bike once a week or riding somebody's bike once a week and working in C to 5K. I think that's it. I think that's it. But I got to get my schedule and decide when it's going to be. Half the battle, y'all, is deciding where it's going to go. When you're making a change or a habit adjustment in your life, half the battle is making room for it. Okay? Let me tell you, when I ran a marathon back in 2014, I did it one time. I don't know that I'll ever run a marathon again. But when I ran a marathon in 2014, the hardest thing was the training. Once you get past about 8, 9, 10 miles, the training, the long runs on the weekends are just so long. So if you're gone to run 15 miles and you're gone for 2, 3 hours, because I was a slow runner, what are your kids doing while you're doing that? I'll tell you what they're doing. They're with the dad, they're with somebody because they can't be with you. And I'll tell you, I was very happy when my kids were at the finish line with me. But I will tell you, I was also very irritated when I ran the marathon because they showed up and they were going to run the last mile with me. Y'all, they started whining and complaining and I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not momming here. I am not momming here. I have trained for months for this and I cannot stop and walk with y'all because— so I spent the last mile after running 25 miles, mile 26, y'all, I was momming. And at a certain point, I was like, run back to your dad, run back to you, I can't do it. So when I saw this, y'all, online, I completely, totally understood. Completely and totally understood. Look at this mom. The kids are there. Mom, we want to hug you, we want to celebrate you. And she, uh-uh. Y'all not gonna ruin my moment. I'm finishing a sub-1:41 marathon and I love you. And her husband is back there like, how are you gonna skip the kids? I will tell you how she skipped the kids. She skipped the kids because after training for at least 6, 7, 8 months and after running, winning sub-41, 1:41, she was like, I love y'all, I will talk to y'all y'all later. I understand. And I wasn't no sub-1:41 runner, okay? I was just trying to finish. I was just trying to make sure I could cross the line. So I— and I, you know, and the thing is, these comments, y'all, they did not disappoint because people understood the assignment, okay? Let's, let's see here. Let's see what the comments are saying. And somebody said the comments passed the vibe check. Let Mommy finish the run. Team Mom, this is her Her moment. He tried to make her moment their moment. She's with them every day. Let her have her win. I'm Team Mom the whole way. Oh, WTF is wrong with the dad? So the comments did not disappoint. Everybody pretty much understood the assignment. Here's what I want to say. If this is your time to run, you need to tell your husband, your kids, your friends, your family, your sister, your brother. In advance. My run is my run. I love y'all, but unless you can run that last mile with me hard, don't join me before. See, the comments are not disappointing here either. Emily understands they needed to meet her on the other side of the finish line. Harvey said, forget those kids. Mm-hmm. Team Mom, there we go. Dad did not understand the assignment, you understand? So y'all, y'all get it. Tiffany said, I don't think I'm supposed to laugh at this. I think we're supposed to laugh at it. I think we're supposed to acknowledge that it's okay for us to be individuals. Okay, uh, Mother's Day is coming up, and I want to say two things about that before I launch into some other things that I want to tell you about. Um, number one, I recognize that Mother's Day is not good for everyone. We sent out a Mother's Day gift guide last week and we got a couple of people. One said, can I opt out of this? The other one said, you know, can you be sensitive for those of us who for Mother's Day is hard? And so we do understand that we actually don't send a lot of Mother's Day emails. So don't worry, those of you who are on my email list, you're not going to get a ton of those. If you are not on my email list, I want to make sure that you get my emails because usually when I'm launching something, I go to my email list first because that's the right thing to do, right? So if you're not subscribed to my email list, simply go to chrystalevanshurst.com/subscribe. You drop your first name, your email address, click the subscribe button, and you'll get a weekly newsletter from me. Most of the time, it's just once a week. I'd love to see you in that room. But if you wanna get the Mother's Day gift guide, I will make sure we put it in the PS for the email that goes out today if you're looking for ideas for celebrating your mom. But this year, we put some traditional ideas, but we also gave you the idea of gifts of time. And we wanted to make sure that you have the time to spend with your mom, and when you're with her, for that to be intentional. So we've not only given you ideas for spending time with her that don't really cost much money, but also the questions to ask her, conversation starters, if you will. Because one of the worst things that can happen is that you have questions for your mom you didn't ask her while she was here. There are very few questions I have for my mom, actually. There's one particular one that will gnaw me down forever. But for the most part, I spent a lot of time with her. I spent a lot of time talking to her, not at Mother's Day, just because I enjoyed spending time with her. And, and so the ability that I had to have a mother who was present, who let me know her, who answered my questions, who spent time is a gift that keeps on giving and a gift that I hope that I give my own children and grandchildren. But we have to be intentional. So whether it's your mother or your sister, spending time asking questions and making sure that your given relationship with her, um, is, is, is— it goes beyond what's natural. Because when you no longer have them, you'll want beyond what was natural. You'll want what was intentional. So being intentional is important. Um, the other thing is, um, if you are a mom, auntie, a grandmother, um, you can be intentional the other way. Now I know that they should honor you. I know that they should celebrate you. I know that they should ask you the questions, but if you want them to know, then it might be your, your desire, um, to make sure they know. There are some things my mother told me that I now realize she was telling me because I didn't ask. And, um, I'm glad she made sure that I knew, because when it came time for me to answer the question, I had the answer. Okay, so gift guide will be in the PS today. And then, um, I would love to make sure that you're on our email list because we're always sending good and great things. Yes. Okay, moving on. I have some announcements before I get into today's teaching. Let's see. There is a graphic that I need, I think, for meal planning. That's not— Oh, wait. No, here it is. Never mind. I found it. I see it. I see it. Woo! Ooh, that was terrible. What's happening? Did you send me the May top 3? Okay, was it in there? It's May, it's time for us to talk about top 3s, y'all. If you don't know, this is the time, First Mondays, where we give our goals. Now I'm gonna just say, first of all, I did not change my top 3 from last month. Have you ever had a month that was horrendous, just from top to bottom? Um, I have asked many times in the last month or two, last 6 to 8 weeks, for the Inner Circle girls to pray for me. I know some of y'all pray for me, and listen, I'm appreciative. Um, but y'all, sometimes, oh my goodness, the fiery darts. It— and, and this is what fiery darts are. Fiery darts are when not one of them is hard and it's on fire. So it doesn't just sting when it hits, it burns too. But then before you have a chance to recover from the first one, a second one hits. And then before you have a chance to even compute the first two, a third one hits. So when you get to three things that are filling up your life's cup in a way that is not sweet, is not fun, does not taste good— it's bitter, it's harsh, it's brash— and you just are on fire and in pain from the 3 arrows. That's what fiery darts are. It's like, are they all coming right now? And that has been my last few weeks. It has been tremendous is a word that I can use. So all I did was rinse and repeat on my goals because some of them I'm needing to continue and some of them I need to do because I didn't get to it in, in April. So still writing, my goal is June the 30th. To turn a book in. That is my goal. 6 to 8. I'm on a cycle of 6 to 8 now. I, I was, I was inching on my 6, and then I went out of town. So I might have to do a juice cleanse to bring back what the devil stole. I might have to do some fasting days. I just need to flush things out, literally and figuratively. Okay, I'll leave that there. So my goals are, um, my soul, creativity, writing, My health, trying to drop some weight, and then finances, reviewing and resetting business budgets. So, um, those are my 3. If you've got your top 3 already, um, that's amazing. I know that the Inner Circle girls know and understand this, but I want to encourage you, even if you're not an Inner Circle girl, if you, um, if you don't even have our planner the Full Circle Planner, you can still create a focal point for yourself by deciding what are the 3 things that you're going to focus on. If you're an Inner Circle girl, it's time. It's time for you to go on in the room inside of our website and go ahead and put your top 3 in here. We've got 17 girls that already have done it. So I'm glad, I love it seeing it here. And I'd love for you to come back and then state You know, did you have a win for the previous month? Because that's important. Stating your wins is just important. So Lois Sanders says, I want to continue to declutter and pack the house up, working on a business plan 3 times a week for 30 minutes. I love the specificity there. And stretching every day. Very good, very good. That's important. Stretching every day is important. Yeah, get back to here. There we go. So go ahead and drop your top 3 in the chat. You don't have to be in the Inner Circle to do that. This is my invitation to you to focus, because focusing is what helps you to get things done. While you are dropping your top 3s in a chat, I want to give you some announcements, and then we're going to jump into our teaching for today, because I'm excited about our teaching for today, and it's going to touch on, um, forgiveness When You Can't Forget What Happened. And I want to attach that to a small discussion about mother wounds, which I know that many of us have or have given. Let's just be honest about that. So that's going to be our teaching for this moment— morning. But give me a few minutes to talk to you about a few things that I'm excited about. Um, number one, number one, this live will actually stay up and it'll stay live for viewing this week since I haven't put up a podcast in a while. Normally these lives are up and then I pull them down because we like to edit out the fun and the foolery in case I said something I didn't mean to say. Because sometimes, y'all, that's what happens. I say things that I shouldn't say out loud. Mm-hmm. Um, but this one's going to stay up. Um, so what we'll do is make sure that we add chapters, uh, to it so that way when people come in, if they don't want to do all the fun and the foolery, um, they can just jump straight to the teaching. So that's good. You'll be able to watch this, watch it again, share it, and know that it's going to stay here. Money is funny, y'all. Money is funny. And so I'm coming out into the world with a short single class course in one way that I think you can be the most helped with your finances. I talked earlier about Plan to Eat and planning your meals. When my husband and I recently looked at our finances and realized that there were certain bills that were higher than what they need to be, our electricity bill is higher. So we have been, while Texas is 70 degrees, the air and the heat is off. The unit is just off. It's just off. But the biggest way most of us can quickly, most quickly affect our budgets, our money, and how we're spending is food. So while I do have a finance course available that we've been working on, a financial challenge course, before we get to all the things, investments and your savings and budgeting and all that, I just wanted to tackle one area that I think it'd be helpful to you. So there is a— oh, it looks like I don't have the banner. Let me get the banner from Emily, see if I can share that. There is a course, maybe it's up on the screen, maybe that's where it is, that I will be teaching. It's Saturday, May the 17th, right? Is that the right day? Right, Saturday? Yeah, I got that right. Saturday, May the 17th. So in 2 weeks, I'm going to teach a meal planning course. And what happens is it's not expensive. It's $19, okay? Because the whole point is to help you to spend less money. So it is a meal planning workshop and you go and you sign up. It'll be live. You'll have the opportunity to ask me questions as well. Let me share my screen so you can see what I'm talking about. Oops, where'd it go? All the things. Here we go. There we go. There we go. So you can sign up by going to chrystalhurtz.com/mealplanning. The goal is to walk you through how to plan your food, your— what you're going to eat, how you're going to shop in an economical way, how you can spend less money in the one place that's starting as soon as you take this course that you can effectively change your spending.. And there are small things without you even, you know, eating like a pauper, uh, for you to do that will completely change the money that's going out the door. And most of us spend too much money eating out, um, because we don't have a plan and we don't have food ready at home. So I wanna, uh, help you to corral the spending budget, um, corral your budget overall by fixing food because you can't immediately move outta your apartment. Without breaking a lease. You can't immediately sell your home. And you know, you need your utilities, but food, you get to make that decision every day. So this does not matter if you are single or if you are married, if you have kids or not. If you want to jump into quick waters of Chrystal Hurst, help me spend less money, May 17th on a Saturday. And it's $19. Okay. So I'd love for you to join me there. Again, chrystalhurst.com/mealplanning, and we can see you in the room. Yes, a replay will be available. But the reason why I'm doing it live is because not only do I like teaching things live, but I love making sure that when you leave, you get your question answered. So if you're in the room live, of course you'll have the opportunity to get your question answered. So that's number one. Um, you want to register, $19. It'll take you to a site called Crowdcast. Um, that's where we hold live courses. It'll be a 7-day replay. All right, next up, if you haven't already registered for my live event, uh, in October, I want to encourage you to do that. The Sister Circle, mm-mm, not that. The Sister Circle Live event in October. We'll be talking about making your mark. Every week this year and every month this year, we are having conversations with the goal of saying, okay, but this is how you make your mark. This is how when you are long gone with the people who you care about and the causes that you care about, that your life can count. What you have to do, what you have to stop doing. That's our theme for the year. But when we get together for that event, the topic of how you make your mark in this world is having an abundance mindset and getting your money in order. So while I'm going to be talking about philosophy, about thinking right, about the funds that you make and spend, the idea of contentment and satisfaction and being whole regardless of what's happening with your finances. We'll have some breakouts that specifically are talking about finances because one of the ways you make your mark in this world is being able to have an impact. And you can't have an impact if you are, if you're always struggling in that area unnecessarily. Okay? So we're going to have that conversation. I'd love for you to be in the room. We quadrupled, quintupled our space this year because we had a long runway. It is possible that we'll sell out in the room, but you've got, some time to register for the room. I want you to make sure you have your spot. If you're an Inner Circle member, you're automatically my VIP. What we probably will run out of room for is the summit experience where you come early on Friday and you spend time with me preparing for your goal setting for 2024, 2026. Lord Jesus, I knew it was an even number. So if you have never been to a summit, this would be the year to do it for sure. The planners are beautiful. We're working on getting those launched so they can get here early enough for you to have them for this event. But if you can't or don't want to join me for the summit, Planning Your 2026 Year, for sure join me for the event itself. It's fun. It's great. We have amazing worship and, and it's an opportunity for you to get ready, get set, go, and get your mind right before the holidays and the new year comes. Okay, last but not least, um, there is a cruise coming. And I know that for some of us you're like, Chrystal, didn't you just talk to me about getting my meals together? Yes, I did, because I know that that is where some of us are, for real. I understand, I really do. But I also understand that some of y'all have been hearing me talk about a cruise for 2 years and you're like, Chrystal, I've been saving my money, so don't mess around and change things now. So we are leaving April 26th through May 3rd. We are hitting, uh, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and we're hitting a couple of other, uh, Caribbean spots. Um, the thing is, while there is time for you to register for the cruise, there, there may not be time for you to get the room you want. So that's the thing. And so I did say a couple of things in our inner circle last week, and I'll say them again today. For the month of May, because we know some of y'all would consider this as a great Mother's Day gift for somebody to give you, for you to give someone else you love. For the month of May, when you book, the cruise line has been very kind and you get $100 ship credit. So you can spend that in the spa, you can spend that on a drink package. You can spend that on whatever you want. In addition to that, the first few people who register will have dinner with me. So if you're thinking about it, go on and place your deposit because you don't have to pay it all up front. And you have until December 1st or January 1st to finish if you do payments. So you've got time. But I would love to take you with me. There's also an amazing opportunity in the Dominican Republic for those of y'all who want to do excursions. One of the excursions that we have planned is actually basically a mini missions trip. I have a friend who's been a missionary in the Dominican Republic for, gosh, maybe 20 years. And I called her and I said, "Hey, I'm going to come see you while I'm there, but I'm just curious, like, is there anything we can help you with?" And she said, "Oh yeah, we do this all the time. People come in on boats, we pick them up, we bring them to our place of ministry. Um, they do a lot of things, but one of the things is they minister to trafficked girls. And she said there's always something that we can use help with. So you can choose your excursion, but if you're on the boat and you want to have a mini trip be one of your— mini missions trip be one of your excursion days, then you can join me in visiting my friend Miss Vicki Dominguez in the Dominican Republic for an excursion. So I'm looking forward to it. I expect that this will be a fairly intimate event. I don't think 500 people are going to go. Um, I mean, if it— if that's what happens, then that's fine. But I do think it's going to be a great opportunity for you to take a vacation and also to spend some time with women who love God, hearing from me, worshiping, looking at the water. And if you need to bring your husband to sell the point, well, you can come too. Then bring your husband. We don't mind. We don't mind. You can bring your husband. That is That is allowed. Okay, that is allowed. All right, all right. And I already mentioned the Mother's Day gift guide. All right, that'll be in the email today. All right, moving on, moving on. Look at me trying to be on time. Look at me trying to be on time. Um, note for later: we want the Inner Circle notes to be after this. On public days, Candace, before I forget. All right, let me pray for you just because I know some people have to go and I want to jump into my teaching. And then actually I'm going to yap for just a minute and look at the comments and put on some makeup so that— oh no, I'm not putting on makeup today. I'm not doing that today. I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it. And this is staying up, so maybe, maybe I'll just dust my face and put something on my lips. We'll keep it simple. All right, let me pray for you. It's May. Woo, Jesus. All right, God, you got a bunch of girls in the room this morning who are wanting to get their life right. We want to get our life right. And what I mean by that is we want to live our life well. We want to feel good about how we've lived, and, um, we don't want to waste time. Most of us would like to be pleased with how, uh, you are pleased with how we choose to live. We don't want to regret, um, not doing the things that we knew we should do. We don't want to regret doing things that we should have never done. And yet the enemy is a thief who is constantly seeking to distract us constantly seeking to, um, depress us so that we lose sight of the end goal. So right now, I just want to thank you for a moment this morning at the beginning of May where we can just pause and remember what's important. I thank you that we're here. I thank you that it's the 5th month on the 5th day in the 25th year of the 2000s. And you've given us time to focus just a little bit. I thank you for allowing us to be here. I thank you for allowing us to try again. I thank you for allowing us to hear from you. I thank you for allowing us to be corrected by you. I thank you for another opportunity to reset. And it's May, where we move from all of our spring activities and start turning towards the summer. As we turn, Lord, help us to not forget that we need to turn our eyes towards you in this season. What is on your agenda for us this season? What is on your menu for us this season? What is on— what is in your plans for us? Help us to be obedient so we can hear, to put our phones down, to be still, to turn the TV off, to go for the walk, to get on our knees to pray so we can hear. We want to hear from you. And anything that's in us that's not like you, would you burn it away? And sometimes I know that that's what the fiery darts are about. Us having no other opportunity but to turn to you because we don't have another solution other than you. So give us this day, this month, our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive those who've trespassed against us. Help us to get out of the rope, the snares, the knots of unforgiveness of ourselves, of other people, so that we can walk free. Thank you for freedom. Thank you for freedom. You've already given us— given it to us. All we have to do is walk in it. Thank you for freedom. Help us to enjoy our freedom as we enjoy you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, all right, all right, y'all, let's talk a little bit about Forgiveness. Let me ask you some questions to prime the pump. What is one hurt— this is where I have to stack my papers— what is one hurt that you wish you could release but you find yourself playing over and over and over again? What is one hurt you wish you could release but you find yourself replaying over and over and over again? Okay, what is one hurt that you wish you could release? So while y'all are answering that question, I did see somebody say, how can we find out more about the cruise? It's thesisterscircle.com/cruise. Oh, and one thing that's super important that I forgot to tell you about. Announcement, announcement, announcement. Here we go. There are 800 of you in the room right now, I think 800, 900 people. You are here because the inner circle, the inner circle pays the bills. Not only that, but the inner circle is an opportunity to hear from me regularly. As you know, I have not released a podcast in a while, but that does not mean that I have not been regularly on Mondays, uh, creating content and teaching, coaching in the Inner Circle. So if you want to support the work that I do and/or make sure you hear from me, even if I can't seem to get a podcast edited and up live, that is the way to do that. Join the Inner Circle, and you can do that 4 ways. There are 3 ways where you get all the things and just different levels of all the things. But you can also just join me on Monday mornings and join the party for the club. If you want to grow, if you want to read the books, if you want all the content, want access to the library, you want to start at the community level. And you can find out more about the Inner Circle by going to thesistercircle.com/innercircle. Let me go back to your comments and see what the answer is. Okay, I'm so sorry. The recent death of my firstborn daughter. I'm so sorry. My job. The unnecessary death of my mother by medical negligence. The split of my daughter's ex-husband and then how his— that split uh, caused division in my family. Uh, my niece— I feel it, I feel all the what you saying— and her disrespectful ways. The pain of divorce, it's forced me into my current season of singleness. An argument with a sibling in front of my mother. The rebellious attitude of my daughter and all that that entails. Being a teen mom. Oh, spyware being placed in my home by people I trusted, loved, respected, and honored. Being violated in this way. I forgive, but the damage was deep. Church hurts. We talked about church hurt earlier this, uh, this spring in the inner circle, because that's a big one. Feeling abandoned by family emotionally and physically after my mom died when I was a child. Ooh, consistent rejection from a sibling and now disconnection. The pain runs deep, y'all. Childhood trauma. It's not about forgiveness for me, praise God. He has dealt with me, but it's letting go of the behaviors that I've walked in since then. Oh yeah. Ooh, forgiving myself. Yolanda, one of our faves, says that if I can go back in the past and redo a decision that would have had me choose myself, because then I would have been able to finish medical school. Yep, I lost my mom the same way. It was unnecessary. Childhood trauma, church hurt. Um, mm-hmm. Yeah. Not being able to speak to my mom before she passed away last year. So y'all, I just want to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think one of the biggest feats of getting through life in general is, um, being able to navigate the hurt in a way that it affects you, but it doesn't steal from you. Because it's gonna affect you. And the hope is that it makes you kinder, it makes you wiser, it makes you, um, more tender and more aware, that it increases the level of dependence that you have on God, that it increases the level at which you know him and understand things. The hope is that it would make you, you know, better. But sometimes before things get better, they get worse. And we get stuck in the— we get stuck. So I just want to give space here for you to say, yeah, if I could release this, if I could release this, this would probably make my life better. My dad dying from COVID um, My son making bad choices. Losing my voice as a child and as an adult trying to reclaim it. Another death of my dad from COVID Narcissistic manipulation by a cousin. My younger son wishing death on me. Woo, this is hard. Um, and I think it's important that we have space to say these things out loud. So for those of y'all who are putting your pain in the chat this morning with people that you don't even know, I want to applaud you for doing that because you cannot address what you won't admit. You just can't. You can't. So I want to applaud you for doing that because I know, I know from my own stuff, y'all, it's more than a notion. It's more than a notion. And I'm seeing that some of y'all are resonating with what other people are saying. Teresa said, my husband leaving our home affecting my son and myself, needing discernment. Because how it's affecting you, Renee said, trust, trust. Now I'm struggling with trust. Yeah. Kelly said, it's taken me years and I quit therapy many times because I just couldn't say it out loud. So here's what I want to say. I'm, I'm, I don't want to promote that, you know, what I talk about this morning is gonna heal all your diseases. It's not. My hope though is that it moves you further down the path because, um, the gift that you can give yourself in this world is freedom. It's freedom. Freedom so that you can live your life. And forgiveness, when you haven't forgiven yourself or other people, all it does is keep you in chains. That's all it does. That's all it does. And your goal, even with the pain Even with the unresolved issue, even with the person who died that is not coming back, even with the person who left, that, that, that pain for yourself or your children will always be there, even for your innocence that was stolen. Sometimes we can't change what happened, but we can change how we live despite what happened. Okay, and I just want to say I'm sorry. For all the things that you're putting in the chat this morning and all the things that are hard to say out loud. And whether you say them out loud or you write them in a journal, on a piece of paper, or you put it on a sticky note and then burn the note, if you don't say it out loud and admit, if you don't see the chains— this is a chapter in the book I'm working on— you can't even begin to free yourself This is the premise, and then I'm going to shut up and actually do my official talk because this is all the pre-stuff. God's goal for you is freedom. He's already given you the key, but you won't use the key if you don't even see your chains. So many of us, we're going to church, the jail cell is wide open, The key is sitting right there, and we are in chains looking out and saying, I want to be free. I don't want to feel this. I don't want to experience this. But we don't even see the chains. We're sitting here and we're going, I wish I was living my life free. I don't know why I can't live without the weight. I don't know why I'm not living without being triggered. And the key is laying right there. But because we don't see or believe that we are in chains, we won't use the key. You— the first step is seeing the chain. That's the first step. Okay, so for those of y'all who are sharing all the things, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, all right, I ended up putting most everything on anyway. So give me 5 seconds to just do a little something. Just a little. So I don't look like a bald mole rat. Okay. It's just a little. Just a little. Makes a little bit of a difference. For those of y'all who care to know, they're real. Okay, I'm still on a bronzer kick. I have too many. Y'all pray for me. Okay, here we go. Just breathe, just breathe, just breathe. She said, what book are you reading? No, it's a book I'm writing that's been on Amazon for 5 years and I just need to write it, finish it. Okay. All right, take a deep breath. Just take a deep breath. Okay, okay. All right, so we've spent some time already this morning because, uh, I believe in recording these teachings live so I can look at people's responses and see how they are needing, um, or aching for this particular talk. And here's the question that I am asking this morning. I am asking this question What is one hurt you wish you could release but you find yourself replaying over and over again? I want you to consider that question because most of us have at least one thing that triggers us easily, that sends us, um, running, that causes our heart to race, that makes us feel some kind of way. It'll make us angry or sad or scared. It'll put us in a reactionary state because It is deep. And for most of us, there's at least one thing we can remember, even if we're over it, we can remember because the stab went so deeply to the core of who we are. I want to talk to you today about forgiveness in a very practical way, because it's, it's really important to me that this year, as I'm talking in my Inner Circle membership about what it looks like to to make your mark in this world. You can't make your mark if you're not able to move. And you cannot move the way you're supposed to move if you're in chains. And if you are dealing with any kind of hurt that you have not forgiven, whether you have hurt yourself or someone else has hurt you, you are in chains. You may not see it, you may not believe it, but you should actually. Um, receive what I'm saying to you today, because unforgiveness will keep you from moving forward. It's just the way it is. You are not free to move. You are not free to be yourself. You are not free to take risk. You are not free to trust. You're not free to have full-blown joy when you are not free from forgiveness. And again, it doesn't matter if it's for— from what someone else has done to you, or what you've done to yourself. So I want to talk to you about forgiveness today because it's time. It's time for you to make your mark. It's time for you to do what you're supposed to do with your time and your energy, your gifts, your talents, your abilities. Um, we are actually right now in my inner circle going through, um, this book, 100 Days to Discovering the Gift of You. Um, it is a book that is basically a devotional. And it has plenty of time, plenty of room for you to read something short that's finishable and write something so that your thoughts and your words go in the same place. But let me tell you what will keep you from operating in your giftedness. Um, chains. You can discover the gift all day long, but if you're not free to move it forward, you'll have the knowledge without the freedom to actually walk it out. How many times has that been true for you? It's not that you don't know that you should go to the gym. It's not that you are not aware that you should eat less, drink water, get your greens in. It's, it's not that you have not been educated as to the fact that sugar is not good for you. They're calling, uh, Alzheimer's now type 3 diabetes when it's gone to your brain. The negative effects— we hear all this, y'all. If you're on social media, you watch the news, you hear all this. Knowledge is not the problem. Freedom is. Freedom and discipline to do what it takes to get free. I want you to be free because I want you to live. I want you to live a life that you feel good about. I want you to live a life that allows you to make your unique gifted mark on the world, on your family, on your neighborhood, your community, in your church, um, through your talents in your career. I want you to do that, but you've got to be a free woman in order to do that. So I wanted to talk about What happens when there's something that you can't fully forgive because you can't fully forget it? Like, it's in your bones, it's in your— it's in your DNA. You, you— it walks with you. It's, it's in there. Okay, I want to walk you through this very practically because it's important. So the first thing is, many people, even though they hear forgiveness does not mean forgetting, it's because they can't forget because it keeps coming up that they can't forgive. So let's separate this. Just because you forgive doesn't mean you forget, and it doesn't mean that you excuse it. It doesn't mean that someone is left off the hook. It doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge yourself, your own culpability in the role that you've played with something going awry in your life. But you can separate your release of the thing, the action, the person, from your release of, um, the, the infarction. I can say I've released that when I haven't forgotten that. I may not ever be in relationship with this person again. I may not ever trust myself in this situation again. I may not ever put myself in that position again. I may not. Now that I'm older and wiser, I know never to do that again. Let me give you an example. If you can say, I got myself into a ton of debt. I cannot believe I was in that situation. It took me a decade of my life to get out of it. Now I am triggered every time my bank account gets low because I remember what that felt like. Okay, you can separate the release of myself. I've released my— I made a mistake, I made poor choices, but I am free now. And I've— I willingly tell myself over and over again, girl, that's a mistake that you made. You made poor decisions, you didn't have good financial habits, you ended up in over your head. It was painful, but you learned. You failed forward. I am separating that from I may not ever use a credit card again. There is a separation. So you can give yourself love and care and positive messages without touching the thing that burned you the last time. This is true of yourself. This is true of other relationships. You can look at— and maybe not today if you just got divorced last week— but you can look at your ex-husband and say, There were good memories. There are ways I learned. There was love that we shared. Something happened and you cheated on me, or you left me, or you said you no longer wanted to be with me. That was extremely painful, but you left and I have to work through it. It doesn't happen instantaneously. I have to work through it, but I release you of what you owe me for hurting me. I, I take from that relationship. Everything I learned, everything I grew, the sweet memories that I will forever remember. But I now know who you are, and I know how far to keep you at distance and a safe length, especially if we share kids or share whatever. Because I can hold on to what was good, release what was bad, and release you because you have your own stuff to work through. I've worked through my stuff. I haven't forgotten, but I have released you. Now here's the thing, that release, that process of release does take time. Forgiveness is ongoing. The Bible talks about releasing. Uh, one of the disciples said, how many times should I forgive them? He— Jesus answered, 70 times 7. That's called infinity. You keep releasing it until it's gone. So that's why there is work to do. That's why it takes time. Just like anything that's an open wound, it has to heal. But your forgiveness of knowing what cropped up So let's just say it's Mother's Day and Mother's Day is coming and you've got kids and you're divorced and this man doesn't honor you as the mother to his children and that's painful. So here comes another time where you have to remember the hurt. I release you of ever having to honor me again. I choose to find solace in the fact that one day my children will rise up and call me blessed. And this Mother's Day may be painful for me, for me because No one's going to honor me or bring me flowers the way that I would have hoped, but I am making the sacrifice to be a good mom to my kid, and I release you from having to do anything. You've got to talk yourself through that. It doesn't mean that you don't feel it. It means you're practicing release. When you have chains, which is what lack of forgiveness is, or unforgiveness is in your life, think about it. If I've got the key, if the key is release, like I release you from what you owe me. You trying to take that key and use it yourself, you might have to try a few times to— you're chained, you may have to try a few times to fit that key in and to turn it. Have you ever seen somebody try to unlock themselves from being in handcuffs? It's not easy. That doesn't mean it's not possible. So you may have to go through this practice of release a few times, but all it is is saying, I haven't forgotten You've told me who you are. You know who you are. But I keep giving myself the message of release. It doesn't say— forgiveness doesn't say what you did was okay. It just says I refuse to let what you did keep hurting me. You have to replace the hurt messaging with healed messaging. You have to replace the hurt messaging with healed messaging. Let me give you an example. Um, I dated the same guy for a long time. And, um, now this is what I can say. I can say this before I met and married my husband. I can say the gift of that man, who I have no need to speak ill of, is a book called She's Still There. I would never have learned those lessons in my life. I would never have been able to understand the pain of so many women who have gotten pregnant as teenagers or, or had to raise a child by themselves. I would not understand what it is to find yourself in the middle of life's chaos and have a message of hope for other people if he hadn't have rejected me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have that. I have been able to over and over again release him. I have no ill feelings towards him whatsoever now. I've been able to release him from the pain— I mean, the physical pain— being in the bed crying until my heart and my toes hurt, physical pain of being rejected. Because I've been able to say over and over again, I haven't forgotten. Because when people tell you who they are, you have to believe them. However, I've released him. But that came by saying over and over again, here's what I learned, here's how I grew, because I'm trying to use the key. I'm trying to get free. I'm trying to get free. Romans 12:19 says, don't take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. I have had the benefit and the blessing of in a previous season of my life having that person apologize to me. It's great, but I didn't need it when he gave it. The beautiful thing about release is if they never give it to you, you're still good. Okay, so the first thing is You got to realize that forgiveness is not about getting their approval or their agreement. It's about you deciding to walk free. Um, this is why it's so important, um, for you to, uh, in this season of Mother's Day, because Mother's Day is coming, forgive your kids and your husband if they don't appreciate you. Just release them now in advance. You've got to forgive your mother when Mother's Day comes from never being the mother that you needed her to be. You've got to give the women in your life grace because they're dealing with their own trauma, and maybe their lack of forgiveness for people who hurt them is why they weren't free to love you. It doesn't mean that you approve of her lack of attachment or parenting or love for you. It just means you have no idea what she was going through when she was raising you. So you release her whether she asked forgiveness or not. You cannot heal what you can't feel. Acknowledgement is important. Suppressing pain does not mean it goes away. It's just you buried it alive. And suppressed pain buried alive will call for resurrection. When you don't deal with it, when you don't feel it, when you don't get therapy for it, when you don't write it down, when you don't say it out loud, when you don't tell a friend, when you don't admit This is what I did with that pain. It comes back to haunt you. And I am so celebrating that so many women, while I'm recording this live, who have put in the chat what is hurting them. For some of them, I know that this is the first time they've said it out loud. And you keep saying it out loud. Some things we can't hide. I couldn't hide that I was a pregnant teenager, right? It just is out there. So it is what it is. But there are other things that I have hidden, um, and that's a part of what I'm writing about in the book I'm writing now. That's probably why it's taken me so long to write it, because there are some things I don't want to say out loud. But do you know what I want more than I want privacy? Freedom. True forgiveness involves naming the hurt. Sometimes it doesn't mean naming it in a whole book, but it does mean naming it so that God can heal it, so that you can let him into the raw places. He's like, listen, I've got keys for every hurt in your life, but until you see it and say it, until you will acknowledge it, I can't do anything for it. You embrace lament not because you're weak, not because you're, you're not able to move past it, but because numbness isn't greatness. Um, numbness is just pain that will recur at the most inopportune, inconvenient times, it'll make itself numb again. In fact, your willingness to say, here is my raw place, that in itself is an offering to God. I trust that you will heal what I share. Think about a kid who comes to you and, you know, they scraped their knee or they've busted up their elbow and they're handing you their elbow, but they're like, "No, no, no, it hurts, it hurts." It's like they don't want to give it to you because they don't want you to hurt them any further. How many times have I had to coax a young child to say, "Let me, let me see it, let me see it." And then I'm like, "Okay, this is going to sting for just a second because I've got a," you know, or it's hydrogen peroxide, it's going to tingle. I am coaxing them to give me their pain so that I can clean it, so that I can cover it, so that it can heal. And they're resistant because they're so afraid it will hurt more. No, I love you and I need you to give it to me so that we can do what's required for it to heal. Your release involves you trusting God enough to reveal what's painful. I know you can't forget it because I know it still hurts and I know every time it comes up, it hurts worse. But I don't want you to just cover it up for it to get infected. I want you to heal it. So that means saying it out loud. And every time you say it out loud, every time you bring it to God, you bring it to a friend, you say it out loud in today's chat, what you're doing is giving yourself another opportunity to release it. When you feel it, that's when you release it. So actually, forgetting is not a part of the forgiveness process. Forgetting is stuffing. It's because you remember it that you have the opportunity to forgive, to heal, to release. When you remember it, that's the trigger that puts you into release mode. Okay, so let me— Lisa Turkhurst says you have to feel it to heal it. Um, and that is so true. I had a, a tumor in my toe, 2017, 2018. Um, to this day, I actually have pieces of this benign tumor that are still with me. The tumor in the toe is out. Um, and then later on, we discovered that there are some other things there. Um, and I went as long as I could without dealing with that. I finally went to a podiatrist. I didn't know it was a tumor at the time. I went to a podiatrist because I thought it was an ingrown toenail. And he finally said, "No, I think you've got a sore underneath your toenail that just won't heal." So he told me he wanted to take my toenail off. Y'all, taking the toenail off didn't hurt because I was all stabbed up and numbed up. But when the numbness wore off and that thing went to town, I was like, oh my gosh. And I called him because he told me about what level of pain I should experience, and then it was way worse than that. So I kept calling him. I was like, something's not right, something's not right. I You told me how much pain I'm supposed to be feeling. It's way more than that. I was like, and I've given birth to 4 children. I am not a wuss. I like— pain is not a problem for me. I said, this hurts. That's because when he took the toenail off, the little sore that was in my toenail bed, it basically was a slightly open wound. It was the tumor coming to the surface. And once he took the toenail off, that was all exposed to air. That's how I discovered it. How I discovered that I was infected was that we took the toenail off. How you will discover that you are infected is because you actually remember it. You deal with it. That is your trigger to go, "Oh, I need deeper work. Oh, oh, I need— it's not done. I thought I was healed of this." But then when something happens and the pain reverberates, that remembrance is actually a gift. That moves me closer to release. But what does release look like? Surgery. It looks like surgery. It looks like you may have to go back and deal with the thing that you never dealt with 10 years ago. It looks like you may need community. Your small group, you keep it safe. You study the Bible. That's amazing. But maybe that community that you have, maybe those friends that you actually say are for you, maybe that therapist that you just keep talking about what happened at work last week, Maybe you need surgery. I realized that when this happened and it caused me pain, when Mother's Day came and I was still crying on the altar because my mother was not a mother to me, when, when, when my— when Mother's Day came and went and these children, after all I sacrificed, still didn't say thank you, when Mother's Day came and my husband didn't even— he just said happy Mother's Day and didn't actually take the time to honor me, when, when the pain comes up and it's another holiday where my husband doesn't show up, my ex-husband doesn't show up for these kids, when it's another trip to the doctor and it's still, my numbers quite aren't right, when these things keep resurfacing, that is your opportunity to practice release. And what does release look like? Unclogging a pipe. Nobody wants to unclog a toilet, y'all. It's nasty, okay? Nobody wants to do that. But if you don't unclog it, it gets nastier. So what do we do? We go to the store, we get Drano, or you're like me and you Google, there's got to be a better way to do this. I boil hot water, put some baking soda in there, and put the hot water in there, and it has a chemical reaction. All the things, all the things that we do to unclog a pipe. We get a plunger, we do the nasty job because we know things are supposed to flow. Release sometimes is a nasty job, but you do it. Because you want things to flow in your life. You don't want the pipe to stay clogged either, because not only does the toilet stay nasty, but then it can cause problems in your house with other pipes. So the dirty work means you have to take the time to journal and to talk. You have to take the risk to talk to people who, who you say love you, who care about you, and, and you have to trust them with that secret. Listen, I gotta take the label off. I've gotta, I've gotta say to my mother, I love you, but I want you to know this hurt me. I don't need you to do anything with that. I just need to tell you this hurt. It still causes me pain. I know you love me, and I want you to know I don't need anything from you, but I forgive you of that. It means you have to go maybe write a letter to the person who's no longer here. You have to tell that nurse or that doctor who practiced medical negligence, and your parents are no longer here. Yes, for accountability, yes, but also you don't want to walk with that weight. So what do you need to do to rip the Band-Aid off, to take the toenail off? What do you need to do to bring that burning sensation, that bleeding wound, the thing that's not healed, so that you can see it, so that you can release it. Forgiveness heals you. When I have told people in my life that I have forgiven them, sometimes when I said it I didn't feel it. When I have tried to look for the silver lining, because there's always silver lining, sometimes I looked and I didn't find it this time, but I found it the next time. When I looked at a situation where I needed to release it and tried to put gratitude in it, sometimes I was struggling to find something to be grateful for, but with time, I found it. I changed the narrative. I changed how I framed it. Forgiveness is a process. And if you can't forget, maybe not forgetting is the gift because it keeps telling you, "I'm chained." And using the key sometimes takes time. The pain that is with you will 10x your compassion. It makes you a better person. The pain that is with you keeps you tender and it keeps you coming back to the cross. Jesus on the cross said, Father, as they were currently— think about that— as they were ridiculing him, they had just put the sword in his side. He was there watching people who wanted him dead and live real time. He said, in the middle of that kind of pain. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's what forgiveness is. In the middle of it, this is what you're saying: I forgive you. I release you. You don't owe me anything. And then you have to write down, what did they owe me? If you don't believe it, and one by one You owed me financial support. I release you. You owed me, uh, you owed me love because that's what you promised me. I release you. You owed me more time because I shouldn't have had to been doing this by myself. I release you. I walked in a jewelry store with my sister, um, and Priscilla was like, we should get some rings that look alike. Yeah, not in my budget. And there was a ring that I thought that I wanted and I left. And I went down the list of all the things. I was like, I can't do this and I can't do that and I can't do this. I can't do that. I went back because at some point in me thinking about it and just lamenting the fact that it wasn't in my budget, I heard my mother's voice say, I know that you would have loved for this person to buy this for you, or this to be a gift to you, or this to be something that was transferred to you. Chrystal Hurst, buy your own diamonds. Buy your own diamonds. I will never forget that as long as I live. She wasn't here. I just heard her voice. Since then, I've been looking around at my life and saying, what have I been asking or expecting for people to give me when I actually just need to buy my own diamonds? Yes, I need to have a plan. Yes, I need to save my money. Yes, I need to figure out how to make room for that. But there are some things in my life that I'm not releasing other people from because I think they owe me or they should have given it to me or it should have been transferred to me when really I may have to make my own plan. I may have to come up with my own criteria, but I can buy my own diamonds. And I'm happy to say that I went back and I did. I bought the ring that I wanted, a little slim something, just to acknowledge that what I was expecting from someone else, I could do without them. When you list out, I'm upset with this person, I'm hurt from this person, this was great pain, this person caused my problem, and you list out your expectations Then one by one, you release it. When you heat— when you feel it to the specificity, then you might be able— because you might be able— not able to release the whole big thing, but when you put down what did that mean, one by one you release them. Buy your own diamonds. Forgiveness is a daily decision. It's not a one-time event. Forgiveness is not a moment. It's a muscle. So I mentioned before we got into this teaching today that I am going to be, I think, working on Couch to 5K again. I've done this many, many times. It's time to run. I've been walking. It's time to run. The other day I was on a walk and I felt like running. And so I ran a little bit. I said, let me see how it's going. I don't need to build back up my stamina, but I'll tell you what it felt like. Familiar and good. It doesn't mean I don't have to work on it, but it felt familiar and good. Let me tell you what forgiveness will feel like. It'll feel familiar because you're coming back to yourself, and it'll feel good because there's nothing like not being weighed down by other people's decisions. Does it mean you don't have to train? No, you got to work at it. You got to build up your endurance. You have to build up your capacity. When you run a marathon and you train for a marathon, you can't just— I mean, you can, but you'll hurt yourself. You've got to build your capacity so that you're in it for the long haul. That's what true forgiveness looks like. It looks like one decision at a time. You build up your endurance so that you're able to run free. So each time the memory resurfaces, you choose to forgive again. And you have to see it like this: increasing your capacity to forgive. It's a lot easier for me now to forgive because I've increased my capacity. I've learned this skill over and over and over again. Um, my sister and I have this conversation about my mother. My mother came to be with me for 3 weeks when I had my oldest daughter. When she dropped me off, when I dropped her off at the bus station to go back home, we both cried. I realized that for 3 weeks she had given up spending time with her other 3 children. I'd seen her working, and this is before remote work was a thing. She had brought her work with her. She was on the phone with her office. I saw her working while she came to take care of me. And when I dropped her off at the bus stop and she started crying and I started crying, it's because I saw her as a human being. So I say all the time, I tell my siblings this all the time, my capacity for seeing my mother as a person and seeing her as a person who's not perfect, it got leveled when we stood eye to eye and I hugged her. She cried, I cried, because I'm like, "Oh, you're a person." She wasn't on a pedestal. She was a person. And after that, I had capacity. Oh, you're a person. It sounds silly, but sometimes it takes us a minute to realize our mothers are people. My mother wasn't perfect. She was close to it, but she wasn't. I'm not perfect. I'm sure if I dig deep enough, I've got some mother wounds. I know my daughter has some mother wounds. I was a single parent trying to make it. Mother wounds are an emotional injury caused by a mother who is carrying her own trauma results usually in an attachment wound. There's something about our mothers that hurts us to the core till the day we die, until you learn to see her as a person who needs your forgiveness. I asked my children for forgiveness, particularly my girl children, when they were teenagers, because I already know that I've screwed you up. All of us are screwing our children up, y'all. I asked for forgiveness then, ask for forgiveness now. We can do our best, but we're not perfect people. But what I did as a teenager, as a teenage mom, was I looked at my mother and because I saw her as a person, then it gave me the capacity to say, she's doing the best she can. Even when she, in my opinion, could have done better, she's doing the best she can. Matthew 18 is the scripture who says, that says 70 times 7. You just gotta keep doling it out. 'Cause most people, even when they do wrong in that moment, if they were gonna cause you pain, Even if they are little incapacity, you just look at them and you say, you know what? They didn't know better. They could have done better in the moment. They did the best that they could, even if it was very little, even if they were wrong. Accountability, yes, but release, yes too. Forgiveness is not a one-time thing. Uh, MLK said it's a constant attitude. It's not, it's not a decision, it's a constant attitude, a constant decision. I've had to forgive my husband over and over and over again. I've had to forgive my parents over and over. I've had to forgive my children over and over again. I've had to forgive co-workers. I've had to forgive ministry people. I see people, they trigger me because I know what they did They don't even know that I know what they did. They don't know that I know what they said. I don't— they, they don't know, or maybe they do, that I'm aware how they stabbed me in the back. And I see them, and every time I've had to take a deep breath and release, because whatever I was expecting from them, I've had to decide either God is going to give me himself or I buy my own diamonds. Thinking of forgiveness is like thinking about peeling an onion. You do it gradually over time. Each layer, as you peel it back, it may bring fresh tears, but eventually you get to the core. So I don't know what you have to release today, but what I can tell you is forgiveness and your decision to live as a person who has the key— release is your key to see where you're chained, where are you triggered, and to do what you can to use it so that you are free. This is the journey you all need to be on. This is the journey I need to be on. This is the journey of your life because freedom is your birthright, but you can't access it if you won't practice release. Even when it can't be righted, even when it can't be fixed, you still can live free. Think about all the people who have been told that they were convicted of a crime that they actually weren't guilty of. They spent years in prison. Are you gonna waste the time once it has been discovered that you weren't the wrong party, but you were in prison a year, 5 years, 10 years, 20, 30 years? You've lost your life. Let's just say you're set free. Are you going to spend your remaining time angry, frustrated of the people who incarcerated you? Or are you going to be grateful that you're free now and live forward? I think if you've had 10 years of your life stolen, 20 years of your life stolen, stolen because of somebody's wrong decision, I would choose no more time wasted. Being angry at you, because whatever time I have left, I choose freedom. I know it may have been bad. I know it may have been painful. I know it screwed your whole life up, but what are you going to do about that today? Today. So find your people, find your space, find your safe place. And deal with the wound, deal with the pain, and release it verbally, written, physically, in prayer, over and over and over again. Why? Because you're the one in chains, and I want you to be free. So I want to pray for you, and then I'm going to jump off. And Inner Circle girls, let's talk some more about it. God, I know that you died so that we might have freedom. Free indeed. That's the kind of freedom that you have for us, and you gave us freedom because we have freedom in you, freedom from sin, but freedom from the impact even of the sin of other people. It's an attitude. It's a— it's about life being abundant. And so, God, every person that's in this room watching this, I want them to be free. I want them to be free. I want us to not just live knowing that we're free, having knowledge that we're free. I want us to live free, free to walk in a room and not be triggered, free to have something hard happen and we can press through. Free to see that person across the room and still be us in a room. Free to explore how we can get better, how we can, how we can be expanded people, how we don't have to be rejected or limited by what someone else's action, how that had put it, put us in a box. Help us to live beyond the box, live outside of the jail, jail cell, live outside of our chains. Because you've already given us a key. Help us to have the discipline to practice release and practice freedom, because when we can't forget it and we're triggered, God, that's hard. It's hard. But help us to see what triggered actually is— a reminder to get the key. There is nothing more powerful than a woman who's free. Help us to be that woman who is living fully in her design. Why? Because, because we want everything you have for us, and we want to make our mark, and we can't make an indelible mark if we've got one hand or two behind our backs. All right, y'all. Inner Circle, I'll see you on the inside. Welcome to May.
