It's Time to Thrive - Day Six
Chrystal Evans Hurst wraps her six-day Thrive series on the final day before her birthday, introducing connection as the last pillar alongside slow down, take inventory, and choose change. She's nearly at 50,000 YouTube subscribers and is promoting her paid Inner Circle membership, a 90-day program with four tiers, with doors closing at midnight.
Chapters
Good morning, good morning, good morning! Why am I so churchy? Listen, I can make anything churchy. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Watch this, I can make anything churchy, Joe. Lord, we praise you, we magnify you, we lift You up. Yeah, we lift you up. Yes, I can make anything a church song. Listen, anything. Mhm. That's how you do it. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his sheep and the— we are his people and the— we are sheep and the people— we are his people and the sheep— you know what it says— of his pasture. And then you keep going. What? What? Oh, you're watching me on YouTube? He's sitting right here. Say hi. Watching me on YouTube on his phone. Let me tell you something about this camera right here that I have. Good morning. If you're just joining me and you're like, what is she doing? Just hold on a minute, I'll explain. But right now I just realized something. Somebody said yesterday, they were like, you have a really great camera. And that's great. I was so in love with my camera, y'all. I'm so in love with my camera. There's just one problem. You have to turn that down because I can hear it. It shows everything, everything. Can you see my mustache? If you couldn't see it before, you can see it now, but it's just well defined. And let me tell you something, also in COVID I already didn't want to shave. I already didn't like shaving. I already didn't want to do it. So now I have to remember that if I do anything, if I get up from the table, if I raise my arms, I need to have made sure that I'm prepared for the seen and the unseen to go into full effect. Y'all, I just realized— I know that different ones of you are watching on different places. However, I just realized that I am 4— let me see, I'm gonna find— I'm gonna give you the exact number. I'm not that far away from 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. So here's what I would love to help me do. I would love for you to help me do, because tomorrow is, um, my birthday. What are you getting me for my birthday? What? Wow, wow. I asked my youngest son, my baby, he's supposed to love his mother. I said, what are you giving me for my birthday? And he said, a subscribe. He's gonna subscribe to my YouTube channel for my birthday. That's what you would want me to do for your birthday, isn't it? Listen, my kids are over my shoulder all the time. Mama, are you monetized? How many people did you have on your live? How many subscribers do you have? Where are they watching from? How are you keeping them engaged? How long was your stuff? Because you know, any child under the age of 14, their life's work is going to be that they're a YouTuber. It's a whole, it's a whole situation. It's a whole situation. Okay. I don't even know. Somebody said happy birthday, my Cancer, my Cancerian sister. I know I'm a Cancer. I don't know what that means though. I don't know what that means about my personality. I mean, like what people assume it means. Okay, we are currently at, we are currently at, let's see if I can even show y'all. Let's see, I'm gonna share my screen, Joel. Oh, that's the wrong screen. Y'all don't need to see my calendar. All right, we are currently at 49,738 subscribers, so that means we need 262 subscribers. So if you're here, it's probably because you subscribed, because you got the notification. But if you're not subscribing yet, Go ahead and do that because you'll add to the number. And then what I want you to do is to share, uh, this video or any one of the videos that you like, that you think someone would like, share that and then say, but be sure you subscribe. Tomorrow's her birthday and she would love to hit 50,000 subscribers on her birthday. I couldn't have planned that any better. Okay. So for those of y'all who just found your way here and you're like, I don't even know who this chick is. What is she talking about? And why does she seem to be high? I'm not high, I'm not on drugs, I'm just a little, got a little levity going on today. My name is Chrystal Evans Hurst. I'm a speaker and an author, a friend, a big sister, an encourager who loves to try out new technology. That's the bottom line. Everything, everything that I've ever done is because I just want to try it. So apparently now I'm a YouTuber. I guess if I'm closing in on 50,000 subscribers, right, I can say I'm a YouTuber. So I'm a YouTuber. I'm a podcaster. I'm a business owner. I am that as well. I'm a mom, a wife. I've got 5 kids. I homeschool. I'm a stepmom. We have a blended family. I was a teen mom. Let's see, I work at my church. I'm in ministry. I speak. In addition to writing books, I write Bible studies. I do a whole lot of stuff, but I'm here because for the last 6 days including today, I have been talking about what it means to thrive. What it means to thrive. That's what I've been doing. And, um, and today is day 6. Now tomorrow, because tomorrow is my birthday, um, I'm going to be doing some foolery and some fun. And, um, I am going to be talking about— I don't even know what. I think it's just going to be foolery. I think I'm going to spend Like at least an hour. We might go for two. Um, just, you know what I want to do? Okay. So Jasmine is probably listening to this. Sharena should be listening to this. Monique should be listening to this. One of the three of y'all, I think today what you all need to do is go get me a multiplicity of desserts. I think we need a Gigi's cupcake. I might need a, um, some cake from the cake bar. Maybe Sharina can make some brownies. You gonna make me some brownies today? It's my birthday tomorrow. Be, come alive. Okay. I may have to go get, I may have to request some people. I need like 4 or 5 desserts. And then tomorrow, yes, AM, then I think I need to sample. We have to get them today so that they're ready for tomorrow. And then I just need a sample, like all of my favorite things. Maybe get me a donut, all kinds of things that are going to jack up my system. But it's my birthday and my sister was asking me last night, what do you want to do for your birthday? And I was like, I don't know. I haven't had a chance to think about it yet. I was like, I don't know. One of my girlfriends called me and said, do you want to drive down to Magnolia, down to Waco? She said, let's go to Magnolia Table. I said, oh, poor friend. Poor friends, you don't know, do you? Magnolia is booked up for the next 6 weeks. You're not getting into Magnolia tomorrow. I think I've been, uh, see, 1, 2, I've at least been 4 times, maybe 5. I think I've been 5 times to Magnolia. It's great. Um, and but really the trip to Magnolia would be more about the drive than it is about the actual table. It's just going to Waco and being— listen, they need to go on and change the name of Waco to Joanna Gainesville. That's what they— I mean, I guess I don't, I don't mean any disrespect to Chip, so maybe it's Chip and Joville. Okay. Something like that. Listen, y'all are coming in strong. I'm looking at my analytics behind the screens and y'all have— we've already gotten that. We've already gained, uh, we've already gained 5 subscribers today. So we got a long way to go to get it to 550 tomorrow. I need y'all to come on strong. Okay. So if you're on Facebook and you don't even follow me on YouTube, it doesn't matter. Just come over and subscribe. Just get on another device or flip over for just a second and subscribe. Y'all help me do it. Come on, help me do it. All right. Magnolia, Chip and Joanna. So I don't know. I have, I have a massage scheduled. But I don't know if that's what I want to do, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's a long story. I had it scheduled for today so that I could do it today and be free. Really, what I want tomorrow is to be free. I don't want to do anything stressful, so I don't want to shop. That sounds great to get new clothes, but that involves shopping, which I don't want to do. If I get a massage, I got to drive to the massage, come back from the massage, then it's going to suck up like 3 hours of the day. I don't know if that's what I want to do. I thought about checking into a hotel, but then all I'm gonna do is sit in the hotel room on YouTube watching YouTube videos. I don't know that that's what I want to do. So I need to think, what do I want to do? Maybe I'll get up in the morning and after we finish the live, I'll go on a bike ride. I don't know. I'm trying to decide what I want to do. What I'm absolutely positively sure of though, 100%, is that I'm gonna eat. That's what I am 100% and 200% sure about. I'm going to eat. That's what's going to happen. So, okay. I'm looking at my phone and I'm seeing that we still have people joining. So if you did not join me at the beginning of this show, one of the reasons why I'm doing this is because we are about to close the doors tomorrow on, um, the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is a membership that I run that people who said, Chrystal, Could you teach this? Chrystal Hurst, could you, could you create this? Chrystal Hurst, can you? People who wanted more, or they said, I love what you're saying, but I haven't ever done that. Then I said, okay, well, I'll create a space where we can do it together. And so in the context of community and accountability, we do things in there. And the next thing that we're doing is running, sorry, a 90-day program. And it's, it's an experience where we're talking about how you can thrive. What does that mean? Because everybody's tired. So that's what I've been talking about for the last few days is what does it mean to thrive, why we need to thrive, why we're struggling to thrive. And then I gave 3 things that you can do to thrive. And today I'm going to wrap it all up for you. Today I'm going to close the door and explain to you, uh, why, uh, what, what the final thing is that you have to have in order to thrive. We talked about slowing down. We talked about, um, we talked about the problem. We talked about the solution. You got to slow down. You got to take inventory of your life. You have to choose to change. And now we're saying there's one more thing that will give you the optimal opportunity to thrive. That one thing is actually why there's an Inner Circle, because people said, I don't have it. And I kept talking about this thing and people kept saying, I don't have it. So I created it online and then we do things together. So if you're interested in finding out more about the Inner Circle, check it out. There are 4 levels. The first one you can't get to right now. We always shut it down when we're doing, when we open the membership. The other 3 you can't get to the rest of the time. So tomorrow the first one will come back online. That's that you can watch me live every Monday morning because I do all the foolery and the fun in the Inner Circle. And then we give you the nice and tidy version on Sunday night. Um, there are some things we don't want to be on record forever on the interwebs, like Pop-Tarts. The Inner Circle, y'all know what I'm doing and what I'm talking about. If you're in the Inner Circle, go on and let me know by putting that yellow circle in the comments. If you're here and you are under 35, go on and let me know by giving me a pound, uh, picture and letting me know. Because I think when you're here and you're under 35, let me tell you what you about to get. If you don't get it from me— I'm so country— what you about to get get— it's get. Um, you are going to get wisdom. If you don't get it from me, there's somebody else in the comments that's going to blow your mind with what they say. And that's why this is so great, because you are not the only person here. It's not just you and me. You get the benefit of having me and also all the other wonderful people that are in the Inner Circle. I love the diversity of our age. I love the diversity of our race and the diversity of our culture. We've got American girls in there, of course, but we got some French girls in there, some African girls in there, some Canadian girls in there. I mean, we're, we're from all over the place and it's awesome. And it's exciting for me to see it grow. Okay. So that said, this is what I'm going to talk about today on today. Um, look at y'all given the multiple circles. Come on, inner circle. Look at y'all knowing how to find that button on your phone. Okay. So there's a couple of things I want to show you. Um, and, and again, what I'm doing is taking what we're going to do the work of in the next 90 days. We're going to figure out, slow down together, take inventory together, choose together, and in the context of community— no, great community with accountability— and then also receiving encouragement from Chrystal Hurst and friends. And we're going to come out on the other side not only knowing what it means to thrive, but doing the work to thrive. And let me tell you something, if you feel like there are intentions that you have with your life that are just not quite panning out, Let me tell you what the problem is. Okay. Let me tell you what the problem is. You know what to do, but you're not doing it. And do you know what the Bible says about that? To him who knows what to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. But it's all right. I don't want to make you feel like you're a bad sinner. I just want you to know that there has to be a connection between what you know and what you do. And for many of us, the missing connection is the thing that I'm going to talk about today. All right. It's the thing I'm going to talk about today. But before I get into that foolery, I have some other foolery to show you. Let me show you why you need what I'm about to talk about. So let me tell you what I'm gonna talk about today. I'm gonna talk about connection. You need connection. You need community. You need a circle. That's why there's an inner circle. That's why I have my Sister Circle. There's a group of us that are on, um, that we know each other from, like, I mean, gosh shucks, 30 years. It's at least 30 years. Like, we're a 30 to 35 group and, um, we know each other well, like so well that there have been spats and sister things and all that, but we know each other well and we show up for each other and we have a little Voxer group and we talk to each other when we feel like it and text groups and foolery Instagram messaging groups and all the things. Um, and people would say to me, Chrystal Hurst, I don't have that. One of the things that we want to do, um, as a part of the content we create in the near future is teach you how to have that. Like that's on the radar. You hear me, interns? That's on the radar to, to put together materials that teach you how to have your own circle, but in lieu of you having your own, or in preparation for you having your own, or as an extension of you having your in real life circle, That's what the Inner Circle is designed to do. It's designed to say, hey, listen, do you need people in your life who are speaking truth to you and then encouraging you to move the needle in your life? Okay. That's what the Inner Circle does. But I want to talk to you about the importance of community and connection and your circle today. And let me just show you why you need this in your life. Number one, this is what happens when you have a circle, because when you start becoming of a certain age, As I am in this season of my life, there are things that start growing out of you. And when you've got a sister in your circle, she can get some tweezers, y'all. I'm not lying. This is the kind of stuff nobody really wants to talk about, but it's true. As I'm knocking on the door in my late 40s of the next decade— I won't— I don't turn 50 tomorrow, but I'm getting close. These are things that we have to deal with in life. Can I just talk about hair for just a second and just say It is what it is. It starts sprouting out all over the place. Places that you had it, you don't wanna shave it, and places that you've never had it, it just starts showing up. It's an atrocity. It's a stinkin' atrocity. There we go. And this is the tool of use that she used last night, or the other night. I don't even know if you can see this because my thing doesn't wanna focus. Oh, I have to do this like a YouTuber would? Is that what I have to do? There you go. Tweezer man. She took this to the tweeze. Listen, I tried then to take the tweezer and get some of this hair off my upper lip. That is not what the Lord says. That is not how these are supposed to be used. I will wax that, but I will pluck this. Can somebody say pluck? I need a church this morning. Alexa, stop. I didn't say anything that sounded like Alexa. Why is she talking to me? Can somebody say pluck? I need a church. There you come. Come on, Willette. Tweezerman Rose says, is life. Come on, Charlene. Pluck. This is the church. Chrystal Hurst said, it's a painful pluck. See the neck, the neck doesn't bother me as much. It doesn't bother me as much. Yes, Alexa is so noisy. Alexa, stop. She's like a child. Yes, yes, yes. Why are y'all coming alive at the pluck? Okay, so this is the foolery I need to get. Come on, Chrystal Hurst, bring it back. This is not an Inner Circle warning, and you're late. Delayed but not denied. So let me talk to you about what I need to talk to you about, but let me show you a couple other pictures. When you decide in your life, okay, when you decide in your life to thrive— and we've been talking about that. If you have not watched the other videos, go back and get caught up, okay? Um, and don't forget, if you're thinking about the Inner Circle, you have until tomorrow night. Now, that said, once you've decided that you want to do what it takes to thrive Okay, and the thing that I'm going to talk about is community connection. It causes you to pay attention to all the other things in your life. You, you, you start doing the work of what in my life am I supposed to be connected to? People. But the people should feed your knowledge of self. They'll feed your knowledge of self. They will teach you what what it feels like to be seen, to be loved, to be on fire, to have joy. And you'll begin to know what this means and you'll start looking for it in other places. Let me show you what are one of the things that brings me a whole bunch of joy. And when I'm in the presence of these people, I do feel like I'm thriving. Yes, I do. Do you see the look on his face? Do you see that? That's my little T. And he was just having the time of his life swinging in that rocker at the same place we were at last week. This brought me joy. My daughter gives me a hard time. I don't care. This is what I love. I told her one of these days I'm going to apply to be one of their associate photographers. I love photography. I love all things geeky and editing. And so I was out there taking pictures Now tell me that my picture is not great. I took that picture with my phone, y'all. That is awesome, is it not? It's awesome. And then I showed my picture to her and I said, "See, you might have gotten your photography skills from me." She didn't like that. Okay, so here's what I want to do. Okay, here's what I want to do. I want to play a snippet of last night's kickoff. Now, even though you can join the Inner Circle today or tomorrow, uh, you missed the kickoff. Now, you're not— you're delayed but not denied. You missed the live kickoff. You can watch the replay. The replay will be there for you in the Inner Circle. And I think we kind of— I think we did that thing last night. Come on, yellow circle girls, is that the truth? Can you let me know over here with the yellow circle, did we knock it out of the park last night or what? I felt a little on fire last night. I feel some of that fire came over to this morning. I'm not exactly sure what's happening, but I just feel like, I feel like, yeah, I think we got all the hairs. I feel like, I feel like I'm tired. Of not staying in the zone of thriving. And I think I'm ready to lay aside every weight. That's what I think it is. You know what I mean? Oh, and I also, um, I'm starting to think about what we gonna do about this fat demon. What are we gonna do about this fat demon, y'all? What are we gonna do about him? So thriving for me involves that. And I think I'm getting a little excited about what's about to happen in my life. And I think that excitement, when you get excited about what you expect to happen in your life, it changes things. Listen, I have an 18-year-old son who is so very excited about going to college. All of a sudden he's smiling all the time. He's just smiling all the time. And I can tell you what's, what's the, what, what the, What the deal is, what the deal is, is something is coming in his life that he's excited about. That's, that's the deal. Something is coming in his life that he's excited about. I did not download this picture ahead of time, but I'm going to see if I can go on and show it to you. Just, I'll just show you my phone so you can see that my child who doesn't normally like smiling is just full of smiles. He's just full of smiles. Let's see, can you see that? Look at that, he's just happy, just happy. Look at that. And that's because he's looking forward to something. When you have expectation in your life, when you're excited about something, God doing something new in your life, when you believe that just because you haven't been thriving you can still thrive. Even if you don't know what that means, you start getting excited. Hey, More Love. She said, I just joined the Inner Circle and I'm excited. I'm tired of surviving. I'm ready to thrive. I love it. I love it. Yes. Okay. Mm-hmm. Sharina, we're going to get the fat demon. Okay, all right, so here's what I want to show you. I'm gonna play a little video for you. It's a little snippet of last night, a little snippet of last night, because I just wanted to share, if that's okay with you. Just wanted to share. Alexa, stop. That you're satisfied with the life that you really felt like. Okay. Imagine what would happen if you actually felt like you were thriving, that you love what you see when you look in the mirror, that you're satisfied with the life that you have. What happens if you love your life? What happens? I'll tell you what happens when you love your life. Here's what happens when you are thriving and in your best place. Let me tell you what happens. You overflow. That's what happens. You overflow. You overflow into the home. You overflow onto the job. You overflow into your neighborhood. You overflow into your church. You bring this crazy sweet awesome wonderful lovely overflow of you, and nobody can do that. Nobody can do that but you. When you are thriving, you bring the best of you into every space, every space that you exist, and it's a beautiful thing to behold. Listen, I want you to begin imagining tonight what it could look like if you were to begin thriving keep thriving over the long haul, or take the level of thriving that you have already experienced to a new level? What would happen? What would happen? Okay, let me tell you about some things. Actually, I'm gonna do the giveaways first. Let me do the giveaways first because we're imagining things. So here we go. So if you weren't there last night, you didn't miss the giveaways. But here's the other thing that you need to know about. We're doing giveaways all day tomorrow in the Inner Circle. I'll do a few, like I think 1 or 2, maybe, maybe 2 or 3 everywhere else, but the majority of them and the good ones are in the Inner Circle too. So don't forget Inner Circle. Make sure you're checking your email tomorrow. Can you— it's my birthday. Okay, so we just did the thing. He heated me up some water. It's dandelion root tea again today. Liver cleanse day number 2. You want to drink some of this dirt tea? Oh, I'm not doing that with you right now. Give me my phone. I'm on a live. Give it to— I told you I'll do that with you in a minute. You're talking to me during a live. All right, so let me talk to you about what I want to talk to you about— connection. So here's the deal. We were talking about John 15:5. That is kind of our theme verse for this Thrive. And the Bible says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you abide in me, you will have much fruit. Last night I went in depth about that, and the point is connection. And yes, you need to be connected to God. You need to be connected to Jesus. You need to have the Spirit's power at work in your life in order to know what it is to have the best fruit. We've all been to the store. We've all been to the grocery store, and we know the difference between lame fruit and great fruit. We know the difference because we will look and we will pick. We want that apple, not that apple. We want that orange, not that orange. We want this banana, not those banana. In fact, I'm very specific about the kind of bananas that I want. I want bananas that are yellow, but that still have a green tip. In other words, they're just about ripe, but they're still firm ripe and they're not quite mushy ripe. If they have too many black dots on it, don't pick it up. If they have too many damages and blemishes on them, don't pick it up. I need them to come almost ripe because that's how I like them. So when I go to the store, I'm very picky about my fruit because fruit can come in different types of assortment. They're all fruit, but they don't all look the same. And this is the thing, when you're thinking about what it means for you to thrive, you need to think about— I'm in the middle of a live. Give me that. Give me that. Can we have this for breakfast? You're asking me about Lego waffles and I'm in the middle of a live. Can I have this for breakfast? Yes. Got nice chips all over my computer. Anyway. All right. Let me get back to preacher mode. So, um, the fruit, the fruit is different. You can produce fruit and it not be the best fruit. You can produce fruit and it not be the preferred fruit. You can produce fruit and it not be the fruit you're really excited about carrying home. How disappointed have I been when I go to the store and the only kind of bananas they have are the spotted ones. I will literally straight up go to another— Hi Jesse, I'm on a live. Can you come say hi? You see how quick he turned around? You can come in. Yeah. So anyway, the point is, y'all get the point. Oh, Joel, you have to unlock the door. You see, this is why I do these at 7 o'clock in the morning. Do you see why? You see why I have to do these at 7 o'clock in the morning? My whole life is awake. So here's the point. One of the things though, when we think about being connected— you're going to say hi? Like lean your face in and say hi. Jesse. Okay. So, so the other thing that you need to be mindful of as it relates to connection is connecting to people. Now, if Jesus Who was the Son of God? Who had the full power of the Spirit? Who got up from the dead? If he came to earth and as a human he said, I'm going to go get some friends, then how much more so do we? He had 12 that rolled with him deep, one that flaked. He had 3 that, uh, came in close. They get— they got to the inner court. Then he had one who said, this is the disciple who I love. Hi, Jesse. I'm trying to stay focused. I'm trying to stay focused. Okay, so my point is, is he gave us an example, and there's a reason why Weight Watchers works. You do it in community. There's a reason why, uh, therapy works. You can have friends and stuff, but then when you have— one of my friends is a counselor. If you've been a part and around for any length of time, listen to my podcast, watch me on YouTube, definitely been in the inner circle, you know who Shandria Riddick is. She is counselor extraordinaire. In fact, because we're friends, sometimes I'll be talking to her and I'll be like, you just went into counselor mode on me. You went into counselor mode on me. But the reality is she loves group counseling. She can counsel people individually. She loves group counseling. She says there's a different dynamic in group counseling because they don't just hear from me. They're not just getting encouragement from me. They're getting encouragement from everybody else. And these are the women who are experiencing what they're experiencing too. So they don't feel alone. They're getting cheered. They're getting, uh, you know, they're getting, they're getting cheered on, they're getting encouraged. And it's not just from the professional. Listen, when you make the decisive decision, when you make the intention reality to put connection and community in your life, it changes the game. It ups the ante. It gives you better shot at raising the percentage, uh, uh, uh, the percentage that you have, the percentage, the probability— that's the word I'm looking for— the probability that you have of reaching your goals. Because some things we were designed to do together. It's not that you can't do it by yourself. It's not that you can't muscle through and do it on your own. But if you're saying, I really want to thrive in life, I can tell you now, I can tell you now, even if you like being by yourself, which I do, which is why I think really that's the culmination of some of the Things I might want to do tomorrow. Oh, you like being by yourself? I knew he was going to say that. You like being by yourself? Oh, okay. I mean, except when it's with you. Oh no, tell the truth. Okay, but if we're telling the truth, you like being by yourself? Absolutely. Okay, so then it's okay for me to like being by myself? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's fine. Okay. Okay, tomorrow is my, my, my baby's birthday. Don't forget, guys. I'm sure she's already told y'all that. I know her. She's not gonna let that go by. I'm going live tomorrow. I'm doing a special live tomorrow on my birthday. On your birthday? And I'm actually giving away gifts and things that we're paying for on my birthday. On your birthday? Yeah. You're giving away stuff on your birthday and you're doing a live on your birthday? Yeah. Something wrong with you. 12. But yeah, but he's at 10 or 10:30. What time is he? 10 or 10:30? Are you going there now? Ah, okay, great. Okay, because I may be going to you with you to that or something. I don't know, we'll see. Okay, life. Life. All right. So what was I saying? There are some things that are only going to happen in community. Oh, that's what I was saying. I actually like being alone. I don't have a problem being alone. Um, and we've been married for 20 years, so there's that. We like doing things together. We also don't mind doing things by ourselves. So, uh, the point is, is even someone like me who does enjoy community, but I don't mind being alone. I actually really do enjoy that when I just want to do what I want to do. Do you ever just want to do what you want to do? That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being an introvert or an extrovert or an ambivert or whatever. But what I'm telling you is that there are things that you're supposed to accomplish in your life. They're not supposed to be accomplished on your own. So one of the reasons why you in this season are enjoying our lives is because even if we are church people, we have been conditioned now to do church online, many of us, and some of us truth be told, don't want to go back to the building. Let me tell you something, you need to go back to the building. You need to find your people, find your ministry, find your, find your small group. Some of you, you need to start a Bible study right now. This summer I have been doing, um, a Bible study. I invite boys over and then, um, I feed them, let them swim, let them play basketball. We have been reading through the book of James, and then I invite a young man or mid, like a 30-something-year-old man. And they go outside and they have man talk. And I don't know what they talk about, but you know what I see happening with my boys and the other boys that are coming? There's something about them being together. They get charged by being together, like gathering with each other and doing something that's just for them. It's amazing to watch that happen. And I'm telling you that you gotta find your people. My cousin Clarice is a marathon runner, and she, because of marathon runs and early morning runs on the weekend, Hi, Jessie. She had the same group of women that she was running with every week. And over time, those group of people, if you did not make it on a Saturday, they called you. Are you okay? Is everything okay? What's going on? Here's the thing. Most of us have circles. Hi, Jessie. Most of us have circles, okay? We have them. We're just not intentional about them. That's the problem. And that's the difference. If you have a group of women and your kids have been in the same class together for the last 10 years, and now from kindergarten, they're in the sophomore year and y'all are still meeting and praying for your kids or showing up and volunteering for the school dance. You know who they are. You know their phone numbers, you know where they live, but you've never prayed for them. Or you've never said, girl, can we read a book together? Can we do a Bible study together? And it can be like spiritual oriented, but it can also just be, you know what, I just figure we know each other and we should be like helping each other move the needle in our lives. What are you trying to achieve in your life and how can we hold you accountable to that? How can we support you? How can we show up for you? Like we've been doing this one thing together, but how can we be intentional with the relationship that we've built? You've worked at the same job for 5 years. Y'all see each other more than you see your spouses. But you're not intentional about it. And that is the difference between people you know and you're around and people that you decide to be intentional with and you build community around. Connection, real connection. They can look in your eyes and they know when you're not okay. They can tell and they have permission to ask and check on you. So how do you have community? And this is why, in TURNZ, we want to work on creating something that helps women figure out how to do this. I know that there was an episode, if you go back, if you search Chrystal Hurst and Tammy Franklin and YouTube, you'll come up with a video where I talk to Tammy Franklin and her friends, the same group of women that have been praying together. And that's how they started. They have become long-term fast friends because they decided to pray together. That's how it started. They knew each other and decided to be intentional. And now, 10 years later, they have permission to get in each other's business and in their face and to say, "But how are you really doing?" They've buried family members together. They have gone through horrible relationship scenarios together. But they have been together. So when one girl was hurting, the other 9 were strong. You need that in your life. And if you don't know how to get it, then you may be the one who has to start it. And there are a lot of ways to start it. A book club, go walking, Start with prayer, a Bible study, to serve together. There are a lot of ideas for getting your Sister Circle started, but you may have to be the one. And I realize that in this scenario that some of us, our Sister Circles are online. Okay, that's fine. But now that you actually are starting to get back in person, what did you learn from COVID about community and connection? It can happen online. I believe that, that in fact, there was— I had a bad day a few weeks ago.. And one of my friends said, she texted me and she said, how are you doing? And I said, I'm okay. I'm okay. I think I'm okay. And then her next reply to me was, I'll see you in a minute. I said, what do you mean? She said, I need to come over and lay eyes on you. I'm all about Zoom. I appreciate that. And I'm so grateful for FaceTime, but when you're in a crux and in a crunch, you need to be intentional about developing your in real life connections too. Cause sometimes you just need to be able to lay eyes on somebody. You need to be able to see with your own eyes that they're doing okay or not. Okay. And I know that there are problems with this. Okay. I see you, Billy. You said, I don't have that. And usually when I started, I ended up being a burden bearer. You know, there are tools to the trade, for sure, for sure. There's a way for you not to do the whole thing, 100%. But I would encourage you, Billy, to pray about that. And I know that there are problems. I see you too, Patricia. The circle disbanded. I reached out when I was younger, the circle community was strong. Now 70 and no community. Let me also say this. Sometimes the community that you build will not be a peer group. Sometimes you have to say, Lord, who am I supposed to be connected with right now? And there may be a couple of peers and people who are in other generations. I want to encourage you to be multigenerational when you build your circle. Think out of the box. Think out of the box. And again, I know it's not always easy. And I know, I mean, can we just be real? Circles with chicks are not the easiest thing. Our attitudes, our emotions, our words, our, you know, just— I just think it's too many women sometimes in the kitchen, and it's not the easiest thing. But it's not easy, but it's worth it. If Jesus can be friends with Judas, having the full knowledge of God, knowing that Judas was going to be the one to betray him— he knew it. He knew it when he invited him to do all the things. He knew it when he broke bread with him the last time at the Last Supper, and then he looked at him and said, Now go do what you have to do. Sometimes you have to take the risk that the people that you invite into your backyard, that they may bite you. Now you don't invite 'em if you know that they're gonna bite you. I'm just aware that you have to take the risk. There is risk to love. And anybody that has been married twice knows that. The second one, you were a little gun-shy. There are plenty of people that were gun-shy on that second marriage or that second really major relationship after the first one went sour. You were a little gun-shy. You're like, I don't want to go through that again. I understand that, which is why there's a risk to love. And at the end of the day, all I'm talking about in terms of connection and your sister circle, your circle of influence is love. Even parenting, the connection that you have with your children, it's a risk. And if you have adult children, you know this to be true, because these kids, they start losing their minds. They start losing their minds. I'm just like, I have your childbirth on video. It will traumatize the mess out of you, but I'm gonna show it to you so you understand when you start talking to me crazy why I black out. I don't know what I said or did to you. What I know is that I went through hell and high water to get you here and you have the nerve to— have you lost your mind? Even parenting is a risk to love. But we do it because we think the risk is worth it. I'm here to tell you that your circle, whether you have your own circle, your in-person circle, whether you're a part of my inner circle, the risk is worth it. Because when you take the risk, let me tell you what you're doing. Ultimately, even though I know that we want to be altruistic and be about other people, here's the deal. What you do is you make the decision in taking the risk to invest in you, because you're not going to be as good as you can be without a circle. A circle can be small. I remember Oprah somewhere, somehow, some way, I read, heard, you know, it's just been decades of Oprah, I don't know, but at some point I heard her say, at a certain point As you go higher, you have to basically release people out of your life because everybody cannot breathe the air at high altitudes. But even Oprah has a Gayle and a Stedman. I understand real challenges. Alma says, as a caregiver, I'm kind of still in lockdown. I understand that. I totally understand that. And that's why I said online is still a great option. My main statement here is taking the risk, putting yourself out there, and being intentional. That's the main thing. Yeah, Tony, but your environment now is has to include not just people who are taking care of you, but people who are also— that you're taking care of the people. What? Can I make it? Yes. Okay, what I was trying to say to Tony— let me go back to Tony. It has to be balanced. And a part of the circle is saying, is being honest and saying, you know, I feel like I'm giving a lot and it's okay. I'm a giver. The people who give a lot, give a lot because they're givers. But it's okay to say, you know what, I actually, I'm in need. I probably don't show that a lot, but it would probably be unfair to me and to you if I didn't let you know what I, what I need, where I need your prayers, where I need your help, where I need your support, where I need to have fun. Can you drive with me to Magnolia Table? Can you pluck a hair out of my throat? If you're just watching this late, it's a whole thing. You'll have to watch. It's gonna come in different sizes and shapes, but you have to look for it in order to find it. This is why I don't go live in my kitchen, and this is why I'm always going live at 7 o'clock in the morning. Yes, ma'am, online circles can be a lot too. Hi, Miss Khaleedra. Yes, the inner circle is full of givers and I love that as well. I love it too. Yay. Okay. All right. Yes. I see the comments are getting better and better. Walk in full disclosure, 100%. Yeah. Connection. It's not perfect, but most circles aren't either. If you sit down with a pen and a paper and you draw a circle, it's not going to be perfectly symmetrical, but you drew the circle and it connects. I'm saying draw your circle, take the risk, decide to invest in other people, learn, grow, then take the risk of telling people in your circle what you need too. Take the risk. Trial and error. I heard Beth Moore say one time the reason why she's so glad she stayed married to her husband is because she saved herself from divorce and remarriage 4 times. I am still on a live. And why does she say that? Because marriage is work. And because there are plenty of times that you see in your marriage that— I mean, I heard a friend of mine said to me, I said, you know, every now— this was like early, the first 5 years of our marriage— I said, every now and then I think, did I make a mistake? Did I marry the wrong person? And I'm sure, in fact, I know my husband has said the same thing. And this friend looked at me and she said, well, first of all, if you did, it doesn't matter now. Make it work. Um, and there was no abuse or anything, you know, I'm not talking about that. But, um, she said, everybody thinks that. Everybody at some point in their marriage thinks, wait a minute, did I, did I do this right? You're going to think that with your friendships too. Here's what marriage is though. Marriage is saying when we go through those ups and downs, and again, I'm not talking about abuse, we go through those ups and downs, and when actually you change and you are no longer the person I married actually, because you grow and you develop, or, uh, I mean, if you've had somebody that has illness in your life, you know that their personality changes. I mean, there's all kinds of things to deal with, but you've said in the ebb and the flow, when I ask myself Are you still the right person? I'm committed. That's what marriage is. Now friendships don't have to be like that, but friendships can. The tribe that I was telling you about earlier, we have to have hard conversations. We've had to have to say to each other, um, you know, I don't like it when you did that. This is how I feel. I felt like you took advantage. I felt like you were crass unnecessarily. I was disappointed that I invited you to come to this event and you didn't show up. You know, I thought I knew you, I thought you knew me better than that. Like, you're gonna have to fix that, like that's not okay. Like these are the kinds of conversations that we've had, but we've also invested the time. And at a certain point, I'm still all alive, you just running water and all the things, can you at least trickle it out? But it'll take too long, but it'll be quieter. I need you to be slightly, I need you to be slightly inconvenient. Jesus, help. Okay, so anyway, y'all get the gist. Commitment. So I see all the comments about what's not easy, I do, but I also want you to know that it's okay to start over and start from scratch. It's also okay to wrestle with the hard stuff in the context of real relationship. I'm so glad I'm not alone in that. Am I right? There's nobody married that hasn't had the thought. Did I— is this a mistake? All I heard was married. I was about to say is there's nobody married that hasn't had the thought. Did I— I think— did I get this? I think I might have got this wrong. I don't think— I don't think— I thought I heard from the Lord, but maybe I didn't. All I said was, there's nobody that hasn't thought— did I get the— I said, if someone is married, there's no one that hasn't thought, and she said, Jesus. Amen. Because it's true. And you will have that same feeling with friends. You will think, I'm not doing this again. It's too much work. I'm not doing this again. But what I'm telling you is, it's what you were designed for. It's like worship. It's what you were designed for. And if you don't worship God, you'll worship something else. You were designed to idolize and put something on a platform. And the only person who's actually able to stand on the platform and to hold that spot on the platform 100% of the time is God. You put anybody else up there, somebody you're dating, a friend, an idol, a celebrity, a person, a pastor, even a thing, your job, your money, your health, if you put anything up there, it can't stand up there forever. So no, your friends are going to disappoint you. They're not going to be able to be 100% all the time. That has nothing to do with whether or not you need to be committed to community and your circle and to be the one who develops the friends. But I know it's not easy, which is why this was its own topic for its own day. So that said, I do want to make sure you know that there are ways for you to grow while you're working on your circle. I know it's not for everybody, and I know it's not for everybody right now, but if you'd like to join mine, then I want to invite you to check it out. ChrystalEvansHurst.com/innercircle. The doors again are open till tomorrow. They close on midnight for my birthday. I hope you join me again for the foolery of all the things that we'll be talking about and doing. Tomorrow morning. Hey, can't wait! We have to get dessert today. Did you hear me say that? I said we need to get at least 3, maybe 5 different desserts. I need to sample some Gigi's. We may need to do a run to the Cake Bar. We may need to— yeah, we may need to make some brownies today because I just need to have— I'm gonna sample desserts on my live tomorrow. Yes, uh-huh. Yay! Okay, all right. Have you brushed your teeth and washed your face yet? No, you haven't, because I can see this on your stuff. If you don't wash your face and brush your teeth, you didn't do the whole thing. All right, y'all, praise the Lord, everybody. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. Yeah, so tomorrow morning It's always 7-ish. I do my best. So we're going to say 7-ish again. Today, actually, my team meeting, I had issues this morning and then I had a team meeting and then here we are. But tomorrow it should— I'm going to try to do 7 because it's 7/7 at 7. That's what I should do. All right, y'all. Oh, yes, the banana. We need to— if we're going to do the cake bar, make sure— okay, I want strawberry cake. Yeah! I want strawberry cake and I want banana pudding. I would like a cake pop from Starbucks. We can get that, 'cause those are good. What? Yes. We're gonna sample a few things, make at least one thing. Gigi's will work as well. Trying to think. Ooh, a key lime pie from Papa Dose. Yeah. All right, y'all. I'm going to do my best, Lavon. I'm going to do my best to make it a 7 at 7 situation. I can't guarantee it, but I'm going to do my best. And no, Lakendria, you are not the only one who has to remind your son to wash his face and— brush his teeth? You didn't. You still have stuff in your hair. You didn't comb your hair. Y'all, pray my strength in the Lord, and I will see you tomorrow for the last live and, uh, a little bit of foolery and fun. Ah, because I'm 40-something. Foolery on— you know what, it's a little foolery and fun for my last 40th birthday. Hey, hey! Bye, y'all.
