The Four F's Relaunch | Celebrating 10 Years of Podcasting

Hi there.

Thanks for listening to the Sister Circle Podcast. My name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and I'm your host. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the podcast that's designed to help you live your life well and to make it a life you love. Listen, you get to choose.

Hey y'all.

Can you believe that it's been 10 years? That is correct. 10 years I've been at this podcasting business. I'll never forget, it was May in 2014, the first Monday, and I was sitting up in my bed with my laptop in my lap, trying to make sure that the podcast that I recorded— actually, a few podcasts, to be exact— was going to be able to be uploaded and sent out because I'd said I was going to do it. And by golly, I was going to do it. Little did I know that 10 years later, I'd still be doing it. Sometimes recording once a week and releasing, sometimes some seasons recording more than one, a couple of episodes a week. But I've been here sharing content pretty faithfully for 10 years. Now that's evolved and changed. And we introduced some video back in 2020. But I know that there are some of y'all who are audio listeners first, and you've been rocking with me since day one. There are some of y'all who joined me during the pandemic in 2020, and you've been rocking with me since then. But 10 years is a long time to do anything. If you've read my book, She's Still There, you probably already know celebration is not my natural thing to do. But even I said, we should probably do something to celebrate 10 years. So one of the things that we're going to do to kick off the celebration of this 10th year is going back, you know, to the beginning, where it all started, Episode 1. There are probably a few of you who did listen to that episode, but you probably haven't listened to it recently. And there are many more of you, I'm sure, who've never heard it. Here's the good thing, though. This is kind of satisfying. Not much has changed. Now, my voice has changed. What's up with that? With the passage of time, your voice getting deeper? I'm not sure. You'll hear the difference in my voice. But what you will also hear is some of the sameness of my messaging, some of the core of why I started still being true. I'm a believer that people really don't change much. There are some exceptions to that. We definitely can mature, we grow, we learn greater self-control, we learn how to adapt behaviorally. We even change because, you know, if you give your life to God, Jesus can change you. But there are a lot of things that he more refines, cleans up, carves out. But there's a lot of stuff in you that doesn't really change. You just hone the good out of it, and you refine it, and you make it better, more useful, more for the better good. What I'm satisfied with when I listen back to episode 1 is not much has changed. Yeah, I've gotten better at it, and yeah, I've gotten fancier, and yeah, there are different microphones, even though Literally right now, I'm on the first mic I ever used. Some things don't change. Yeah, we've added video and we've added different theme music and I've had amazing guests and absolutely the process has changed a little bit. I used to edit every single one of these myself, but really the core messaging is the same. I'm just a girl who decided to turn on a microphone and share what she was learning so that other people might be helped. The core messaging hasn't really changed. We've added some fine-tuning to it. We've embellished it a little bit. I think the messages have gotten more mature, deeper. And a lot of that I have to thank you for because you would tell me, you would email me, you would comment on a podcast, you'd come to the blog, you would give a review to the podcast wherever you listen. Then you'd tell me, Chrystal, more of this, please. Or can you answer this question? Or can you have this guest on your show? And so based on your feedback, I grow. Sometimes, y'all, you just have to press start. Record. You just have to begin, and you're doing it with the cheapest equipment you can find and the free music that you can get your hands on and the software that came free with your computer. Sometimes you don't know what you're doing, and you don't know who's going to listen, and you don't know who's going to be blessed or helped or encouraged, but you just know you're just supposed to press start. And then you find out 10 years later, it was the right thing to do. So I'm excited about listening back to episode 1 with you and enjoying the higher voice and the initial thoughts and the core of the messaging for where this all began. And also, I'm looking forward to continuing. So here's to celebrating year 10. Here's to remembering where we started and to getting reminded and encouraged of why we keep doing what we do. So if you've been waiting to press start, go, record, begin, this is me telling you, what are you waiting on? If you just get started, maybe 10 years from now, you'll be glad you did. But for today, here's to all things Chrystal's Chronicles, Coffee with Chrystal, And y'all know I believe we're better together. The Sister Circle Podcast. Who knows what'll come tomorrow? But for now, we celebrate today and begin again.

All right, y'all, here we go. I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying about exactly what this podcast is supposed to be about. Bottom line is I have lots to talk to you about, but I thought I'd start out with my first podcast telling you about why I want to do this in the first place. Honestly, kind of a little silly reason: writing takes longer. First of all, when I write, I have to pour my heart out on paper, and then I've got to read over it most of the time out loud so I can catch any missed commas or misspellings. Then I have to make sure it sounds clever, and then I have to make sure that I don't drag on and on and on and that I'm rambling, and then I have to make sure I'm short and concise and Bottom line is it's just easier for me to pick up this microphone, which by the way, I've borrowed my kids' Rosetta Stone, uh, headset. So I'm stealing their stuff so I can do this podcast for you. It's easier for me just to pick up the headset and to talk. Hopefully then you get a chance to know me a little bit better, more than black and white on paper. You can hear a little bit of my personality, and when appropriate, you can laugh with me. Or laugh at me if that's actually the more appropriate thing to do. Either way, it's fine with me. If you don't already know, I have a blog. You can go straight to my blog at chrystal'schronicles.com. And Chrystal is not the average crystal, C-R-Y-S-T-A-L. It's C-H-R-Y-S-T-A-L. chrystal'schronicles.com. My website overall is chrystalevanshurst.com, and there you can learn a little bit about me and my current life and what I'm doing. When I started blogging in 2005, I am kind of a geek, and so I got my computer out and just started typing. And I was doing that because journaling is wonderfully free. It's free therapy. So whether you're journaling with paper and pen, whether you're opening up a laptop or sitting down at your computer, you get to pour your heart and soul and mind on paper and then look at it objectively. Because, you know, that's a lot of what therapy is, is that you kind of throw up and you say what you have to say, and then somebody sits across from you and helps you to analyze your life and what you're saying. And journaling is free. Did my notification just go off in the middle of this call? Okay, I'm not starting over, so let me just keep going. Um, I started blogging in 2005. The last of my 5 children was born in 2008. And the bottom line is I couldn't stay awake long enough to blog. I would fall asleep at the computer and I kind of just stopped. And then in 2007, I had this major meltdown with my computer and lost pictures, and I was so discouraged blah, blah, blah. So here recently I've started blogging again for lots of reasons. One, I missed it, and two, um, it was just time. It was time for me to start writing again. And so I'm glad to be doing that, but I'm also glad to be sharing with you this way. And why do I blog or want to share with you in this way? Well, the tagline of my blog is, uh, living my life, finding my way, sharing the journey. And that's what this podcast is going to be about— more of that, more of me living my life and telling you, hey, this is what's working, this is what's not, keeping Keeping it real, being authentic, because I don't know about you, but I've read a million books. I don't know about you, but I've been to church a million times. I've encouraged myself a million different ways, listening to the radio, watching TV, listening to other podcasts, and I have lots of information. But a lot of times what I'm missing, what I'm desperately searching for— okay, now my watch is beeping. You guys just know I'm at home. This is my first podcast and I'll work out the kinks at a later date. What I'm always searching for is authenticity. Like, don't tell me how it should be. Tell me how it is. Tell me how you're aiming for what should be. Tell me how the struggle is real for you, or what you actually did to work through a certain thing. And that's kind of what— because I'm— I love to hear other people keep it real with me. That's what I'm wanting to give you where I can, where my life is the— is a— is it is a place where I can honestly and openly share those things with you. So just know that's where I'm going, and I want you to share with me. There are comments open on my blog, and I'd love to hear from you. Let's keep the conversation going. I've been a lot of different places. I've been in a lot of different situations, many good, many bad. I've been a teen mom. I've been a single parent. I've been a near six-figure income-making working woman. I have been and still am a homeschool mom. I have been and still am a struggling food addict. I've cloth diapered when I was in my super earthy, you know, hug the tree stage. And here recently I have been a high proponent of paper plates. I've been an author, I am a speaker, and of course I am a blogger. I'm living my life and I want to share that with you. You know, here recently I walked in the back door and I looked at my table. I have a table that sits in my living room and I realized that my boys had done something fantastic. Every Christmas I give my younger boys— as I said, I have 5 children, they're 22 to 5. I've got college and kindergarten happening at the same time. The boys are the bottom 3, and every Christmas I buy them a puzzle. You know, you can go to Target or Walmart and find cheap puzzles. They can be under $4, and I put it under the tree because it gives them a cheap box. You know how you try to fill in the tree at Christmas time with just cheap stuff so you want them to feel like they had a lot, but you got to make it cheap? And so we've done the 24-piece puzzles, you know, the Spider-Man and the Superman and the cartoon character things, and we've done the 48-piece puzzles. And this year I said, you know what, I'm gonna ratchet it up a notch. I'm giving those boys a 500-piece puzzle. And let me tell you the truth, you know, I am a little Type A. It can be a little OCD. I'm kind of just coming to terms with that and claiming that as my own identity. But I, you know, I, I just had high hopes for this 500-piece puzzle. I thought, this is going to be a project we can work on as a family, you know, during the winter months. I figured we'd put it on the coffee table in front of the fire, and we'd spend hours talking and laughing and playing with each other as we worked on this family project. And that is absolutely, positively not what has occurred. I put the puzzle on a table in our living room, and what has actually occurred is I tell them when I don't want them to play video games, go work on that puzzle. You've got 15 minutes to work on that puzzle, puzzle. And so 5 months later, past Christmas, almost 5 months, 4 months past Christmas, um, they're just now finishing it with no help from Mom. You know, I really— I can't even say that I helped them that much at all. I did tell them that you start with the borders. I did, I did start them off there. So anyway, they're, they're— they've finished the puzzle almost because, y'all, there are 2 pieces missing. Now, you know, I already just told you I'm a little Type A, I'm a little OCD, so I'm like, oh Lord have mercy, the puzzle, this beautiful 500-piece puzzle has two pieces missing. So I spent a few minutes looking around here and there just to see if I could, you know, by some stroke of luck find the puzzle pieces. And no, no, no good. No puzzle pieces to be found. That sucks. 500-piece puzzle and there's two pieces missing. It's a brand new puzzle. And I thought, surely in this day and age somebody somewhere has figured out I know how to solve this. Somebody somewhere, either maybe the company will send me another piece. So, you know, I'm kind of on a mission. And I was just Googling around because Google is my best friend. I've probably got 37 tabs open in Google Chrome right now. But anyway, that's a whole nother story. I Googled and found this site called Jigsaw Doctor. Now, I haven't tried it yet. I'm going to, like, I'm going to finish this podcast and then get online, like I don't need any sleep, and try to figure this thing out. And this is what it says on the site: Have you lost a piece from your favorite customized or collectible jigsaw puzzle? Relax, the Jigsaw Doctor can create replacements for missing cardboard and wooden jigsaw puzzle pieces. The Jigsaw Piece Doctor specializes in replacing standard-size cardboard pieces, but they can also replace wooden pieces. And don't worry if you don't have the original box or the picture. Good, because my kids tore that box up a long time ago. The Jigsaw Doctor can recreate the missing part of the image image. Y'all, I cannot wait to find out if we can get those two pieces fixed. And you know, as I was looking at that puzzle, looking at that website and thinking about this whole thing, I thought, you know what, this is life right here. You work so hard to find all the pieces. You're trying to find all the pieces. I'm trying to find all the pieces. The pieces of me, who I am. The pieces of me as a mom. The pieces of me as a, as a, um, working person. The pieces of me as an author. The pieces pieces of me as somebody who's supposed to be cleaning my toilets, and that has not happened in a while. The pieces of me that is supposed to look beautiful when I step out the door. The pieces of me that's supposed to be rising to new heights and doing new things and, um, continuing to grow. All that stuff. And I'm trying to put it together. And sometimes you think you've got it all together and you look up and you're missing pieces. Am I right? Surely I'm not the only person that this happens to. You think, I'm doing my part, I'm doing the edges, I've taken care of the main stuff, you know, I think I've got my faith situated and I'm starting starting from there and working my in with my— working my way in with my family and friends and then work and all these different things. And then you look up and you go, why can I not find this piece to my puzzle? Well, here's the deal. I'm not the only person that's talking and listening, I guess, to myself right now who's human, which means I'm flawed, and therefore there are holes. And somebody somewhere and I know who that somebody is— designed this picture not with holes. But because I'm human, I've lost some of the pieces, or maybe I've not treated some of the pieces well, or maybe, um, I have misplaced them. They're still around here somewhere, but I can't quite put my hands on them. But there's an original designer who made this puzzle. And my family will tell you I am indeed a puzzle. I make things way more complicated than they have to be. And I do my part to try to put all these pieces together that he's given me, because he does give you pieces. He gives you a personality and he gives you talents and he gives you— and by he, I'm talking about God, if you haven't figured that out yet— he gives you experiences and he gives you desires. And you're trying to put all these things together. I want to have a successful career. I want to have kids that obey and make me look good. I want to have hair that goes where I put it and stays there. I want to have size 8 jeans, which I've not seen size 8 since I was like 15. We try to do all of these things and we put together these pieces that he's given us. And here's what this podcast is about. Here's what my blog is about, if you haven't been reading my blog. It's about Fs. I flunk regularly in putting these pieces together. No, really, I have 4 Fs: faith, family— well, there's 5 technically: faith, family, food, and fitness. I count that as one category. And fun. Faith, family, food, and fitness, and fun. And I do make Fs in some of those categories on occasion, more times than I would choose to admit. Those are my puzzle pieces. My faith, my family, my body that I have to live in and what I do to keep it in working order And then everything else, you know, fashion and having fun and pulling hairs. And if you've been following me on my blog, you know what I'm talking about. And here's the deal: I don't have to figure it all out. I'm human and I'm flawed, and I'm going to lose pieces. It's just gonna happen. There's no way around it. It's just gonna happen. But because there's this guy in the sky who made me and knows what I'm supposed to look like. He is the jigsaw doctor. You know, me having faith doesn't mean I have it all figured out. There are some things in my life, and I will be honest about telling you what they are, where I'm like, hello God, are you even there right now? Are you listening to me? Are you real? Because if you heard my request, wouldn't you like work this out for me? I'm not really understanding what's happening. Just because I have a family, do I love them? Sure. Does it mean I always know what I'm doing? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Let me tell you something, every mother out there, your kids are going to need therapy. Yep, they are. We all need therapy. Now there's levels of therapy. There's the therapy you pay for, there's the professional— I go sit down in somebody's office and pay them to listen to me. There's the informal therapy where you talk to your girlfriends, your college girlfriends, or your high school girlfriends, or whatever, about how your parents are driving you nuts. There is the post-20s therapy where you're talking to your spouse or adult friends about how your relationship with your parents is still complicated and you're trying to figure it out and what they did right and that you were able to take with that into your adulthood and what they did wrong and you're trying to work through that and I'm not going to do that to my kids. But what you don't realize is you may not do that, but you're going to do something else. Your kids are going to need therapy. So family is another area where, hey, I love my family, but Sometimes it's, it's just not happening the way it should be. Food and fitness, another puzzle piece. Let me tell you, as I'm recording this thing right now, I still have the grease on my tongue from the fries that I had 2 hours ago from McDonald's. Yes, I did. I drove through McDonald's and had a medium fry, and I asked for a small tea, but because they're a dollar and I think they thought they were doing me a favor, they gave me the large sweet tea. It's sitting in my car right now. I tried to drink half of it, but I just reminded myself that it's out there and I might have to go get it. The point is, I struggle with that, struggle with that. I've lost 30 or 40 pounds before in my life and I gained them back. I told my husband, after this time of losing weight, if I start gaining this weight back, I'm just going to be fat and happy and call it a day because this is too much work, it's too hard. And then fun— so I spent all these weeks on my blog talking to you about hair, getting my brows tweezed, and the lip, the wax, the, the hair off my upper lip waxed off, and it was traumatic. And I thought, okay, this is great, I've done it. And then the hair started growing back, and I'm sure not going to go get that thing waxed again. It was, it was ridiculously traumatic. So anyway, I'm somewhere, um, and I took a picture on Instagram the other day of my feet. Okay, I really am going somewhere. And my daughter sent a zoomed-in photo of that picture to me in a text. And she said, Mom, you can't take a picture of your feet like that if you're not going to take that hair off of your big toe. Are you serious right now? Am I supposed to get the hair off of my toe too? Who makes the rules here? Who said that the tweezed— the eyebrows need to be tweezed and threaded, and your lips shouldn't have a mustache, and there shouldn't be hair on your legs? That one, I'm not sure about that I'll ever conquer that one. But my big toe? Y'all, this is my life. Puzzle pieces. And I'm here to tell you, I'm not going to be perfect. None of us are going to be. The only perfection requirement that we have is that Jesus Christ did it for us because he knew we would never be able to do it by ourselves. And whether it's faith, family, food and fitness, or fun, you just have to start where you are. You have to be honest about where you're starting and say, okay, God, my faith, I don't have it all figured out. I need you to put these puzzle pieces in place for me. I need to know who you are. I need to figure out what you're saying to me. Do you speak? I want to hear you speak and I want to know that when you're speaking, you're talking to me. Family. Yeah, I know all the rules about how marriage is supposed to work, or I know how all the rules about how I'm supposed to be successfully satisfied as a single, and that's not happening. Or what I'm supposed to do as a mother, and I'm not supposed to yell, and that's not happening. Food and fitness. I just had the fries. Fun. You know, we could go on and on here. The point is perfection is an illusion. We won't be perfect until we stand before Christ in any of these areas. Matthew 6:33 says, seek ye first the kingdom of God. What? And then all these things will be added unto you. Why did he say that? Because he knew that he created this beautiful puzzle and that we were going to try to work with the pieces he'd given us and realize at the end of the day that we are going to come up short. And he said, hey, if you just seek me out, I'll help you fill in the puzzle pieces. I am the ultimate jigsaw doctor. And it doesn't mean it's going to be easy, y'all. We cannot have a testimony without also having the test, and we don't want the tests But that's the way we get the testimony. You don't have to have the stuff all figured out. And I'm learning every day what I believe about my past, present, and future. And I'm compelled just to share my lessons and experiences, just so that God, as he works in me, that work may be an encouragement to you. So that's what my podcast is about. Next week, I'm going to give you a sampling of some of these areas. Remember, there are 4 Fs that I regularly flunk in. I do have some success sometimes too. Faith, family, food and fitness, and fun. And over the next few weeks I'll be doing a short podcast, you know, 15 or 20 minutes on each one of those areas of focus. Now this one you're listening to, you're listening to on my blog, but next Monday you'll be able to listen on iTunes. Um, I have some great friends that have been helping me figure this stuff out because as you can imagine with everything that I have going on, being up until 3 o'clock in the morning figuring this out for myself, it probably wasn't going to happen. As it— I'll be honest, right now it's like after midnight on 5/5, the day that I'm supposed to release the podcast. So, you know, it's not perfect over here, but next week it'll be on iTunes. I'm so excited about that. More details will be available this week, so be sure and subscribe to the blog so that you don't miss anything. How do you do that? You go to chrystalschronicles.com, and in the right side of the blog there's a little subscribe box Right underneath that too, if you keep scrolling down, there's a little freebie. If you click on that freebie, it's a black board with some words on it. You can not only subscribe to the blog, but you can get that freebie as well. Between now and then, visit my blog, get to know more about me and the life that I'm living. I'm gonna share a couple more recipes this week and got some other fun things to share with you there. Get to know me with my writing and then join me again for my podcast. My goal is to do this every Monday is to get on with my kids' stolen Rosetta Stone microphone and talk to you about what's happening and where I think that I can be an encouragement to you. This is my life, and as the India Arie song "I Choose" played at the beginning, I choose. I'm doing my best, y'all, to choose to be the best that I can be. I'm doing my best to choose to live in faith and not fear. It's not easy, y'all. I'm choosing, or trying to choose, to fight to the finish, to my finish, if that's what it takes. And I'm doing my best to choose to find the way, his way, that way that he has planned just for me. Y'all, my life verse is Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans that I have for you. And those plans are not just for me, they're for you. He has plans for you too. I'll leave you with this thought. When I was around 12 years old, I came crying into my parents' room, crying, boohooing. And I'm one of those that doesn't like to cry, but then when I do cry, it's just— it's not pretty. You know how Oprah has the ugly cry? It's, it's worse. And I went in and just cried, Daddy, Daddy, oh my God, Daddy! And he was like, what? I said, I don't know who I am, I don't know who I am. And he said, what did you say? And I should have just stopped right then and there. I, I just— I should have seen the writing on the wall. I don't know who I am. And he just busted out laughing at me, y'all, just straight up. I mean, doubled over, hitting his knee. He just busted out laughing at me. And my mom was in the corner going, Tony, I don't think— I don't, I don't think we should be laughing. I think this is serious. And I'm crying. And he said, what, what do you mean? What do you mean you don't know who you are? I was like, I don't know who I am. I don't know how else to say that. I don't know who I am. And then he just doubles over again and he's laughing. And my mom was like, Chrystal, what, what are you saying? It's just you're Chrystal. And I was like, yes, but who is Chrystal? And you know, I don't know if that's funny to you or if you're sitting here going, that's terrible, you know, from day one you needed counseling. Why didn't your parents see that? But here's the thing, none of us really knows who we are. We know a lot about us. We know a lot about where we come from, what we've been through, But the reality is the whole journey of our lives, everything that we're doing, is this journey of learning who we are. And it's not until we've lived long enough and gathered enough pieces and made enough mistakes and had enough successes, and it's not until we've connected ultimately with the person who made us and he shows us who we are to the core of our very being that we can figure that out. At the core of your design is who he created you to be. But he did not create you to figure that out completely without him. So if you don't hear me say anything else this whole podcast— seriously, you don't hear me say anything else— remember this: there is a God who created you. He knit you together in your mother's womb. He knows everything that is inside of your soul, what he placed there, what you placed there, what your parents placed there, what experiences placed there. And he has a plan, but you won't figure that out unless you are attaching yourself at the hip to him. How do you do that? We'll talk about that more on the next podcast when we talk about faith, because you never know where life is going to take you, and you can't change where you've been. But today, y'all, you have the opportunity to choose. See you next time.