A Sister Chat - Chat with Priscilla Shirer

hey there it's crystal and you are either listening to me on the podcast watching me on facebook or watching me on youtube now i have been going live every week on youtube and facebook during the year 2020 called it a little qc a little quarantined content so you can exercise some quality control in your life did it weekly for a long time did it daily for a little bit of time and i enjoy doing that while i also continued to share podcast content for those of you who listen through the podcast player on apple or stitcher with google or maybe even spotify we are really excited about putting out a lot of content for you this year and that being a continuation of the audio via podcast and the video via youtube and facebook today i'm not with you live but i am excited to introduce a conversation that i'm going to be having with my sister priscilla this is a conversation that was a part of our qcs earlier in the year but like most of my interviews i took that one down and put it in the library for the inner circle i'm resurrecting it and sharing it with you today we're going to talk about her hair because everybody wants to talk about her hair and also talk about food because she and i like talking about food but then we also get serious and we talk about what it means to hear from god how to hear from god and what it means to live your life with a rhythm of rest because don't we all need to be reminded to do that before i jump into my conversation with priscilla our resurrection our revisiting of our conversation from earlier in 2020 i want to tell you what's going to happen in 2021 and how you can make sure that you're on board to be a part of it i will be going live every monday still but i will only be going live with the inner circle the inner circle is a group of people who've decided to engage with me by supporting my content and also to do some work on them there are a lot of levels to the inner circle and most of them right now are closed except the co-producer level and that level is the entry level for the inner circle that level is also the level at which you can watch me live record every monday around seven ish o'clock those mornings you can go to crystalevanshurst.com forward slash inner circle to sign up to join me live every monday but if supporting me right now is not what you can do or not what you want to do you can still catch me live on or not live you can catch the replay on mondays we're going to talk about the time a little bit and give you more details about that soon but it'll be on mondays and you can join and just watch the replay how will you know what i'm doing and when i'm doing it here's the most important thing i could tell you make sure you are on the email list go to crystalevanshurst.com we send out a weekly newsletter with what i'm doing and other things you need to know and that way you'll always be in the know about where to catch me on video or audio the podcast uh obviously the audio from today is what you're listening to and next week we'll have brand new content brand new interviews with me and friends and other people that are new friends for me that i want to introduce to you so you can watch me encourage you on youtube and facebook weekly or you can and you can listen to me encourage you with friends on the podcast every week as well now you got to make sure you've told all the people in all the places what you want to hear and be reminded about so subscribe on youtube hit those little three buttons in the corner on facebook and say yes i'm following crystal but make sure you notify me when she is sharing content you can also make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast whether that's on apple podcast or stitcher for google and android or on spotify just make sure you're signed up so you don't miss anything but if nothing else because i'll tell you all the things there's one more thing that i want to tell you about it's completely free and i'm so excited to share it is the 28 day prayer journey which is free and it starts on january the 18th but you do need to go to faithgateway.com forward slash obs in order to sign up so if this is a year where you want to get better about your prayer life or this is a year where you want to investigate other angles of how to pray and keep your prayer life fresh this study this bible study is for you and i would love for you to participate we've joined hands with faith gateway and they put together a wonderful program based on the bible study that i created the 28 day prayer journey so lots to do but today today i want to make sure that you are able to enjoy the conversation that i had with my sister priscilla so without further ado i'll stop rambling right now and let you hear it see you next week audience y'all my name is crystal evans hurst and i got mascara in my eye this morning and i'm on with priscilla and i'll bring her on the screen on just a second but we are here to talk about really whatever because basically i just know y'all want to talk to priscilla mainly we'll talk a little bit about hair but we will talk a little bit about jesus and about what it means to rest in this season as well because i rip was ripping hair out of my face last night anyway we'll get to that in just a minute i want to go ahead and bring priscilla on the screen here she comes so there she is there's priscilla so we're both sitting at home um you know trying to be somewhat together kind of sorta and uh priscilla man we've had a little trouble getting on today at least i have i'm trying to do too many things at one time you see me putting lower thirds on the screen and all that can you see that or you're not really because you're looking at me and skype right girl yes i got your name underneath your picture so when people see this it'll be all fancy i know this is me who are always doing the most always doing the most honey trying to do trying to be somebody trying to be somebody i'm just kidding so y'all first of all i want to tell you that if you um have no idea who i am again i'm crystal this is my sister priscilla i'm sure you know who she is but i want to let you know that what we're trying to do is to be helpful but we're just going to chit chat about stuff we want to chit chat about stuff i think would be helpful to you if we chit chat about like what is happening in the kitchen because food nonstop is a situation it's nonstick it is a situation i will say i have used the crock pot which i used anyway yeah but i you have used a crock pot a lot and i really love it because you can put i have this recipe for crock pot ribs okay i'm gonna tell y'all real quick because it's so easy so if you eat ribs grab two racks of spare ribs clean them off cut them in half and then you might not need two racks i have four boys in my house my husband and three sons so then you just kind of layer the racks of ribs in your crock pot which mine is big enough for two racks like that and they're just kind of layered and i put meat tenderizer on each side of it like the kind that looks like salt basically meat tenderizer on each side salt and pepper very generously on each side and then i cut up onions and you put it in there on you could do it on low if you want to do it for eight hours you can do it on high if you want to do it for four or five hours and you just let it cook literally um all day long the last hour or so you take some honey barbecue sauce and i put the whole bottle of honey barbecue sauce all over the ribs and it cooks and soaks into it and my boys devour that thing so the crock pot for recipes like that listen are incredible because you just started throw some stuff in there and then add some broccoli at night and and and you're done so i've been doing stuff like that you have that recipe typed up somewhere i think right because did you share that one when we did the legacy in the kitchen with mom i feel like i did i feel like i must have but if you find it send it to me because anything that we talk about in our conversation that's like something to reference i have a little reference page on my website so they can go and collect all the fun stuff y'all i think i think i'm gonna do i have this recipe for vegetarian chili and that's getting dumped this morning in a crock pot so crockpot is a lifesaver you don't have an instant pot do you i do have it but i don't think i got the right size it's a little small for my whole family to get a meal out of it so i'm trying to negotiate that and i haven't used it enough for it to be my go-to yet i don't feel real comfortable and confident with it yeah so i'm i'm working toward that but you just mentioned vegetarian and i think that i'm gonna start trying to eat less meat did i tell you that no but but i think that that's great i think yeah you know you it's hard to be in a household full of men and and as a household not do me when i did that i said jesse so i'm thinking that we just need to eat less meat and he just looked at me like this exactly he was like you can do whatever you want to do yeah eat meat because to them a meal is not a meal it's not a meal it has meat in it which which is fine that's totally fine but i think that the older i get the more i realize that certain foods aren't making me feel great one of those which i'm having a hard time getting over bread well no bread you know i already didn't eat a whole lot of bread and pasta and stuff like that i still like it but i did that's that doesn't make me feel that great so years ago i started cutting way back on that but right now what i'm discovering crystal is dairy oh so basically you need to be gluten-free dairy-free fat green i'm not going to eat it i'm not doing it cheese is goodly it's godliness exactly basically i want to bathe in queso regularly y'all listen when we go to a mexican restaurant i just push the chips towards priscilla because she's gonna salt yes and then if they're not hot and warm from the kitchen she's gonna take the basket and say sweet server we would so love a basket of fresh chips and then she orders queso with you add for extra tomatoes is that what you do uh cilantro i like the pico de gallo i put extra cilantro on that yes extra cilantro so she is very textured specific yes yes because i love tex-mex is probably my favorite yes and if i'm going to do it i'm going to do it yeah i know so so yeah so she likes cheese queso crystal the next morning i always i just always don't feel good the next morning and i know it's the cheese kind of gives me a headache i can tell that i yeah i wake up just feeling like i've got a headache i feel real lethargic the next day um i can just tell it's not it's not great for me and sometimes you you know that and you still eat the whole pizza i mean that actually will preach oh totally totally so i'm just trying to think all right do i want to feel this way anymore you know the older you get sometimes you just start going is it work is it worth it yeah to feel bad the next day so anyway i'm thinking about the things i might need to cut out of my diet just to so i can feel good but you're really disciplined about that like you'll decide to do a thing and then you'll you'll do it and then that's the end of that me on the other hand i'm very double-minded and unstable in all my ways no you're not well i'm extreme so i me and the same 40 pounds have been really good friends my whole life i say goodbye and then we say hello and then we say goodbye again and then we say hello okay well you are extreme talk about that a little bit so let me help you i'm interviewing you you're not interviewing me this is not the chat with priscilla okay so but i do want to ask you about this netflix situation because many times uh over the past few weeks i have called you texted you i'm killing all my business don't be telling all about me no i'm not telling all your business i'm just saying um the mascara is still having its way with me anyway you have been enjoying and and requesting recommendations for things to watch on netflix because absolutely you have decided the bigger context of this which is where we'll end up after we dip into hair just for a second um the bigger context is you you are a person who believes in rest you believe in rest and you believe in not being stressed and you believe in taking the opportunity to enjoy your life when life presents itself and so in this season where there's lots to do and where things that you and i both have had to do that have been cancelled um we're home you've like you know what i'm gonna make sure i make room for something i enjoy and spending time watching a good show is something you enjoy do you have any recommendations for us to to look into in our netflix situation because your network's getting strong you got a strong netflix anointing okay first of all let me just say that this is a tough question for me to answer and the reason it's a tough question for me to answer crystal is because any time i make a recommendation if with that novel or in that movie or in that show there is anything questionable then i get railroaded about the fact that i recommended it so you've asked me a hard question because i can't vouch for every episode of every show i can't vouch for all the whole novel and whether or not there's a little bit of questionable morality or or cursing in there i can't vouch for everything well here's the beauty of it here's the beauty you are on my facebook channel my youtube channel and my instagram so if anybody comes for you i mean they come for me too i can't seem to do anything right in my life if they come for you on this tip you you go you accompanied okay i'm going to tell you if you have not yet watched self made which is madame cj walker's story sort of in dramatic form with octavius spencer it's great there is questionable morality in it but it's a true it's kind of a true description of this woman who lived in the early 1900s and came up with the stuff that made black women think differently about their hair it's worth watching self-made um if you've not watched the crown oh yes it got ratchet in season two my boy i haven't even watched season two my boys watched season one that's how great it was they watched season one and then we were all ready to watch season two and i was like oh really it gets questionable yeah there's some same-sex stuff oh shucks excited and there's hints of that in self-made too and i was like i wonder if this is true or if they just are now the agenda is so strong yes and that's that's so unfortunate um so unfortunate um and then there was one other thing that i was going to say that i would recommend oh if you've not never seen it's another period piece but it's called call the midwives have you ever heard that i've heard of it i heard a lot of people enjoying it girl it is crystal you have got to watch it tell them the whole season i mean there's several seasons i don't even remember how many because i watched this a little while back and when the last season ended i still sometimes go on to to um netflix and just make sure that they didn't make a new season because i think it's over i think the show is over but i mean it's incredible okay all right y'all so you have you have three recommendations with the disclaimer that i can't vouch for all the morality listen uh somebody somebody on instagram i glanced over there and they said we in all caps release you hey i felt that in my spirit i felt that releasing in my spirit thank you sister whoever you are thank you oh my goodness okay well that's that let's discuss let's discuss with people for no reason you go you start yeah okay so listen y'all here here's the deal we love jesus we do we we love jesus um and the reality is that because we want to lead well and priscilla has you know she's been doing this bible study thing a lot longer than i have and i'm i and i have a story that people make assumptions about me they're like oh that's the one that got pregnant in college we know she's a little bit off to the side but then when we put people on pedestals because of it and and but we have to give each other grace and sometimes i'll see people ask me questions and they are concerned or they do they are a little shocked maybe it's something but they ask me a question because they seek to understand that's one thing that's why it's a whole nother thing when people go oh my gosh i'm unfollowing you i just don't think that that has become i mean they just are railroad your character yes they railroad your character and here's the other part of that y'all i have found in my experience and then when i get on priscilla's thing and let me tell y'all when i see people coming for her um [Music] i there are two issues number one is i know her and it just drives me crazy when people do that it drives me crazy that don't that have no that have no relationship kindness in their communication even if they have an opinion their judgment is just raw and unkind that's the first issue because it's her this and i know she really desires to lead well and not do anything that would cause anybody else to stumble and that she makes a lot of decisions in her lives for the benefit of people not stumbling so that that's that's what i see is all the work and intention that goes into that and she she puts a little more intention into her situation than i do in the mind so i'm i'm very i i'm i want to honor that and i want other people to do that too the second thing is y'all just in general in general not as a rule but a lot of the time the meanest people the ones that have the most to say the ones that are the nastiest the way they say it can you feel me rising up just a little bit i feel like those people are the ones that talk about jesus and i'm just like do y'all actually expect that people who don't know jesus are going to see how you're talking about your own sister in christ and be attracted in any way shape or form to the kindness of jesus to the love of jesus to the long suffering of jesus to the forgiveness of jesus to the come as you are of jesus and so when i see that i'm just like y'all hello hello can we be a little kinder to each other for the sake of those who don't know jesus and who will say if this is what christians are like i'll just be a good person because the good people i know are a lot better than this so that just rubs me the wrong way for a whole list of reasons y'all and then when people when that happens i have to wait a while to respond because my clapback game is strong and i don't want to mislead anybody with my clapback game so um y'all just need to pray for me but y'all need to know for real that there's a lot and this is why you when you're thinking about priscilla for sale has been a blessing to you in your life because of her bible studies her books her teaching you know when she comes to mind when you see something on instagram when you see a post when you can just allow that to let the lord let you just to give a quick whisper of prayer for her because you have no idea when people do what she does and the amount of eyeballs are on her life the target that is on her back that the enemy has to destroy her destroy her family destroy her health so i just want to encourage you when you see that instead of having your clapback game be strong because we got to watch how we clap back just let that lead you to pray for the people who have pressure because what is it now you got you you i always say y'all i'm holding strong i got 10 percent if i look at my instagram numbers and look at priscilla's instagram numbers if i'm holding strong at 10 i know all is well in the world but you got three quarters of a million people that are following her that's a lot of opinions and a lot of mouths and while she's a good person at not letting that rock her world too much it gets to you when chris when people questioned your christianity because you said you're a black woman that got to you that got to you do y'all not see her hair she's a black woman let her let her off the hook do you need to say anything else or did i take care of that for you girl you took care of that whole situation wow jesus yes help the people and help your daughter over here to not misrepresent your name with a clap back a good one okay sir you are all on your soapbox i mean i feel risen up on the inside it's just a mess yeah it's hard when people come for you like that and you you really are trying to live with integrity you're trying to honor the lord and you're trying to respect the fact that you are in leadership so you do want to be careful about causing and so when you're mindful about that and then something that somebody finds somewhere that they're questioning about what you've chosen to do and they railroad you for it it is you know yeah i mean and i know how to ignore it it just it oh yeah i mostly don't respond yeah i mean it's just like i'm not even going to lend an ear to that but it still is a thing so this was a teaching moment let's just call it that at teaching you will you talk that thing i mean you can add something i'm sorry nothing to add i think i'm looking at everybody saying amen crystal big sense ain't playing no games that's right girl she's nothing she shucks she's not playing any games okay but it was something else i was going to ask you about because we're going to talk i want you to talk about rest because that is your giftedness but for just a second girl all the people in the world yes girl all the people in the world listen the last live the last uh church thing that we did march the 22nd uh when we watched it back with dad he was he had his ipad in his hand and this is exactly what he did he has a church on sunday church on our church service on sunday on march the 22nd that particular day um this is your father whoo her hair is like a lion is that i mean it's just a lot of hair wow i mean this was your father wasn't your hair guys he always likes if your father is doing that let me tell you something all the people in the world were looking at your hair going what does she do to get her hair like that so so go ahead okay i'll just do an abbreviated hair conversation because i decided yesterday or a couple days ago we were on live people ask me a lot of hair questions when i'm on live even if i'm talking about jesus the book of nahum they're like yeah but your hair though so i said i'm going to do a whole live about hair because hair is a deal for women it's ministry to discuss hair however i will just say that the part that people really don't want to hear are two things number one um well i went natural about 20 years ago so this is before anybody was doing it it was before it was a trend because your hair was falling out i remember your hair was it was thin it wasn't responding well to the chemicals that in the 90s and 90s black women were putting there so i cut it all out my my whole family thought i was crazy they almost blocked you out he almost locked you out the house listen jerry shire was not happy about it and um that y'all tried to be encouraging and you were especially you chris you were very encouraging but i knew that behind my back you were like oh no this is a disaster actually that was my husband i was like it'll grow back my husband looked at you and said oh priscilla your hair is so cute it's so cute girl you walked out the door he turned around he said that is a mess and i didn't know this until years later or years ago that i know that 20 you know 15 years before that he had been thinking that in his mind about my hair so anyway but it was the best decision i ever made so getting all the chemicals out of my hair so i don't put any chemicals at all in my hair not even coloring it i tried it once to color it with like a natural hair color my hair was still dry and brittle so i don't put anything in it but the point is i had to look at my childhood pictures to get a an image of what my hair would be like if i went natural so i think what we do especially with the rise of social media is we look at other people's hair we admire because i do it too i follow these people on instagram whose hair i admire just for their hair tips and when i follow them and i see what their hair is doing and how their hair is responding to certain products or something i'm like oh i'ma use that product and it's going to look like that on my hair that's not necessarily the case you need to go look at your baby pictures look at your 10 year old nine year old 11 year old picture what your pigtails look like then that's the texture don't think that it's going to automatically mirror somebody else's so that's the first thing you have to know and the second thing you have to know is part of the reason why i do think that my hair has flourished which i've been very grateful about and there's a whole spiritual component to this and the lord that i can't get into right now because it's too much but one of the just practical reasons it's flourished is because i literally rarely rarely put heat in it or use do a style that i have to manipulate it a lot so most of the time crystal can tell you over the past 20 years i've worn my hair in twists my hair has been in the two-strand twist and i just wear it in a ball on the top of my head or as it was growing out from being very short to as it got longer i just wore two strand twists and you know i did that every six weeks so for six whole weeks it is there's no heat there's no combing there's no manipulating on my hair so i think that's the part that's hard for us the hurdle to get over is we want to do our hair we want to curl it we want it to be out all the time and if my hair were out all the time it wouldn't it wouldn't um retain its length and its fullness so i mean that actually right there preaches actually yeah you're right for actually to be out all the time the season that we're in i mean quarantine life come on quarantine content i'm saying quarantine your hair is what i'm saying listen quarantine your hair quarantine you need to write that down that might be a chapter that might be a chapter and by the way i i will do a live y'all separately just the whole thing on here because it would be fun to do that and tell my whole hair story and give you some tips in here but i just want you to know in a little book called radiant it's the first time that i've been able to write about hair so i think chapter two is a whole my whole sort of hair story the point of radiant the book is on self-image and self-esteem and i wanted to tell that story as a part of it because the lord used my addiction to straight hair to show me how my significance was illegitimately attached to my appearance and if i was willing for me i'm not talking about for everybody but if i was willing to damage my health in my case which i was the chemicals were damaging if i was willing to damage my health just to maintain a standard of beauty then what did that say about the significance that i had illegitimately placed um in my appearance so for me it was a whole thing god used to help redirect my my um where i found my significance listen i mean i'm not trying to be convicted over here but you might have just convicted me i can't i'm i but i like my straight hair though i do well and also but your hair is natural it is natural it it is natural but i can't find a natural style that works for you well that i like that doesn't take forever because you know if i'm gonna get my hair twisted and then you know then before i do the twist out i gotta wait so there's this whole like if i'm gonna go speak and the way i prefer to speak is with a twist out that means at least three days before i had to wash it and twist it which means a whole lot of forethought and scheduling has to go into all that versus i can wash my hair before i get on a plane blow dry it get to the hotel and curl it and keep going on about my life it's fat like i'm better at it i'm faster at it but um you know we've been talking about this for a long time but there are little things you can do to make those decisions like you can say i'm going to do the wash and blow out part but then i'm just going to pin curl it all over so what you do sometimes you'll do but then the next nights you'll just pin curl it so that you don't have to do that every time heat on it yeah that's right so there are you know everybody has to do little things for them yeah i i ended up honestly speaking in my hair twisted is not my favorite either but that was one of the hurdles i just was willing to get over just like my goal was that's right i was like i am not going to do anything anymore that jeopardizes the health so i went to an extreme most people don't have to cut off all your hair which is what i did you don't have to do that but i did it because i was like this is deeper than just what's on my head there's some stuff in my heart that god is trying to uproot and so 20 years ago at 24 years old i guess it's been 21 years ago now that was a whole situation in my early 20s that that i'm glad i did it and one of the reasons i'm glad i did it which i wrote in the book is that i you know i could have never known that years later the lord would be calling me to this ministry or that i'd be on a screen with war room or or or i can only imagine overcomer and i can't tell you the the amount of people that have written me letters or sent me emails or whatever and they appreciated the message but they were like thank you what freed them up was seeing a head full of natural hair on a professional character in a movie and in a faith-based movie where honestly african-american characters haven't been highlighted in faith-based film at all right so for some women seeing that did more for them in just letting them relax into just their natural hair and i said the lord knew at 24 when he did that work in my heart i couldn't have cut my my hair off a year before we filmed those movies yeah he was a 20-year thing that he was positioning so that i'm so grateful not only the women in our family because after that it was a ripple effect right all of us went natural over those 20. most of the women in our church now are it was like this ripple effect and now in our community and in um just people that have been influenced by just looking at us they don't know us from afar it's one of the things that they say is hey thanks for telling us we can just be ourselves yeah and even even that will preach that it was 20 years ago a decision that you made that had an outcome 22 decades later in your life that had a positive thing because sometimes we make decisions and you know we look at those decisions in an isolated way and we don't know what the payoff of that is later we just know that right now you know that just speaks to obedience i mean i know that that wasn't like an obedience from the lord thing or maybe it was for you yeah but but i think sometimes when we're obedient in these small things that don't seem to connect in any way shape or form anything else you cannot see the ripple effect but what you can do is be obedient and let god work out what the ripple effect is in your life and you know just getting back to what you were saying because i do want to ask you about rest because rest is a thing like you're a good no you have the anointing of no on your life and you just believe that if something and you can talk about the positive and negatives of this but if something brings out too much stress if it brings out too much drama you'll be like i don't need to where i kind of run towards it the more stressful it is the better you know what i mean my adrenaline is my friend kind of i mean you're kind of like no i don't i don't want to you you are good at saying no you are good at resting you are good at waiting you don't feel the frenzy like when we talk about a lot of women who are they'll come up to you know you and say you know i want to do what you want to do and they're in this frenzy to make it happen you know how do i speak how do i write how do i and you're just like i just you know be faithful in your local church and let god do what he's gonna do because you didn't that wasn't your mo to go and create um that way you you operate from a place of rest a lot like winter you and winter are like in in that way a little bit so can you talk about what you've y'all winter is our cousin if you don't know um who's more like a sister who passed away a couple of years ago so and she napped all the time but wrote 10 books in four years so there's that so anyway okay so talk about what you think people need to understand about rest and what you've learned about that maybe by design and what we can work on in that department in this season well i think that our entire culture pulls us away from um anything that is god's image created in us because we are a reflection of the very image of god so all the aspects of god's character that he wove into our beings our culture because it's the world and evil is prevalent it's going to pull us away from all of that rest is one of the components of god's character it's one of the very first things we see him display i mean just you know i'm just going back for a second before i just get into practical ways it looks for me yeah but you know he rested on the seventh day and it wasn't because he was tired it was because rest was the capstone of creation and so it's a part of his image that is supposed to be reflected in us now of course we live in the western world who has sort of demonized rest that that it's something we need to feel guilty about that we need to be afraid that we're missing something that the world is moving on without us hustle is celebrated ambition is celebrated and there's nothing wrong with any of those things i was actually just thinking back i'm 45 now and i was thinking back over the past 20 years and i'm like oh my gosh looking in the mid in the moment of course there were times i felt like it but in in the moment when i was doing it i didn't feel like i was hustling i just felt like i was writing the bible study that was on my heart to write or i was doing that project or i was raising small kids or you know you're doing your thing but i look back on it and i'm like oh my goodness the pace at which we were producing whether it was babies or whether it was ministry materials or whatever i look back on it and go wow thank you lord for that season but it does not mean i have to keep up that pace for my entire life that it's okay to also rest and that rest is an achievement in and of itself because in the culture that we live in it is counter-cultural to choose that reflection of the image of god in our life to just rest so i do have a no anointing you do my life that is true um and those no's are not always easy i said no in the last couple of days to so many requests for things like this but the requests yeah to be a part of these you can just think oh that's so cool i'll just do i'll just do this i'll say yes to this i'll say that yes to this and if you guys are like me then what you know is when you say yes to stuff sometimes it's not until you get to that day that you have all the yeses to fulfill that you look at it and go oh my goodness i didn't even realize that every yes meant that there is a no to the fact that my kids are here at home now i'm not eating breakfast with them or we could have taken a walk this morning now we're not going to or i could have had time to read that novel that regular life pace has never given me an opportunity to read and now i still can't do it because i've said yes to 800 things so um to your point crystal i'm always checking in with myself to see is this particular yes worth whatever the cost is okay sometimes it is like for example i am up at seven in the morning with my sister so i will tell y'all that i used to be an early morning person i'd get up every morning crystal would tell you before the sun came up and i would walk run in the neighborhood i love that and then come home get breakfast ready for the kids that's that's my i'm an early person but the last i don't know what is happening to me i don't know if it's age i don't know if it's if it's horror bones or just honestly the last couple of years that we've had yes the last couple of years that we've had and then on top of you know our mom passing away this last december on the low of that and then going into the surgery that i had to have i have not been able to muster up a get up in the morning situation and so my point in saying all of that was there's a couple layers of that but one is that my sister's saying let's do this together that's one of the things that's a yes because it's my sister saying let's do this together there is a value there's a cost value balance that you have to look at there is another call that i got to do something i would have loved to done with a lot love to do with a lot of people in ministry crystal but when they sent the request through it wasn't going to be an interview like this they gave me 10 words and i needed to develop a message on those ten words from the scriptures and it was and i needed to record it pre-record it send it in at a certain time i would love to do that but when i felt the strain and the pressure sort of rising when am i going to do that my kids are home how am i going to sit down to develop my thoughts to make sure that i communicate clearly where am i going to record at because there's a lot of noise in the house right now when it's not early in the morning where am i going to record when am i when i started to weigh that and just check inward and think wait a minute i'm starting to feel stressful stressful is it worth the stress right now with the dynamic that i have going on in my home and the other yeses i've already said for that what i had to say no and i would have loved to do it but it wasn't going to be worth the cost right now so i think we don't take enough time to check inward and go wait a minute what is this doing to my blood pressure there's enough demands things that we have to do for life we have to cook we have to clean we have to wash those dishes we got to help the kids with the laundry we've got to make sure they're homeschooled now we got a home school jokers we have other family obligations and we want to have time i want to have time to breathe yeah our mother said to us particular she said it to us period but particularly in the last days of her life over and over again she said y'all need to stop and smell the roses she kept saying that because the truth is our mother had a beautiful life but she was clear with us that if she could go back and do something differently it would have been that she would have stopped to smell the roses more frequently so i am determined not to get to the end of my life and realize i hustled and hustled and did all this stuff but i never actually just enjoyed having a cup of coffee with a friend or having a cup of coffee by myself in the room or watching a a program that i wanted to watch or reading a novel which i am right now um i love theology books and all that but sometimes why not make room to just read a novel so no saying no to stuff is what leaves margin for you to have nothing on your calendar so that you can just enjoy that is so good and you know i i was thinking um you've told me too because when i'm trying to make decisions you'll say that is is the yes worth the cost but another layer of that is is you're like think about um will this still be something that you're glad you did like get something in your head that you would be sad that you missed you know so it might be like for me last year the the decision was a football game because if i'm gonna go out of town and i have to fly in on a friday night i'm going to miss a football game so that became kind of my cersei you know my little thing that makes made me think is this little thing worth the cost of that and i i have to go out sometimes it's a part of what i do but is this event worth that cost so you have to get that thing in your mind and kind of juxtapose the decision against that one thing and that made it easier for me because i didn't know what the football schedule was going to be i couldn't plan a year in advance to know exactly when every single game was going to be so i had to say if i miss it and i'm going to have to miss some is this ever event worth missing that or is this commitment worth missing that because some of these i'm going to miss and some of them y'all i left my schedule open for and you and you just don't know until you get there yeah you just don't know and sometimes it was a weekend at home and i would look up and be like am i at home oh my gosh and he doesn't have a football game and we can just have a weekend as a family to just go to the park like yeah sometimes it's just nothing and you don't even know that you need nothing until you get yes and it takes courage yes because when you say no to that incredible opportunity what you're saying is i trust god enough that if i let this go for what i feel like he's telling me is a better yes that if i let this go if this thing is for me it's coming back around it's coming back around i don't have to yeah i don't have to do it now the opportunity will still be there and if it's not it's okay because there will be something better that comes along there will always be ministry opportunity there will always be opportunity to write the book later another year whatever so i just think we have to have enough courage to know to trust god he's got us i don't have to be in everything and also can i just say because now i don't want to forget this and also i i saw somebody asking what i'm reading i knew they were going to ask i was going to ask you i was afraid i know and i'm going to tell you with the disclaimer that i cannot vouch for every single thing in the book but it's jodie pakultz oh great things oh i'm reading jodie poccolt yes all great things which probably 100 people have told me it's incredible i'm about three quarters way through and it's really good she's an incredible writer too but i will give you the disclaimer i will give you the disclaimer because how far are you in it i'm about halfway three quarters through and the language isn't great the whole way yeah so that is the disclaimer but the reason is because i mean yeah it's still to me yeah to me i wouldn't you know i wouldn't certainly let kids read it for sure right but the content the cultural phenomenon what you learn about races and the way they see yeah it is it is a great novel incredible absolutely and if you're looking for another good novel one of my favorite of all time is called the red tent by anita diamond it's a legendary story it's great now you have to know going in it's fiction so it's based on the biblical story of the 12 sons of the love triangle of jacob rachel and leah um from dinah's perspective the youngest daughter so she talks about all that trauma but it's a novel so it doesn't you might be offended because you're like thinking it's gotta follow the bible by the letter but you have to remember it's a fictional story and if you go in with that perspective then you can just appreciate the fiction of it but i mean it is a it's a captivate story okay but what's the other oh oh but what's the other book is it redeemed redeem redeem redeeming love oh redeeming love redeeming love is another really good fictional christian baseball facebook okay yes go ahead where are we gonna this is what i was gonna say back to the whole resting and saying no not only does it give you margin but this is what i love about my nose in this day and age what i love about my nose is that it leaves room for somebody else to say yes i love that if i say yes to every everything that everybody in my setting wants me to speak at this is my case wants me to speak at or every book they want me to co-write or every even film that they want me to be a part of or every if if i say yes to everything every organization people want me to be the president of at the pta and you know how it is with your life people want you to do everything and they volunteer you and nominate you and it makes you feel so good that they want you to come but if you say every yes to everything and run yourself ragged not only are you ragged but you haven't left empty space for folks coming up behind you to have room to to receive an invitation like that i love that there's space left that some young minister young woman um or older woman whoever that when i am not able to look at it to come the committee goes back to the table and goes who else can we invite and they look down the list and they find other women who are capable and who are called and who um are gifted to step into that role so i think it's a gift to others when we don't run ourselves ragged saying yes to everything it's true it's a gift to others including those people you just mentioned it's a gift to our families it's a gift to our friends that when a friend has a need that actually i'm not out of town this weekend and sure i can come to your birthday party like all of those things it it makes the matter okay and that's a gift to ourselves yes girl i know but i need to accept that gift a little bit more often because you know so let's talk about it no no no this is not to chat with priscilla but i'm working on it are you i am working on it like like this all this whole situation right here it's actually fun for me it's relaxing for you yeah like like i like to read and i do do that um i've got to c you should see the stack on the side of my bed right now but but i also love technology and gadgets yeah you do i do so they totally stress me out yeah so last night anthony did a live and he called me he said do you happen to know someone who has a ring light i was like i got a ring light you know i had to go film daddy for something the other day i came and brought all my gear and he was like why do you have all this i was like because i just i do you love all that yeah i do okay so before we bring this to a close i do want to take some questions i mean i also want to tell you before i ask priscilla a couple of questions if you feel alone and you're like i actually am in need of community there is a sister circle the sister circle facebook group you can find out more about that at crystalevinshurst.comfacebookgroup and there's a great community there's 4 000 women in there and we'd love to have you join okay priscilla now how are you feeling do people want to know how are you feeling you got half a lung you're walking around on this earth with half a lung how are you actually oh your father is is so on me about this um virus situation because i have half a lung so every day he's like okay are you you're not around people are you you can't be around anybody you have to stay safe you get do wear your masks wear your gloves it's so funny listening to him i'm like daddy i'm still around nobody it's okay i'm okay but it's really great um anyway thank you guys for asking i'm feeling really good and i think my sister could vouch for that to say that i have had such huge progress it's been i think 10 weeks since if you don't know i had something in my upper lobe of my left lung and they couldn't just take the thing out it was too embedded in my lung they had to take my whole upper lobe out of my lung and it was a it was a tough surgery i i didn't think i expected that i think i kind of minimized what it was going to be like and it was tough um and my was in the hospital with me spending the night and taking care of me and um and then it took a lot to recover and i'm still recovering but just a little tenderness on the side now not really hurting anymore i'm sleeping well and i just all i have to do now the biggest thing the hurdle to get over is the increase in lung capacity so the lord designed our bodies to where our lungs expand so my lower lobe on that side should begin to expand and take up the space that is lost there now or that is there now because i lost a lung or a lobe of a lung so that just means i have to walk which i am walking in the neighborhood and riding stationary bike and um you know just using my lungs that's the way you have to increase capacity so in and of itself you do realize that right because when you want to sit around all day during the quarantine watching netflix you got to go outside and get some exercise and sweat a little bit and build up the capacity so that's the only way my lung capacity will increase so i'm working on that and it's going to take it's going to take a while they said it would be six months to a year before i feel like i'm not because you tried to do a push-up the other day and your body was like love said not so i know it it feels so weird because you know i'm a push-up kind of girl regularly yeah and i was doing the push-ups crystal and i got through the tin but i i mean there was a strain over here that i was like oh yeah my body's not my body's not ready for that yet yeah but i can't resist i can't resist when you're in the hospital you know immediately the next day they want you to get up and walk and you're like you've got to be kidding me and they said no we need you to work on your capacity like from jump and the only way that you're going to do that is to get up and walk and you didn't want to walk you didn't feel like it you were in pain you you were you were like are you joking but they were like the only way to ensure that your lungs will do what they're supposed to do post surgery is to exercise is to move and i just think y'all here's the deal there are a lot of things in life that we don't feel like doing but the only way you'll build up the capacity to take up the space that you're designed to take up in your life is to do the hard thing and you don't feel like it you don't want to you might be in pain you might be crying because you were crying a lot in the hospital but now i don't remember that that's because you were highly drugged i remember that and i also think you know you were not only highly drugged and you were in pain but we have been we had been you know you had your surgery what two weeks after we buried mom oh one week one week three buried mom yeah two weeks absolutely so i just looked at you and i just you could you said i in the recovery room you kept saying i don't know why you had tissue on the bed you were just pulling tissues out you're like i don't know what and then crying was making your lungs hurt it was a mess but i said you know but priscilla we probably we've cried but we haven't cried cried we we went we went into funeral mode and then we went into priscilla has to have surgery mode and those drugs girl open the floodgates so you had no inhibition with tears for pain or tears for mom and um you know that's a whole nother thing but anyway i just wanted to encourage y'all when life is hard do the hard thing keep moving because it builds up your capacity okay um yeah somebody just asked how are you guys handling the grieving grieving process how do you think you're handling it so you know that is a very good question i'm not sure i think that one of the benefits and i say this gently because i know that the quarantine has been very hard on a lot of people financially and economically and relationally oh it's tough but if there is one of the benefits i think for us it's been that we've had time to sit down somewhere and feel stuff because we have been busy like crystal just said our grandfather passed away a month before our mom so we had to plan his funeral basically clean out my father's childhood home which was the home my grandfather still was was in you know so we had to go clean that out get all the stuff we wanted to keep for posterity sake because that that was our last real um tangible link to baltimore which is where it's from so we did that in december then our mom passed away at the end of december and we had this surgery i mean it craziness planning monster rule was like planning a major conference i say that because there were four thousand people that came and in person in person in person and then it was live streaming or live streamed yeah which we weren't trying to make it a production when you had my mom was a pastor's wife for 49 years i'm sorry 44 years they were married 49 years so when you have when you're in a community embedded in a community for that long we know 50 people aren't coming right so the whole thing was filled to capacity we had to plan for overflow in the gym across the street so anytime you're planning for people like that oh my gosh it takes so much work so we were working through that then of course recovering from the surgery so i think sitting here um there's just this um ability to sit still for a minute and feel stuff we weren't feeling when we were busy so i feel grateful for that and every time we go over to dad's house which is basically every day one or both or more of us are over there he's like why are y'all coming back we were like because we love you i know and it's not like we didn't like being at our parents house now office so now we're all up on him and i spent the night the other night on saturday night and sunday morning real early in the morning i tiptoed in there and i just got it that i laid on the edge of the bed and i folded up in the blanket and so then we went we both went back to sleep we talked a little while then we slept in there for for a while and that was really cool but i was going to say going back to the house i love just going through mom's stuff you know so just we will all go through there and comb through her stuff smell her clothes look at her jewelry remembering her taking the time yeah taking the time looking at her little german stories yeah i mean and i think i'm making room for that i think i'm making room that i mean i went over there um yes but nobody was home yeah nobody was home like dad went out of town and i was like and y'all i just went i was actually looking for one thing and uh y'all let me know if y'all can hear me and then priscilla when you see me you can jump on but i was looking for something and i just you know when dad's there i don't he has given us permission to look through i just still feel like you know i don't want to do all that when he's at home yeah rummaging through everything yeah so i was happy that he wasn't there so that i could just do what i wanted to do so um anyway i went in there and i just busted out crying but i was just in the house crying and talking to her for like three hours so i feel like i'm grieving the way i need to grieve and making room so i think i'm making room and i think that's the thing i think in life mommy when her dad died um one of the things she said is that she was not doing well and she went to the doctor and the doctor said your dad died and have you actually you you it takes at least a year to be physically in a normal place you need to make the room to grieve your dad and i never forgot that so she just slowed down she just slowed down she sure did she slowed down and so that's to me like i agree with you priscilla this season is a slow down season which gives us some room but i'm also creating that i'll just look at my husband and i'll just be like i gotta go i'll be like where are you going i'm going to dad's house is your dad okay yep i'm just going to go sit there i don't even know if he's there i'm just going to go sit there i just want to sit with her things i want to sit in her house i want to look around and just be there um [Music] yeah and then when i feel like crying i do yep and i think i'll always be crying for the rest of my life maybe not as often and from everything i've heard and read grief just becomes a companion it's not anything that you ever get rid of it just becomes a part of your life and something that stays with you all the time mommy will be with me for the rest of my life yeah and i think including her even when sometimes that makes me sad is okay yep yeah you you you feel sad because you loved well and were loved yeah you had the opportunity to love so as the tears come now okay i'll just give you one more question i think um okay um this is a good question she said how can people rest right now in the quarantine season if they are continually being pulled by live broadcast churches businesses everybody's online doing something does it come down to a personal responsibility to say no and just to log off that's exactly yes that's exactly what i was thinking you control how much content is consumed by you and that is consumed in your home you this is your your home is your place your mind is your place where you get to control what comes through the windows of your eyes and into your mind so if you are not able to sleep at night and your anxiety is high and you are stressed out because you can't get off of instagram or social media or watching the news then you have to take personal ownership of that um and you have to do that not only for you but for your family you're the gatekeeper for your family okay this is one thing that crystal is so good at that i i have to work on more crystal will put on a certain kind of music that she wants to hear i do that as well what worship music through the house and there's certain hours of the day for us it's mostly in the morning where they're not they can't have earbuds in or earpods or hair earphones or air fixtures or whatever everybody else has they can't have that in because i want them to be in the context i've created so i'm going to play a certain kind of music and at crystal's house it's so programmed into their life that now the kids get up and go mom what do you want me to put on today and she then she tells them and they put it on they can't change it to what they want to listen to because she's in control of the atmosphere she wants to set for her house so i will say the same thing to you that if you feel like you can't handle the influx of information turn it off turn it off it's like it's like going to a movie theater i don't want to go see movies that stress me out that's my choice i can go see the horror movie that just came out it's there it's available for me i can go see the shoot em up action thriller whatever i can go see that if i wanted to but i choose not to because the state that that puts me in the stress that i feel that is not conducive to me enjoying this salty hot buttery popcorn i'm going to consume with this coke so what i want is a light-hearted something so if i'm going to go to the movies that's the choice i'm going to make for myself so that's the same thing with your house and with your own mind and with your life choose the things that are actually going to be conducive to the kind of atmosphere internally and externally that you're trying to cultivate yeah and just so you know it's not that we don't ever listen to their music i just that's at a certain point during the day and somebody's asking what am i listening to it's a pandora station that's usually tuned into hillsong bethel travis green kiara sheared you know i'm going gospel but it's usually the christian spectrum sometimes it's massage music and joel says mommy turn off the sleepy music sometimes it's classical but i just decide um spotify playlists work as well so you can control the atmosphere in their home but then at a certain time my kids like video game theme songs they on the spotify turn that on and i listen to that crap but it's okay like we you know plenty of room in the family um as we leave somebody wants to know what time are your boys getting up in the morning like now that you're into your swing what is your household rhythm do you have one yet no i don't think we really have a rhythm yet they're they're kind of waking up when they want to wake up like around nine ish i would say is when everybody starts to move around and i'm okay with everybody waking up when they want to at this point and just when they do they know i know i'm going to get their attention because they don't have electronics they can't turn on anything we only have one television upstairs um so there's not like there's a tv in each of their rooms or anything like that so i know they're coming down they're going to have breakfast together we're going to be together so it doesn't matter as much when they do but as soon as everybody starts trickling down which is like when we get off this call we'll be together for a little while and we don't really have a rhythm and honestly crystal's more of a rhythm organized here's the way our day is going kind of person and i'm not that way i have to work toward being rigid like that i'm not really like that so i don't know if we'll ever get to a because i'm kind of like as long as y'all's work is finished i'm done your chores are finished and done you've been responsible with your time then i'm good with that and you know they're teenage boys so a lot of times they're not and then i have to go all right well then you got to be up at a certain time and but i'm kind of yeah letting them be we're getting up we normally get up at 7 30 we've been uh and down for breakfast at eight ish i moved it everything back an hour but that now they have classes online so like trey and kanan have an english class this morning at 10 o'clock on zoom so i got to get them up and feed them breakfast and get them going so there's kind of you know there's external um landscape that we have to consider yeah priscilla thanks for joining me sorry about the technical difficulties but thanks for being flexible it's okay but we have one more question we have to answer someone just asked what chores are our boys doing and i just thought that was really cool because i thought you got to go listen to whatever question you want to answer well i just want to answer because i thought it was a fun question so my boys have to do their own laundry and they have to clean their own spaces upstairs and then they have to participate in the stuff that we all convene around like the kitchen so we all participate in the kitchen and that sort of thing but they got to do their own laundry and this is why i wanted to answer this question because jerry's mom has been living with us for a while now a bit over a year so their grandmother is here so i noticed that their laundry was folded in these perfect squares i was like this is amazing boys congratulations on your laundry but i also was a little suspect because there's nothing about their folding potential that has reached that level of excellence i don't even fold like that so anyway i notice now they are washing and drying their clothes then they take the whole basket and they put it in front of granny and she has been secretly folding all of their clothes for them well listen i want to i want to tell you that we had a rude awakening because i do i mean it's honest i do have somebody that helps me clean which we we we both agreed that right now let's just yeah let's both agree so i looked at my boys and i said y'all um our friend is not coming this week so they do their own laundry and they do clean their spaces they do help with dinner they do wash dishes but they had not mopped in a while yeah they had not scrubbed their toilet you know beyond just like keeping it up like they keep it up but in turn like deep clean then deep cleaned that bathroom in a while and i said oh well y'all now's a good time to practice they were like what i said absolutely let me refresh because i said listen here's the blessing in this for you one day you're going to love your wife and you're going to want to know how you can help her bless her support her when she goes to work and you go to work how y'all can work together as a kid clean the toilet yes clean the toilet do the dishes know how to chop up some onions you don't understand right now i am blessing you for the rest of your life as you walk in you want to say hi come in say hi huh kanan or jolie it's my nephew kanan i love you canaan i'll be done then it's oatmeal today because i know you're going to ask me but it's always oatmeal on mondays see you in a second close the door see how organized she is because no that's not organized it's because i don't want to think so every monday is oatmeal every tuesday is a smoothie and some kind of bread banana bread pumpkin bread biscuit toast wednesday is bacon eggs and toast thursday it's gonna be what is thursday like a it's a hodgepodge hodgepodge day like cream of rice something like that fridays every friday every friday for 18 years i've made pancakes every friday but now they make the pancakes but we have pancakes on friday i just don't want to think so meal planning is a way that i don't think so it's not it's not and also you're very organized yeah but you i plan it you do it i'll be playing until the cows come home it'll be beautiful i have photo albums like i print pictures and i put them organized they're done they're printed they're done they're labeled because i i just am overwhelmed by all the digital pictures i still wish for the days of i sound so old but i wish we had film because then you had a thing you printed the pictures you got the photos and you're you can view them you know people can see them in your photo albums or whatever but now crystal plans to to print pictures and she wouldn't beautiful pictures i'm the one with the dslr i got the lighting you know i got look light light all this stuff but do my pictures get printed nope i just take a photo and and write something beside it that reminds me you do things there's a value in not always planning because you actually then do the thing i have a million dollars overthinker because because you are an overthinker we all look smarter because we can ask you any questions and get responses they call me they're walking google pretty much they're like crystal nose all right we gotta feed our kids this morning oh what'd you say i'm gonna go make some coffee for myself this morning and and uh enjoy the fact that i'm up early and i have not been for this whole quarantine i have been a little unable to get up this early yeah and i know i've got to leave myself some time to put on my eyeliner are you wearing eyelashes today or you're not going to bother well if this is like tbn is like international yeah so you're going to put on your eyelashes i i might i'll see how they look with just mascara on if they look pretty presentable then i'm not going to put them yeah i'm going to go put on my eyelashes my magnetics they're wonderful i haven't tried the magnets yet no they're really a blessing to the body of christ i'm trying to anti-eyelash at lashes but what happened you were getting into a regular every sunday thing no just a couple times i did it because i just but what happened i thought you were like this is great i'm getting good at putting them on and stuff but i'm talking about just the idea of wearing fake eyelashes as a regular part of life not regular just for tv well it does it does on television when i watch it back i go oh i see i do see the difference it just helps you to look your eyes look more clear on camera so i get it but it's just this whole like i wish we could all just relax a little bit not have to be so decorated right i'm on i'm on with that the reason being is because you know i don't want to get dressed on a daily basis anyway so there's that we'll discuss that on the next live yes i'm trying to fix something here you guys um i'm gonna let priscilla go i want to let you know though if i can fix this i don't even know if i can fix it volume yeah she says we need volume in the eyelashes i understand i understand i'm gonna put some on sis because you said i need some volume in the eyelashes i'm going to do okay trying to be can i tell you all about an interview i did please um we're doing this little blog series at goingbeyond.com and it's just ten questions that we send to interesting people and they answer them and then we put it up on our blog you know old school blogs so anyway right now um there's one jackie hill perry was first and then emmanuel acho who we grew up with and he's now an espn correspondent and he loves the lord in doing his job so um every other week i think we're putting up a new interview we've got some great people lined up to just answer 10 fun questions so if you go to going anthony oh you're at my sister's house he had he had to bring me the ring light back because i need it for today he had to bring me the ring light back that's why y'all are together without me but y'all yes go to goingbeyond.com priscilla writes for sure but then she also has great interviews and great blog articles so don't basically y'all we want to be helpful and email is the way we can do that so check out her site check out mine and now we have to go check on our kids because yeah because they're they're waking up thanks priscilla this was fun it always is it was fun is that mandissa mandissa hey girl german jesus is coming on with me wednesday is she we're going to talk about being single 20 years we're going to be we're going to talk about being single in the quarantine and being alone in the community like that part of it yeah anyway we love y'all have a great day say no say no quarantine your hair read a good book watch a good movie and ask god what he wants to teach this season mine is on the screen oh if you're not on in on instagram it's not it's crystal evanshurst.com crystal evanshurst.com priscilla is going beyond.com and we both want to resource you and serve you and email helps us to do that crystalevanthurst.com sign up for the email list going beyond you can sign up for her newsletter and that way you won't miss a thing bye

Channel: Chrystal Evans Hurst

Views: 69,145

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Id: rUjc1RdQ19Y

Length: 68min 54sec (4134 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021