BEST OF Episode: The 28-Day Prayer Journey with Chrystal Evans Hurst

Unedited Transcript

So you are about to release your third. Is this is your third book into the world, right? Am I right?

Third and a half because kingdom woman had a devotional with it.

And it's called the 28 day prayer journey, a daily guide to conversations with God. So I would love for you to start out by just telling listeners a little bit about your heart for it?

Yeah. Well, the thing is, is it was really a, it started out as a heart for me because I was struggling and often still do with consistency in prayer. And I was like, if I tell everybody I'm going to do it, it's like, if I tell everybody I'm going to lose 20 pounds, I'll do it. If I tell everybody I'll pray for 20 days or 28 days.

Case I'll do it because I'll feel like there's accountability and I'll also be encouraged by showing up to encourage them to do the same thing. So I, through postdoc for 28 days in a row on Instagram for consistency in prayer, um, and it was for me to say, you know, Priscilla was releasing war room and, uh, the movie, and then there was the book fervent.

And then I was thinking a lot about my grandmother and how she'd always been a prayer warrior for us. By not that I didn't pray, but that I just didn't talk to God consistently. And so it was an effort to just reform and redevelop that habit. And then so many people enjoyed it. Then we shared, shared it a little bit here and there over the years.

And then my publisher just said, you should probably just make that a book. I said, well, I don't know if I have enough content. And when we went back and grabbed all the Instagram posts, there was plenty there.

Yeah. That's so cool. I love that. I'd love for you to share a little bit more about just how God really transformed your prayer life during that time. Like, tell me what he taught you. Tell me all the things.

Well, the thing is, is there's an ability that you have to experience the fruit of the spirit when the fruit of the spirit is active and activated in you, which means you're basically paying attention to them. I mean, it's like any other relationship you're going to feel a connection to that person.

Um, when you talk to them all day, you know, when you're dating. You're a young person, young woman, and there's a guy you're interested in, in high school or college. You all talk all the time. You just have open lines of communication, which means that the relationship has the potential for being healthy because you're in sync when you don't have a good connection with a relationship, whether you're married or you're dating, or it's a good friend, um, you know, it becomes harder.

To keep in the rhythm of what the other person is doing. Doesn't mean you don't love them. It doesn't mean that you don't care. It just means you're disconnected, which makes it hard to operate in sync. And of course we want to operate in sync with God's will for our lives. And we want to know that we are, that he is there for us.

And the way that we do that is through. The God of the universe has made it possible for us to talk to him anytime about anything. And when we don't have consistent prayer and by consistent, I don't mean that at 8:00 AM on the dot your alarm goes off and you pray. I just mean this idea of praying without ceasing, like, uh, first of all, First Thessalonians five teaches us if this ongoing, like something great happened today.

And if I would call a friend, text my boyfriend, you know, ring my husband, that I could probably also say, oh God, that was so great. Thank you. You know, so this idea of praise and Thanksgiving and repentance and asking and yielding and all the things that we know go into prayer. If you've been. In the church for any length of time, you've heard about the Lord's prayer and the important components.

But the thing is, is while that does give us a format for it, it is not the exclusive formula for it either. It just says, here are the components and here's why these things matter. Then here's why they're important. But I just don't think God is going to strike us over the head. If something great happens to us at four 30 before we leave work.

And then without the other components, we say, thank you so much. Right. It's going to be, you know what I mean? But I also think, or difficulties when you're angry with God, just like you would be angry in a relationship. If I'm mad at my husband, I'm mad at her. If I just launch out there, you know, screaming, all the things that I want to scream, I could do that with some of my best and closest friends.

And my husband could probably he'd probably be startled, but he'd say something was really bothering her. However, if I want them to hear me well, especially when it has to do with them, starting out differently, opens their ears. I can say to my husband, uh, Jesse. Listen, there's something that's really bothering me and I really need to talk to you about it, but I just need you to know that I, I already know, before I even launch into this, I already know you've been working really, really hard to serve our family and that this and that and the other.

And I'm so grateful. I just, just want you to know that I'm thankful before I even talk about this thing, that's difficult. His ears are. So relationally, I think we have to look at God as any other relationship that we would have it's conversation with God and yes, we should praise him and yes, we should thank him.

And yes, we should say, I'm sorry. Repentance. And yes, we should ask for what we want and yes, we should yield and surrender, but I think if we can just think relational. Because we know most of us know how to have healthy conversations. We don't talk to our boss anyway kind of way. You know what I mean?

Right. You know, we, we know that right. We've had enough friendships or relationships with significant others to know some conversations, just aren't going to go well, if you don't come at a certain angle and if you could just say, God is a person, he is a tryin be, but he is a person and wants to have a personal relationship with me.

Then this idea of talking to God, ongoingly about the things that are important to him and. It becomes a little bit simpler to have it. Yeah, I agree. So to the listener who is listening today and they think, man, prayer feels really daunting, or I'm not where I want to be in my prayer life. What is it about talking to God that keeps people from getting started?

Because I think we think that it has to look like what we've seen and we look at a lot of the things that we see in church that we've grown up. That the pastor prayed these elegant prayers, or if we were in a very liturgical, um, religious upbringing that we think the prayers have to be worded a certain way.

We're afraid that God is going to greatest on our prayers. And you know, it's almost like singing, you know, the Bible says make a joyful noise, but if you only think that you have to look like Hillsong or Bethel in order to sing a praise, you'll never sing. You'll let all the professionals do it and you'll watch them do it.

And you'll forget that God said in the world. That there's a celebration. When David said I'm, I will make a joyful noise unto the Lord, you know, David dance before the Lord. And his wife was critical of that. And that did not work out so well for her. I don't see anywhere in the Bible where David said, you have to be dignified with it.

And David said that where God said you had to be dignified with. And David was like, I will give an undignified praise. And I think we have to say, I will be willing to give. And I'm dignified prayer. It's just. Yeah. And because God already knows me, I don't have to put on airs. So I think we think we're going to get it wrong because we've seen people that maybe are even getting it right.

But they're getting it right in a way that is a stage way. And we think that if we can't do it that way, that there's something wrong with it. I have heard more people. Share their, their come to Jesus moments at moments when they were on the floor, life was hard. They were in tears and they just got it out.

However they could, they begged God for mercy. They begged God for an answer. They, they, they were so grateful that God had come through. Or whim that they just whispered on their way, somewhere in there, they can't believe God heard it. And he actually came through and that's the kind of conversation I'm talking about.

It doesn't mean the liturgical prayers, the professional prayers, the stage prayers are wrong. It just means they shouldn't be a deterrent or a distraction from us saying what we got to say, Jesus was praying in the garden, he's sweating blood. And he said, is there any other way, are you absolutely sure. I mean, if this was, if, if, if we needed to be careful about how we.

I think Jesus shouldn't have been sweating blood. I think she should have come and said my father, I know that you are so wise, but no, he was on a rock in the garden, like desperate. And I think if Jesus can talk to God in desperation without meeting all of the points of the formula. So yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so good.

I recently had Mary DeMuth on the show and we talked about prayer. She's great. She's wonderful. And one thing that she said that I loved was the one part of my story that I'm, you know, on the other side of not being raised in the church that I'm thankful for is I didn't grow up. Hearing people pray elegant prayers. Right. And so when I came to Christ, I just started talking to them. You know, and so not that she doesn't understand and you know, that struggle, but in her own life, it's just cool to see how she's so free from that. And, um, I love talking to her about prayer, but what you said kind of made me think about that. I'm so excited about kind of the format of this book as I was kind of flipping through it. I have an advanced copy. I love it. And I'm excited to dig into it more. You have sorta three devotions. Per day that lasts 28 days. So I'd love for you to talk about why this format was important and why the journey lasted is lasting 28 days?

So when we did it on Instagram, this is back when Instagram was actually chronological. So I would post and people would see it. If they were on Instagram, they would see it. And I'd say, come look for it. And we actually then had five prayers. I can early morning, mid morning, uh, noon. Uh, mid-afternoon.

Or an afternoon and then an evening, like before you go to bed. So we kind of condensed it to make it three days and, uh, or three times a day. And the idea is that if you're a believer, you have the habit of praying before your meal, at least that much, you know, you can remember to talk to God and maybe go beyond, thank you for this food and nourish it to my body.

Didn't say one or two other things. So it was kind of around those rhythms that we already have. And then the 28 days they say it takes 21 days to make a habit sexually. Not true. 33 or 66, depending on who you talk to, but 28 days is enough to get you through a month. So we figured if you could think about that 28 days, basically a month, you know, even if the first day of the month doesn't fall quite.

Yeah. On a Monday, if you want to wait until the first Monday of the month, like we wanted to make it fit within a month. So you could say for the month of July or the month of December, I'm going to focus on making, talking to God a priority. So you could kind of think in terms of dedicating your time to that.

But we wanted to say this is just to get you started. And then in the back, we. So beyond, you know, day 29 and beyond what do you do from here? And again, the goal is just to give people a track to run on. So the prayers are designed for you to. Uh, to, to reflect, some of them are written.

Some of those days of sections of days are written like prayers, but most of those days are written like kind of like introduced. I wouldn't even say devotional, like an introductory devotional. It's like, have you ever considered, you should think of. When is the last time it's to get your juices flowing.

And then every day, at least once a day, there's a prompt to lead you into your own verbiage for God. And of course, there's room to also write prayers as well. So the goal wasn't to give you a book of literal liturgical prayers, the goal was to get your mind right. You know, what are some ways that you maybe have not thought about talking to God in that this can prompt you to start talking to God about, um, so that you can't say, well, I don't know what to say.

We're giving you enough to know what to say, but not so much that we take away from your own. Sure. And throughout the conversation, you've mentioned some of just the four basic tenants of prayer, which you kind of cover in the book. And I'd love for you to unpack for somebody who maybe isn't quite familiar with those kind of what those are just to give them not a framework.

Again, not a list of rules to check off or boxes to check, but just some places to start maybe before they get the book. Um, if they're not familiar, Yeah. So pray the acronym, praise and Thanksgiving, or praise and give. Thanks. Repent. Ask any yield are just four things to think about it. But if you look for prayers, you know, there's acts, you know, there's adoration, confession.

All different kinds of acronyms that have been put together for prayer. So, you know, I just kept it simple. In fact, when we did the 28 day prayer journey, it wasn't even pray. It was tri T R R Y. Cause you should try to pray Thanksgiving and praise, repentance requests and yield. So the bottom line is relation.

Yeah. Make sure that you're complimentary about God who he is and what he's done, make sure that you keep the air clean. Have you offended him? Say, you're sorry. Uh, he tells us to ask for what we want. So don't come to him and be afraid to put it out there. There are some things that God is waiting on us to ask for, because even though he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, Ephesians tells us our partnership with him through obedience.

Through prayer through Bible study and understanding his will is how we access some of those things. So ask, unlock, unlock it. And then yielding is saying, because I trust who you are, because I believe because of my past my faith with you and what you can do, because I know that the air is clear because I've told you what I want.

Now I'm going to step back and let you be. I'm going to yield to whoever you want to answer, except your yes or your no, I'm going to wait until you answer before I walk forward and obedience and whatever you tell me to do, I'm willing to do basically you're the boss. And so to acknowledge that in your relational prayer, even if you do out of order, even if you break it up and do it on different days, it's just a framework for what would be relational communication.

Yeah. If I never compliment my husband, but only just say whatever you say, whatever you say, but I'd never say, gosh, you make great decisions, you know, or gosh, thank you so much for how you provide and protect us. I mean, he would totally be happy if everything I said to him was okay, but our relationship is so much sweeter.

If I compliment him on who he is and what he's done. If I only complimented him on who he is, but if I offended him and never said, I was sorry, that would be imbalanced. If I never communicated to my husband, what I need from him, I was always saying, you're the best person ever. You're the bomb.com. And by the way, I'm so sorry.

And whatever you say is, okay. I'm doing a disservice to our relationship because when God said Adam and Eve in the garden, he said, let them rule women had something to bring. So I'm doing a disservice to our marriage. If I don't say, Hey, this is what I see. So I think we really should consider this. And you know, I'd like to put this idea on the table or for goodness sake, this is the color that I want the couch to be.

I mean, you know, whatever my husband can not serve me. Well, if I'm not telling him what I need or what I'd like. So for a balanced relationship, Even if they're out of order, even if they're separately used having those components of prop and got up for who he is and what he is saying, you're sorry, clearing the air, asking for what you need or what you want, and then surrendering to him because you choose to be obedient to his will and to his way, that's just a recipe for a great relationship.

So good. And I love that. We talked a little bit about this in the beginning that you've included. Space for readers to write out their prayers. So I'd love to talk about why you think writing out our prayers, journaling. Our prayers can be such a powerful practice?

Well, I think that there is a process like literally, uh, there is a study that was done and you can Google it.

Um, if you Google, um, computers versus taking notes or typing versus taking notes, uh, results. It literally is proven. There's a different process that happens in your brain. When you write something down, you engage more faculties, um, typing becomes an automated response. If you type fast, you don't have to think about what you're typing to get it out.

If you've automated that. So you can kind of skip the processing with writing though. Because there is either a movements involved in your body, your brain has to slow down. And so that slowing down and the forcing of not just regurgitating what you just heard, but putting what you are thinking about into words, there's a processing process that solidifies it.

Not only does it solidify it, but in that solidification process, you remember it. Sometimes y'all we pray for stuff. And then we don't remember that we prayed for it. So not only do we remember better if we write it. Yeah. Yeah. But if we don't remember, it's written to remind us and sometimes it's not, until you go back, go back in the journal, go back in the book, go back in your Bible and you see something that you've written down that has a date on it that you go, oh my goodness.

I totally forgot. I even prayed about that and look at how God answered it. So I think that we have to. Um, understand that even if you're not a journaler, there is something about writing things down. I mean, God could have allowed the message of the holy word to come by mouth through generations, but it was written know.

And when Jesus was talking to the devil and Matthew four, it is. It is written. It is written. There's a record of what you've prayed about. There's a record of what you've said, and there's a record for growth. So while there's plenty of room for the journal or to write in this book, if you're not a journaler and all you do is just to kind of make a quick phrasing, put the date on it and just say, ask about bullet point bullet point bullet point and move on.

It's still, you know, here's the funny thing. I, one of the great, great gifts that my mother has given to us, of course, she passed in DC. Is that our family legacy is written large. Now, while I don't know where her journals aren't, she was a pastor's wife. She may have destroyed them for path for privacy reasons.

We have, yeah, we have photos everywhere, but one of the really fun things has been for me to look in her books at what she wrote in her book. So there's a legacy that you leave for yourself when you go back and you realize that where you were, uh, in your Bible and your books in your journal is not where you are now and what God has done in your life.

Um, and then also don't, you know, think about that, you know, for some of you who are moms, if my kids find this and they see that I was praying for it. You know, what kind of legacy would that leave? So depending on how you are and where you are in life, it can be helpful to you because when you flip back through it and cleaning off your bookshelf five years from now, and you go, oh, let me see what I wrote down.

You will be, you will be shocked at how God answers prayers. You forget to even continue praying about the other reason to, um, you know, to write it down. I believe. You, uh, you know, apart from your own legacy, apart from the legacy, you may leave for other people. Um, you know, over and over again, we hear in the Bible that the children of Israel didn't remember, they walk, they begged God to get them out of Egypt and then, you know, and then they forgot even they kept complaining and then they would ask for something else and God would answer, you know, he gave a manna, then he gave him the quail, but he gave him water.

And, and then after a while, They forgot. And a part of writing down your prayers, not just what your asks are, but also be you're grateful. The things that you're grateful for is that we are like sheep. The Bible says we forget. Yeah. And it, and it doesn't, it doesn't take long before we can use a reminder of what God has.

Yeah. Um, you know, in Deuteronomy when God talks about, you know, your family and he's like, write the words, you know, put it around your wrist, wear it on your neck, put it on your door posts because we just need to see stuff written down and recorded. Cause we just forget. And so I think if you write it down, not only will it solidify it for you now and going forward, but it will also serve as a stone of remembrance that you will be able to see.

This is what I was thankful for. Everybody else has gotten it. You know, people who don't love Jesus are talking about gratitude journals, and we're thankful for three things every day. I mean, this is not like rocket science, God already said it. You know, be thankful. Don't complain. Rejoice always. So when you recall.

It just brings you back to things you may have forgotten you were thankful for last year or five years ago. So it's a very sweet thing and it helps you to stay great. Oh yeah, absolutely. And there's so many things in our lives. God has just used in that way that we've recorded. And because we recorded it, we were able to go back and we had such a heart of gratitude for what God did and the one that came to mind.

And I'll tell it, I haven't told this story in forever when my husband and I started dating and we had known each other for like six, seven years before we started dating. So we only dated about six months before we got here. I went on a hike in the smokey mountains and lived up in Knoxville. And that was a very normal thing to do on a Saturday for me.

And I went to this one particular trail with a friend. That I'd never been to, which was also rare because you start to find your favorites. And we tried something new and we hiked up and we were both just really struggling with singleness and just having a, having a hard day. And I remember in just the quiet spaces in between conversations, I, that entire high, I pray from the future.

And on the way back down, we stopped at this bench and there was a waterfall in the background is gorgeous. And, um, before we left, I did like this cute little yoga back bend on the bench and she took a picture of me and I posted it on Instagram and kind of forgot about it when my husband and I started dating, he called me one night and he said, okay, are you sitting down?

I have a story to tell you, and I'm going to send you two pictures, but you can't look at him. I'll tell you the story. So I sat down and he said back, I mean, I think at that point it had been six or seven years prior when he had lived in Tennessee, which is where we met. He went on a hike to go fishing by himself one day in the smoky mountains.

And that day he was also struggling with singleness and just really trusted in the Lord for his future spouse. It was raining. He was, he was coming down off the mountain and he stopped at a bench and prayed for me and the picture of the bench, because he said I wanted, I wanted to remember this place is beautiful place in my favorite place in the world and mountains that God had brought me to where I, I remember specifically praying for.

And he had seen that picture on my Instagram feed and had compared them and it out of the entire great smoky mountains, national park. It is the exact he proposed, he took me to the bench and that's where he proposed. And so as a gift to him, I forget. A birthday or something after we got engaged, I painted him a painting of like the picture that he took and it's, it's in our living room.

And actually just this morning, while during my workout, I was looking at it and just, it just made me so thankful for what God did and how he answered that prayer. And just like you're saying that is an Ebeneezer in our life of God provided and just in a very tangible way. And so that's probably the most.

My favorite example of just recording something and God later years later just answering prayers anyway, that, that story just came to mind as we were talking.

So, yeah. Well, here's, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one. And I, you know, my, my, my mother. Again, very my, my family, my mother has been very good about keeping legacy.

We, we know our family history. We have all the, we, I remember we used to go to Baltimore. My dad's name was from Baltimore. We would be there. It would always be a big thing for her to go down to Walgreens or CVS and make copies of the family pictures. And we would all be laughing at her. Right. But now we're so grateful, like all those old pictures and it's not that we just have the, we have the pictures, we know who they are.

We know their stories, like all this. So anyway, she, um, she and my dad had been looking for a house for a really long time. They'd been in the house they'd been in now for 40, almost 40 years. Yeah. 40, 40 years. And, um, they were looking because she had three specific requests and we've heard about this, this whole, you know, this whole time she wrote it down.

She has, she has like a photo album with pictures, torn out of a magazine with things she wants in a house. And so. Anyway, my husband had been looking for a house for a while, uh, for years. And it's, uh, it's a long story. Wheat. We've been, we own a home that we rented and then we couldn't get back to it. So we had to rent twice more after that.

So we've been displaced, uh, for about 10 years and we said, we'll just, we're just going to wait until we find this, but I'm discouraged. And you know, the kids are on top of each other and all this stuff. So anyway, we found this house and long story short, when I, we went and found the half, I took my dad with me.

This is, you know, this, this early, earlier this year. And when I walked out, my brother was with me and he said to my dad with me there. So dad. I think we found Nani's house and I was, I kind of looked and he said, this is the house she was looking for. And the thing is, is I know that because of the pictures and the conversation, and he was right the face of the house, the layout of the house, um, the location of the house, all like, it just fit all of these things.

And so I just thought, even me knowing like I have this, it's this weird, I mean, you know, not to sound super mystical, but it's this weird feeling of. I went in the house and my mother hangs, crosses everywhere. And right on the back porch, outside of the kitchen window, there's a wind chime with a cross hanging off of it.

So, so for me, you know, it's just like, My prayer of this house, didn't just get answered. It got answered in the way where God was like, you know, I know that, you know, you know, all of the things that your mother would have liked and she wrote them all down. So since it wasn't for her, let me give it to you.

And just so that, you know, there was a, you know, I'm not trying to weird out. I'm just saying there's, there's these little things where you're just like, when you lay things before God, I call it a cherry on top. It's like, You know, there's another random time. There's this Broadway play. I wanted to go see it couldn't get tickets.

It was too expensive. So I was at a record store, like a Virgin records before they close all. And I was in there listening to the record. I was like, I can't go to the Broadway play. I'm just going to go and listen to the record. This guy walks up to me and he says, this Broadway play is really good. Have you seen.

I said, no, it's in town tonight. He said, oh yeah, I know. I said, I was so mad. I couldn't get tickets. I was like, I'm just going to come and listen to it. And he said, actually, I'm just stopping through here on the way to see a friend because I bought tickets. But something else came up. Would you like, and I'm just sitting there going and all I had.

Uh, it would be so cool if I could just get the tickets and it's like this, you know, it's like this, he, you know, he will do exceedingly above and beyond that to say that. Yeah. And, and the things I think we forget while God is not a Santa. He is a father who loves to give good gifts to his children. Now, what we think is good is not always what he thinks is good.

I thought it would have been good if my mother would have lived, we prayed down heaven. Our whole church pray down heaven, thousands, and thousands of people all over the world pray down heaven. And it wasn't, it wasn't to be. Yeah, that does not mean I haven't had conversations with God about it. I haven't had questions.

I haven't been upset. I haven't been like in what possible way would healing her not have brought you glory? I mean, in all of these people, including me are so disappointed, disappointed, and have questions. Like it's not that I can't have those conversations with him, but what I can also say is that there have also been times when he's really been sweet.

Yeah, he's really been sweet and I didn't even really pray about it and something that it's almost like he says, just so that, you know, I'm listening. Let me just let you know I have this, you know, that I'm really good. And in just as many ways as I can say, God, didn't answer my prayer. He didn't come through the way I wanted.

He took too long. I'm still waiting. This is still hard. I think I, if I look and pay attention, And practice gratitude. There are plenty of ways where I can say, oh, but he did answer this. And he did show up here and he did come through in this way and his timing was perfect. And it's only by writing things down or recording them in some way.

I mean, some of us have pictures for days on our phone. Okay. So if you don't want to write things. Create an album on your phone called prayers and gratitude. You know, if you're like, I'm just not a journaler, but I want to. Okay, fine. So take a picture of the things that you're grateful for. You see a great sense.

It take a picture of it, put it in the album. Um, you asking for God to give you a house, take a picture of a house that you love and stick it in there, but have some way of flipping back through those prayers, because I think you will find that it's a bigger gift to you than the work that you think is.

Yeah. Oh, that's so good. That's so good. And I love when, um, when God just gives us moments like that. It's like when the whole bench story happened, it was right when God knew that I needed that. Just reminder of. I've got this, you know, like I have everything about your future marriage and your movement and a half hours away from your family and you becoming a pastor's wife and everything that everything he brought in that season, he had it all under control.

And actually down to, I'm going to give you this specific cherry on top, just to show you how faithful I am and it just, yeah. So I love moments like that.

So there is a question that I ask every guest on that comes on the show. It's my favorite question. And so I'm excited to hear what you have to say, and that is, what do you think is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given?

Um, slow down. My mother would say to me all the time. Yeah. You just gotta take it easy. You just have to slow down. She would compliment me for enjoying my children and this won't last forever. I would take a picture of myself getting off a plane in California, and I love the California sun. I'm afraid of the San Andres fault, but I love the sun.

And I would say I'm in my favorite place. And she would say good for you. Enjoy she, she loved to see me enjoying life. Yeah. And even when she was sick, she would say to us, Y'all are so busy, you've got to slow down and smell the roses. Life goes so fast. So this wasn't like I'm sick. And I'm trying to tell you, this is like her message of life, enjoy this.

And so I think we're so often trying so hard to get somewhere and we only pray because we want. Yeah, but there's something to be enjoyed by slowing down and observing the entirety of where you are and taking it in. And I think that that's the way for life. And I think that that's the way for prayer.

Slow down. Yeah, don't just come to him, rushing through what you want, slow down and learn what it is to bask in the presence of a holy God who wants to be known. And who wants you to know that he really does know you, and if we could stop the drive-thru prayers and just say, I'm here. Good morning. You know, think about when you're married and you have a lazy Saturday morning and you roll over and you look at your spouse and you're at a site.

What are we going to do today? There's a, there's an in enjoying life at a slower pace. And I know sometimes we can't do that. I know there are stressful seasons. I know, you know, even in the middle of COVID-19, there's a lot of tough stuff, but I'm saying even in the tough stuff, find something to notice because it will be gone.

And then you'll realize that there were a lot of things to notice. Appreciate, enjoy, and take in. But yeah. Yeah. Cause you were too busy trying to get out of it, trying to move forward or trying to check it off. Yeah. We only get this one life and I just think it's to be enjoyed so slow down, be grateful, find something lovely in every season of life, take the lesson, but find the lovely, and then it will make your life full to realize that you actually live.

Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I think this season has taught me that more than I think any other, you know, I've said so many times that for the first time I watched my backyard turn green, you know, for the first time I think in my life and you know, my husband and I have had while leading a church through this has been crazy, crazy.

I'm thankful for the downtime that I've had with the Lord. I'm thankful for it. Just being outside and enjoying his creation more. There's just so many things that I've been able to just savor in 2020 that I've never acted. Honestly, Sam never savored before, and that's been really cool as hard as it's been and to save her for sure.

That's for sure. So crystal, I am so excited about this book. Tell listeners where they can pre-order it. By the time it comes out, it'll be just before the. So tell them all the places they can find you and get the book, all the things.

So in order to get the book, go to crystal Evans, harris.com forward slash prey.

And, uh, not only will you find out where to get the book, you can get it. Wherever books are sold and there are links there, but you'll also be able to take a look at the pre-orders and we've tried to make it really enticing for you to pre-order it. Not only are there topical prayers in the back of the book, they're like 12 of them.

We added another 30 that are going to be a digital download. And not only can you download them, but I also will have audio prayers as well. That, so if you want me to just read them to you, then I can, there are Spotify playlist there. Printables. I mean, there's just a lot of fun stuff. And the reason why pre-orders are important, I always try to educate on this is that it tells the publisher who actually wants the book.

And if you've ever wanted a book and it was out of stock and you had to wait, that's why the publisher didn't print them because they didn't know you wanted them. So when you pre-ordered. You take the pressure off of yourself because then you don't have to remember later. Cause you're not going to remember.

And then you also make sure that the thing you thought you wanted when you're hearing this show, that, that you get it when it comes out and then you get all the extra per your bonuses too, to find out about me and anything else I'm doing. And there's always something I'm doing. You can just go to crystal Evans, horace.com.

And by going there, you can join. The email is find the links to my social media. I listen to podcasts, read the blog, find the YouTube channel. It's all right there.