She's Still There Bible Study Guide: Rescuing the Girl in You

By Chrystal Evans Hurst

What do you do if you look in the mirror and realize the life you want is not the life you're living? What do you do if you feel lost in the middle of your life? Or if you feel you've drifted away from your hopes, your dreams, and your plans?

In this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), Chrystal Evans Hurst shares what she's learned about how to love and honor your life—even when your life is not easy to love. You will be encouraged to take an honest look at your life right now . . . and see what might have taken you off track. You will look at Bible passages that reveal how to capture peace in the midst of hard seasons by seeing them as refining moments instead of defining moments. As you focus on the promise of God's truth for your future and run the race He has set for you, you will rediscover that the girl you once saw in the mirror . . . she’s still there.

The She's Still There Study Guide includes video discussion questions, Bible exploration, and personal study and reflection materials for in-between sessions.

Sessions include:

1. Fight for Your Life
2. Look at Your Life
3. Embrace Your Life
4. Develop Your Life
5. Encourage Your Life
6. Choose your Life

Designed for use with She's Still There Video Study (sold separately).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Aug 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9780310081777

Chrystal Evans Hurst

Chrystal Evans Hurst is the bestselling author of She's Still There and co-author of Kingdom Woman, with her father Dr. Tony Evans. She reaches a wide audience speaking at conferences, sharing on her blog and podcast, and teaching and leading women in her home church and around the world. In addition to her work and ministry, Chrystal is a COO (Chief Operating Officer), cultivating hearts and commanding chaos at home. She is a mother of five and homeschools three boys around the kitchen table while hugging two adult girls, a son-in-love, and three grandchildren every chance she gets. Chrystal is grateful to share her life with her husband, Jessie, in their home just outside of Dallas, Texas. You can find Chrystal and the chronicles of her life at chrystalevanshurst.com.

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ZONDERVAN

She’s Still There Study Guide

Copyright © 2017 by Chrystal Evans Hurst

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr., SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546

ePub Edition © June 2017: ISBN 978-0-310-08177-7

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover illustrations: AlienValley / Creative Market

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

First Printing June 2017

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

EBOOK INSTRUCTIONS

In this ebook edition, please use your device’s note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response Here]. Use your device’s highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

CONTENTS

Ebook Instructions

A Word from Chrystal Evans Hurst

How to Use This Guide

Session 1: Fight for Your Life

Session 2: Look at Your Life

Session 3: Embrace Your Life

Session 4: Develop Your Life

Session 5: Encourage Your Life

Session 6: Choose Your Life

Additional Resources for Group Leaders

A WORD FROM CHRYSTAL EVANS HURST

As a young girl, my parents encouraged me to live with wonder. My teachers gave me the courage to explore, my friends allowed me the chance to play, and my world offered me the opportunity to learn and grow. Fall and spring days were full with homework, school activities, and play with neighborhood friends. The summer months held visits to my grandparents, slumber parties with cousins, and long, boring days with an occasional trip to the library.

I had hopes and dreams and a picture of what my grown-up life might look like. I imagined my future family, my future career, and all the future places I would live. I figured I would either be a teacher or a famous actress and that I would live close to my family but have a second home near the beach. Every book I read and every person I met introduced me to more of the world that I could experience.

My youth wasn’t perfect, but less-than-perfect didn’t stop me from growing. I accepted my childhood for what it was: part of the process of my progress through life. I leaned into the living, believing that all the beautiful and unpleasant parts of my current and future picture would someday make sense if I just kept going. I believed all parts of my life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—could come together in the hands of the person who gave me life.

Fast-forward several years into the future. I am driving down the tollway in Dallas, headed home from another day at work, where I had spent hours stuffed in a cubicle, checking a million boxes with a red pen. My brain is about to explode. I hate my job. The clock crawls from the moment I sit in my chair until the time it is reasonable for me to run out the door at the end of the day. It feels as if I am gasping for fresh air.

In that moment, I pray, God, if you would just break both of my legs, that would make everything better. In my stressed-out, overwhelmed, off-track mode of thinking, I wish for the shelter of a hospital room to provide some time to assess where I had gotten off track and formulate a plan for making my life more like I had imagined it would be.

I hadn’t intended to end up in a job I didn’t love. I hadn’t intended to be a single parent. I hadn’t intended to have a heart still raw from the hurt imposed by others. It had never been my dream to fight my way through the academic challenges and personal struggles of my college years only to end up feeling deflated. I had filled my balloon of hope with expectations and dreams only to realize that I had not tied it tightly enough.

I would love to tell you that in those moments driving down the tollway and thinking like a crazy person, I magically gained clarity on how I had gotten off track. I’d like to say that I never got off track again. I would love to tell you that I figured all of it out right then and there and that I’ve had it all figured out since.

The truth is that I haven’t solved everything. I have gained an understanding over time, which is what I will share with you in this study, but I still don’t have all the answers. But the truth is also that I didn’t self-destruct that day in the car. I