Empty nester wisdom with Chyrstal Evans Hurst (practical ways to prepare your kids for adulting)
Pardon the Mess with Scarlet Hiltibidal - Christian Motherhood, Biblical Parenting, Raising Christian Kids
Scarlet Hiltibidal and Christian Parenting
4.9 • 850 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Happy Summer folks!
This is the first episode in this series that I did not cry. You’re welcome. I wanted to get super practical with this one and asked Chrystal Hurst Evans to bring her best empty nest tips for us. She shares about ways we can start training and teaching our kids to live without us. From budgeting to cooking - she explains that much of this training happens well before their senior year. It’s a mindset shift earlier that helps make us all ready for those launching years.
As a writer, speaker and gatherer, Chrystal has a massive passion for women and how to get us up and moving towards goals. She is that “you can do it” friend that will light a fire under your overwhelmed body.Â
My favorite is when she shares about how to be a student of yourself. She reminds us that we each have massive skills and gifts from God and we often need our circle of friends to point those out. As moms, we often lose confidence in our skills and it can cause fear as the kids leave the home. What will I do now? Do I have what it takes to change directions or careers now that my time is more flexible? Praying this episode greatly encourages you and provides practical ways to equip you and your family for a new season.
In this episode, we chat about:Â Â
- Drawing boundaries with adult kids
- Teaching financial responsibilityÂ
- Learning yourself again - gifts, passions and skills
- Prioritizing prayer as you have less controlÂ
Enjoy!
CourtneyÂ
(00:00) Introduction and Personal Background
(03:03) Navigating the Challenges of Parenting
(05:45) Building a Business with Family
(08:50) Preparing for Empty Nesting
(11:42) The Importance of Early Independence
(14:29) Rediscovering Personal Passions
(17:24) Recognizing Transferable Skills
(19:37) The Journey of Self-Discovery
(22:51) Embracing Change in Marriage
(30:17) Faith and the Empty Nest Experience
Connect with Pardon The Mess:
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Resources from today’s show:
Connect with ChrystalÂ
Join the Sister Circle
100 Days to Discovering the Gift of You - Chrystal’s latest book
Pardon The Mess is a part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network. For more information visit www.ChristianParenting.org
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Christian Parenting. |
| 0:07.0 | As Christian parents, we all want to be praying for our kids, but knowing what to pray |
| 0:13.0 | can really be hard. |
| 0:14.0 | That's why Christian parenting created a great cloud of witnesses' prayer journal, is to help |
| 0:19.0 | busy parents, like you and and me intentionally pray for our kids |
| 0:22.7 | and their faith all year long. This weekly journal walks through the lives of faithful men and |
| 0:27.6 | women in scripture like Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, who trusted an extraordinary God. It helps you |
| 0:33.8 | to pray boldly for your kids, to follow in their footsteps, grow in character, |
| 0:38.3 | deepen their faith, and trust God's plan. And every Monday on this podcast right here, |
| 0:43.0 | on Part of the Mess, I will be praying with you through this very journal. So grab a group |
| 0:47.2 | of your friends, your mom friends, and y'all commit to this school year praying for your kids. |
| 0:52.2 | Visit cpgiv.org and use code cloud to get your special podcast listener discount. |
| 0:57.6 | That's cpgiv.org code cloud. |
| 1:35.8 | Hey friends, welcome back to Pardon the Mess. I'm your host, Courtney Defeo, and I have loved this series. In fact, I ran into a friend of mine at church and she said, okay, I've bingeed all of them and I've cried every week. I'm like, yeah, same. Me too. But I hope if you've got little kids in the home that you're also tuning in because I think there are some practical things we can do to prepare for that senior year and prepare for the emptiness so that we're not literally crashing and laying in the bed for a year. So I hope this series has been helpful to each of you. |
| 1:39.3 | And something else that was pressed on my heart today that I wanted just to share with all moms of all seasons is we've got to resist the temptation to compare. And very specifically, a couple of the guests |
| 1:49.2 | have brought up that there is more time. There is more capacity when you have kids outside of the |
| 1:55.1 | house, obviously. And so if you've got little kids in the home and you're like, I am barely |
| 1:59.4 | getting dinner on the table. I'm barely getting myself to bed. It can be in a super like intense time when you've got |
| 2:05.9 | little ones in the home. And so I want to remind you that whether you have one kid, two kids, |
| 2:10.5 | eight kids, first graders, second graders, like you have to resist the temptation to compare |
| 2:14.8 | yourself to other moms with different setups, with other moms |
| 2:18.7 | with different challenges, other moms with different wins. Maybe all of their grandparents are |
... |
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