About the Author
Cathy Boyd Byrd invites others to join her in considering topics of interest to those on the Christian spiritual journey…..discipleship, spirituality, mental health, Christian growth, and Bible study. Cathy enjoys working with others as they transition from emotional emergency and brokenness to spiritual emergence and abundant living! Many of the topics about which Cathy writes are interrelated as experienced in her own life and in the lives of those with whom she works in counseling, teaching, and case management, and in friendships. She believes that sharing our journey of Christian growth and spirituality helps us know God and ourselves better and connects us with others!
Cathy is a Christian Educator and Life Recovery Counselor, and an ordained deacon through Christian Leaders Institute. She serves as Community Outreach MInister at Lynn Haven United Methodist Church. She is a student (disciple) of the Holy Spirit and shares with her students (disciples) the things the Lord teaches her through Bible study and contemplation, incorporating experiences interpreted through the Word, cherished traditions of her faith, and reasoning that comes from seeking the mind of Christ in accountable community. She was widowed in August 2020 after 48 years of marriage to Bill Byrd, is mother of 2 and grandmother of 5. Her journey of faith has been lifelong and continues to be an adventure with the trailblazer and guide, Jesus Christ!
Cathy is the founder and program manager for a Christian women’s residential life recovery program, Titus 2 Partnership, Inc.(www.titus2.life) in Panama City, Florida.
Ecological Co-habitation
So.... I'm sitting in the dark scrolling along and clicking between FB and Twitter, checking some of my favs, and I catch a glimpse of a shadow of something on the top edge of the screen. I focus in on the top of the screen and look closer.... there it goes again....wait, what's this? It's …..a......SPIDER crawling across the top of my computer! Awwwww….. Thankfully I am not afraid of spiders. So I blow him off and tap the computer against my knee for good measure and hope he finds somewhere cozy for the night. You do know they are all around us and a necessary part of the ecosystems in...
Reuse, Renew, Recycle….
Everything old is new again..... We have had this trash can for many years. I had it in the laundry area of the garage at Deerpoint Lake. A painter in 2013 got paint on the lid and it looked awful. When I moved I considered trashing it. Instead I cleaned the stainless steel exterior and the plastic interior liner. Then I bought a can of mat black spray acrylic paint and taped and repainted the lid. It now fits right in with the stainless appliances at Grand Falls Lane. I love it when things can be renewed and continue to be useful! 😊 From 2/26/2021
Unstuck: The Muck of Grief
My daughter in law shared this from Stasi Eldredge about grief. Like many others, I know the feeling of slogging through "knee deep mud" in the middle of grief. Some images are so vivid. I can remember a day when I was about 6 or 7. I headed to my friend's house nearby, probably running. There was a vacant lot between my house and hers. I started across the vacant lot and quickly realized that it was like a pit of quick sand from recent rain. I sank down into the mud to a level about mid-shin high and lost both tennis shoes as I struggled to extricate myself from the muck. Thankfully I also...
Visiting Daddy
I had a sweet dream last night and I think I know where it came from....Harper Lee died last Friday, on my birthday. I had purchased her second novel ,"Go Set a Watchman", a sequel to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird." I started reading it this week. It begins with the now-adult Scout, now being referred to by her given name of Jean Louise, traveling back to her hometown and anticipating the reception by her faithful Father, who always met her at the train station or airport. He's grown old and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and she has chosen train travel because...
What A Friend!
Wise words: In conversation a person said to me in a very thoughtful way, "I'm starting to see friendship differently. It is about being there and doing for others." Indeed, friendship is defined by our willingness to "lay down our lives" for others - our time, our preferences, our demands, our needs for attention, etc. Jesus said there is no greater love than to "lay down one's life for another". I don't think he was talking only about the literal, physical, to-the-death kind of "laying down" (although Jesus himself was willing to make the point to us by doing exactly that!) Anytime we make...
This Isn’t Recovery
Recovery is "a process of change through which people improve their health and wellness, live self-directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential." (US government, as defined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.” In that dreamy state of half asleep I heard a boy’s voice that sounded like Bill’s. It said simply, “This isn’t recovery.” What isn’t recovery? Eating four caramel brownies with milk for supper? Dreaming all night of Bill and me doing everyday kinds of things? Remembering the last 24 hours with him in the hospital? Re-reading all of the texts...
Fragile Egos and Broken China
2/25/2015: In discussing a situation in which I was fervently adamant and outspoken , a friend likened my actions to those of a "bull in a china shop" and said "people don't like getting their china broken." I replied, "I didn't realize in this situation that I was among individuals with such fragile china that they would feel the need to be protected from me." My friend laughed, then told me that the specific group about which we were speaking was quite full of fragile people. Scary thought.......(considering the influence they're granted over people with as much standing as they themselves...
Survey: Fingers in the Wind
God has such a sense of humor! I laughingly joke about a survey to assess people's response to Facebook posts and God sends me an article on how to do it with numerous resources to do it! How appropriate that such a resource would come from a UMC board, given its penchant for discerning and getting in tune with cultural trends! I receive a monthly newsletter from the UMC Board of discipleship. This month it is on "The Value and Use of Surveys"! It asks "how do we recognize God at work in our congregations and communities? How do we discern how God is calling us to lead as people charged with...
Aging and Ageism
Bill has said for a while now that he has begun to observe that our culture in general begins dismissing people who are "of a certain age". The opinions of those who are no longer actively engaged in producing obvious economic value to others may be perceived as less culturally relevant, unpopular, politically incorrect, etc. So he's quit offering opinions so quickly or broadly. Being retired takes you out of venues where anyone else has to listen to what you say! Oddly, however, when he sends occasional feedback to beta test folks at software companies (who by the way consider him a "high...
Failures of Courage
2/24/18 Another School Shooting All the conversation in the most recent news cycle about failure of courage on the part of some who hid instead of defending our children reminds me of times when I was deciding whether or not to apply for a concealed carry permit at a time and during circumstances in which I believed there was a real potential risk to me and others. Would I take the life of someone threatening me ? Threatening those I love? Threatening those for whom I was responsible? Threatening unknown indefensible innocents? Threatening random strangers? What could sacrificing my own...