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.
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...
Ticking Time in the UMC Stalemate
As reports come out this week from a meeting of the UMC General Committee on General Conference which is rumored to be being planned for later summer, it reminds me of three years ago ..... when some were optimistic enough to believe the stalemate in the divide between forces in Methodism would eventually end. We thought it would be a rough three days of General Conference. It's been a rough three years and no one knows when or how it will end. 2/24/2019 "Well, the reports of threats from liberals to disrupt and shut down the UMC General Conference rather than allow a vote on the...
Laughter:Garrison Keillor on Methodists
Sent by a friend: GARRISON KEILLOR ON "METHODISTS" We make fun of Methodists for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed, and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them. If you were to ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Methodist-less place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Methodists, they'd smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the...
Politically Driven Mass Hysteria
People are ( and have been for a while) going way out of their way to criticize one another’s choices politically based on “Christian” faith. I doubt Jesus could be said to have agreed with the brutal empire that ruled Judah and all the environment in his world at the time. Yet he said “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” He clearly disagreed with the Pharisees and the power they swayed in collusion with the Romans against the everyday folks just trying to live their lives. And he was pretty brutal in his epithets against them. And the judgment he recommended for those who harm innocent...
When God Smiles
Mission accomplished....... Sometimes something happens that just lets one know without a doubt that an effort was all worthwhile even though difficult. God's peace had rested upon me with such a powerful presence... Then I heard about a particular "something" that made me smile and I felt God was smiling, too. It certainly is a joy when God arranges circumstances so that information one would have had no reason to know or access to is suddenly given in an unexpected way and it is like a personal message from God that confirms that one's actions were, in fact, in keeping with God's will....
Redemption: “That None Should Perish”
Questioning the ways of God is an exercise in futility..... we are especially clueless in trying to “read” his redemptive will in the midst of man’s bad decisions.....in a Genesis study a group was discussing Hagar, pregnant in the desert after she ran away from Sarah’s jealous, ill humor. But God heard her grief and sent a messenger who told her to go back to her persecuting, harsh slave mistress. She stayed until Ishmael was about 14, then left when sent away by Sarah who now had her own son. Why would God send a pregnant woman back into such a difficult place? Then when the child is 14,...
Fun Just Happens…
2/23/2015 Saturday I was wearing a couple of glass bead bracelets. One of the Titus 2 ladies was looking at the bracelet and said, "The two clasps look like an owl!" Sometimes fun things just happen!
Words Fitly Spoken
Proverbs 25:11 "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." It is a surprise and a humble joy when one's words "fit" the place of need or yearning in another's heart, especially for those who are called to teach or preach. Our voice may speak the words, but God knows the "who" and "how" to make them fit where he wants them to reside! There is an ancient proverb attributed to Buddha that says, "When the student is ready the teacher will appear." Some of the most powerful lessons in my life have seemed to come by "accident" or from unexpected sources in a moment when I...