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.
Time’s Illusions
Time is a strange thing when filtered through the lens of memory. “I had thought that Bill’s cousin, Dr. Bobby Echols, died on Thanksgiving weekend and that this Thanksgiving (2019) would be 2 years. Bobby’s sister, Debra Echols Turner, texted me this past week with a reminder that it was Labor Day Weekend- of last year, 2018! Barely a year. I was stunned. We’ve been through so much and so much was going on when we got news of Bobby’s sudden death. Since October 10th, 2018, (when H. Michael hit) until today time is more or less a blur.” (from November 2019. CBB) I came across the note above...
A Random Winter Saturday
What an utterly beautiful winter solstice weekend in the Heart of Dixie! I bought a new Burford Holly and planted it. (Not prickly!). And I planted a Peggy Martin Rose I’d bought around Thanksgiving and wove it into the garden arch. I refilled bird feeders and got a cute squirrel and hedgehog holiday seed feeder for the birds. I moved one feeder outside the fenced side yard because Simon spends time lying in the sun near the feeders there inside the fence. He’s too crippled to chase birds but they don’t seem to know that. The feeder outside the gate is a safe place away from the cats that...
Living The Kingdom
From 12/19/21. CBB A friend of mine died recently. Many knew him and those who knew him well knew him as a generous and kind person. Many people had stories of him coming to the aid of someone by providing for or making contact on someone's behalf to provide for a need. You probably know people like that. In your church, in your neighborhood, in your community. Such people are part of the Kingdom Economy of God. That is an altogether different way of living than the Contract Economy of the Culture. It is the economy by which Christan believers help take care of one another, first and...
Another Christian Year, Another Opportunity for Humankind
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” replied the angel, “and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. For that reason he shall be called the Son of God.”Luke 1:35 This is the beauty and majesty of the Advent story and the angel’s Annunciation to Mary for us: Jesus said that one must come into the Kingdom of God as a little child…..He himself came into the world as a little child, bringing the kingdom of God with Him. He departed this realm, returning to heaven so that God’s Holy Spirit might come upon and dwell within us, as it did in Him. By His Holy Spirit we are born anew,...
Perspectives on Deliverance
I have been journeying alongside a young woman for about 7-8 years. I have some responsibility for her that arose out of her broken family history and having no one on whom to lean. She has developmental disability and some emotional and spiritual traumas. We’ve worked through a lot over the years, especially in emotional and spiritual literacy. But there is only so much that we can do given her limitations. The perverse, pervasive, and persistence of trauma in her young life has caused significant dissociative behavior, externalizing emotions and spiritualizing life to a degree that makes...
Reading the Signs
The is a post from December 2021, when I recognized the changing marketplace for addiction recovery as a result of “Obamacare.” I knew then it was time to consider future changes coming to my ministry. Now, with those changes behind me, I find myself just as busy, just as aware of the need for my ministry and far more relaxed in the doing of it than under the stress of the prior pattern in full time residential care. Titus 2 Partnership, Inc. Envisions the Future. CBB 12/6/21 We have available to our county several insurance-paid local 30-day in-patient substance abuse programs, a 60 day...
Get to the Source
"If we cared more about the source of a person’s pain than their reaction to it, we might have a better chance at speaking truth to the lies, light to the darkness, and Christ to the evil." Copied from an observed Twitter post.
”Fear Not”
"Names of Jesus used by the demons: Son of God (Mt 8:29) Jesus of Nazareth (Mk 1:24) Holy One of God (Lk 4:34) Son of the Most High God (Lk 8:28) Even the demons recognize Jesus as incarnate—truly God, truly man."Posted @ Twitter by Dustin Benge Today a Titus 2 lady told me about a dream she'd had in which an angel spoke to her, "Fear not. Something foreboding is going to happen. Stay focused on trusting in Christ." We talked about her dream. Later she said to me, "You know how to tell a demonic spirit from an angel? A demon never says, "Fear not." Demons feed on fear. They want you to be...
Titus 2 Ministry Report November 2025
11/2,11/5 Transportation provided for disabled woman to visit family out of state following personal emergency 11/12 Completed Meals on Wheels monthly route 11/6 Referral of a young mother from jail to long term recovery program 11/1 $500 Financial grant for emergency food assistance to PC Rescue Mission to prepare daily meal bags during government shutdown 11/10 Donation of 6 winter coats, 8 blankets, 6 pillows, 6 long sleeve t-shirts, 4 undershirts, 8 pr socks and 6 cases of bottled water delivered to emergency services for freeze warming shelter Teaching sessions at 3 programs in Bay...
Naomi Returning
I'm here, in Panama City Beach, Florida, finding my way as I come to a place where "family" may be found again, having returned from the far country of exile that was Hurricane Michael and COVID-19, where my husband died, like a modern day Naomi. I am in the care of Ruths who do not leave, but come alongside because we share the same grief. I look for familiar faces from an earlier once-and now-again place, from before the famine(s) that scattered so many. But so much has changed. I feel dis-placed. I push away the bitterness that some feel in this circumstance because I know God is with me....