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.
Ms Bernie’s Wisdom
I visit twice a week with a frail, elderly, declining widow who still lives in her own place alone. From what I observe, her days are all becoming a bland repeat of one another. Same routine, same entertainment, same preferred food, same conversations, same tiny handful of needs…… each morning she has a cup of coffee and 2 pieces of toast with peanut butter. She puts her hearing aid in and checks off another day on the calendar on the kitchen counter. But on our outings to the grocery store or drives along the beach, I hear an occasional new remembrance of some long ago event. And I hang on...
60 year overhaul
After a couple of months of more fatigue than I've ever experienced, I had a physical this past week at the urging of Bill and a friend. Bloodwork was all excellent! (Thank you, Lord!) I've been put through several cardiovascular tests. So far no alarms have been raised. I meet with Dr. Maner next week for his read of the CV evaluation results. He and I had a nice visit when I went in for the initial consult. I used to call on him when I sold cardiovascular drugs for AstraZeneca. We had a good chuckle when I told him about the rapid-fire changes in my life in the last year.....he said it...
Hurricane Michael Recovery
10/18/18 Post Hurricane Michael Recovery Status: whelmed, but not overly so. Thanks for prayers We are safe , secure and waterproofed now at the Byrd house. Adjuster scheduled for Nov 2. Titus 2 residence is windblown and tattered but standing. Some water damage to ceilings. Tree took out storage shed. And water system is laying down on ground. Recovery will be slow. Ladies all safe and with families. Some will come back and finish later. Only tears on Sunday when I saw our church. Public works and Services around county are being restored faster than expected, thanks to crews from all over....
CAT 5: Wind Is Wind
The day after the Hurricane Michael that hit 10/10/18 Bill said,”well, we can cross surviving a CAT 5 hurricane off our bucket list.” Me: “What bucket list? I didn’t know we had a list.” Reports have said Michel’s winds were 2mph below CAT 5 rating. I’ve discovered that with winds at that velocity 2 mph doesn’t make a lot of difference. It’s kind of like the heat......once you get over 90 degrees it’s a moot point. Hot is hot. Once you get over 120 mph, wind is gonna really rip stuff up! Seeing a 3 foot+ diameter pine snap like a toothpick is a bit daunting. Bill said if it weren’t for all...
Only God Knows
Sweet memories....... (written 10/18/2020) ”On the night that I first saw Bill Byrd, I was picked up at my dorm by one of his fraternity brothers and was escorted to a social event on Auburn's campus for those of us who were candidates for sweetheart of their fraternity. As my escort and I walked down the steps at the end of the walkway toward the car in front of the dorm, I saw a shooting star arc across the sky and thought how auspicious that seemed for that particular night. Twenty four years later our son had been dating a young lady for a couple of months when they called to tell us...
Understanding Communion in the Family and Church
God created man first, but God chose to incarnate himself within a woman first...... ......and placed Himself into a family, where God, laying aside His God-only omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, experienced human love, protection, nurture, and was taught by 2 loving parents who loved God with all their hearts, each of whom had made sacrifices in order to give Him life in the earth. This is the first earthly example of the permanent, abiding communion of God with humankind, of God incarnating himself through a human woman to become a human man. It should make us honor and revere the...
Watching Dead Come Alive
I visited this morning with a horrifically abused and neglected child-woman. We delighted in abundant morning glory vines, feathered heads of golden rod, and the warmth of sunshine mixed with a gentle breeze….. I marveled at her resilience, her gentleness, her forgiving heart until I remembered that Christ had sent a childlike-angelic being to her at the age of 3, she who was coming to distrust all adults because of the pain they caused, an angel who brought her to Christ Himself. Christ has been with her all these years to protect her spirit and soul when no one found it necessary to...
Abiding in The Lord
Today Pastor Terry Tatum preached at Lynn Haven UMC on conversion and repentance. At one point he referred to himself as one who had come to see his ego “self” as one inch big in comparison to a prior opinion of himself as a super-hero! It reminded me of a day when I was in heavy intercessory prayer with someone on the phone. We had been praying together probably 10-15 minutes when I became aware of a Presence beginning to draw around me. I experienced a feeling like physically shrinking ….God’s Presence was not threatening or harsh at all, but my sense of feeling myself shrinking in...
NEWSFLASH: Progressives Coming Around To Biblical Worldview!
Progressive humanists/educators once opined that children were “Tabula Rosa”, NOT bigoted, but loving and accepting of one another and that prejudiced behavior is learned through the corrupting influence of culture. Consider this: Now, with “new and improved theology” they are coming around to the Christian view of the brokenness of humanity at the level of systems and institutions, even all creation, at the level of genetics, and world views…. NEWS FLASH…. It’s not just people with white European ancestry who are marred by such human corruption…. brokenness is the universal human condition....
Holy Communion, Holy Consecration, Holy Commission
I and others have observed that religion is about belonging and behaving….. about affiliation with others and embracing the values and practices of the group. Life in Christ, Christianity, is about believing Christ is God and becoming Christlike through receiving the power of His Holy Spirit. I recall having begun to feel like I didn’t “belong” by the age of 10. My sense of “place” was disturbed when we moved at the end of my third grade year. We moved again in March of my fourth grade year. I had trouble finding my “place” among kids who had been together since preschool. I did find a...