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.
Transparency
Learning to live with transparency can be difficult. Because it also often means learning to live in anonymity and with being overlooked or disregarded. The more I discover, however, the joy of transparency, the less the downside bothers me. It is an exercise in learning humility, in realizing that one's presence and value can only be known as a consequence of allowing something or Someone to be seen through you
Aging’s Challenge
Three months before my 65th birthday the news from the orthopedic doctor was not what I expected. Recent foot pain in my left foot took me there thinking I might have a stress fracture. Alas, no. He says I have advanced arthritis in the joint on top of my foot that allows foot flexion. Treatment: rest, NSAIDS, a foot immobilization orthotic shoe insert, and ultimately joint fusion surgery, all of which are easier said than done given the tasks before us presently thanks to HM. I hadn’t really thought about turning 65 except to make a note about changing my insurance. Now suddenly 65 is...
God Can Handle My Emotions
"God doesn’t love you any less when you throw a temper tantrum. He doesn’t owe you an explanation, but he is never afraid of what you have to say. So tell him. It’ll be the beginning of healing." -- Pastor Rick Warren Yesterday in a prayer group, the facilitator asked us when did we come to the realization that God is ALWAYS WITH US? As I thought about it, after I became a born-again Christian there were situations and states of mind/emotion in which I was uncomfortable with the thought that God WAS always with me! I believed that I had to be in a posture and state of mind of acceptability...
Inviting Hospitality
How hospitable are the spaces and the places you inhabit and the graces you offer? How do you perceive your role there.......to force out, to keep out, to reach out, or to invite in? How did you get there? Is it a Good Place that is growing and enhancing the kingdom of God? "Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for...
Lineages and Legacies
I had pondered why Jesus was born in the line of Judah instead of that of Jacob’s firstborn, Reuben, as might have been expected based on the Jews’ emphasis on the firstborn’s rights. On the surface of it I didn’t see the rationale. I knew in my spirit that the answer was in the Word and I said to myself I’d ask God to show me. I’ve been part of a Bible study using Jessica Lagrone’s study of families in Genesis, Broken and Blessed. As we studied the life and family relationships of Joseph, 11th son of Jacob, the role of his brothers in God’s plan for Joseph became clear! Judah was the...
Little Gifts of Joy
After a very full week I took a few hours late Saturday afternoon for self care and enjoying the company of my son and daughter in love as they watched football at my home. I went to bed at 9 with a feeling of contentment. I awoke refreshed and full of anticipation for sharing in celebration with my forever family (which includes our children and their families!) . After prayer time and breakfast I went to get dressed. In my bathroom, right where I left them last night were my clothes from yesterday but with one difference…. A small white feather lay atop the black sweatpants. It wasn’t...
A Widow’s Theology of Suffering
Consider this: ... it was God who cast satan and the other rebellious, contending, resisting, unhappy angels to the earth among us. We may either join them in their consigned punishment, misery, jealousy, and hatefulness here or we can aspire to the transcendent life Christ teaches us to live, in the world but not of it..... and then step across the threshold to life beyond "this present darkness" that all must travel through. Every challenge I face, every hardship I surrender to Christ becomes a victory in light of the goal to grow into His grace and image. Life is not intended to be...
Adventures in Fellowship and Hospitality
A downtown church in our community started a ministry to the homeless and marginalized in 2014. It was forced to stop following damage from Hurricane Michael in October 2018 while repairs to the building were made. Then Covid interfered with starting back. But now it has resumed and is once again a bright spot for many on a Saturday morning. What's it like to minister through hospitality and fellowship at Saturday Community Breakfast? It's a lot of things - cooking, serving cereal-coffee-juice-plates of hot food, sharing clothing-shoes-toiletries, offering food boxes, cutting hair,...
Evolving Ecclesiology
The problem with the church, any church, is not the church. It's the expectations that people bring to the church.... In other words , the ecclesiology of individuals, or what they believe about the church. I worked through my personal ecclesiology in the 90's as I experienced individuals' hypocrisy (including my own), a church's rejection of a pastor and his family, another church's process of self evaluation and change and the extraordinary blessings of God that resulted, and my own evolving expectations (or attempts at reducing them) of people and institutions directed by people. I have...
Gift of Hospitality
11/1/2020 Reminded of the true gift of hospitality..... ( and thinking of my dear hospitable friend, Pammi Jo Alsip Nevins..... “People tell me they have the gift of hospitality by which they mean that they like dinner parties. They mean that they have (or aspire to have) a beautiful home with beautiful decor and an embarrassingly underused spare room, in which they enjoy entertaining exotic, interesting, appreciative guests who confirm just how lovely their home and their decor is. This is not the gift of hospitality. This is the gift of a box of chocolates. Biblical hospitality starts in...