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.
Obedience
Me: ( Mar 20,1997, exclaiming in early morning praise) “Surely, Lord, you have created the beauty of this world for your glory and my delight!” The Lord: (in a rather stunning, but gentle reply) “Tell others.” Me: “What am I to tell? To whom? How? Where? When?” The Lord: (silence) Me: (Three months later,again). “I am yours, Lord. What do you want me to do? Just show me what it is.” The Lord: “Just get up each day and do the things before you. I will bring them to you.” Me: (Today.) “Here I am, Lord, just doing that which is before me this day. Use me as you will.” Me: (To others)....
What’s In A Name? Perhaps More Than One Might Think
I was looking at a family Facebook page of my grandmother’s Baxley family. Ludie Bell Baxley Greene….. in some ways I am very much like how I remember her….. loving the Lord and family and accepting of the Lord’s will and at some times when I laugh, I hear her laughter in my ears and brain and it makes me smile. A relative had posted some pics and listed names of the surviving siblings at this point in the past at a family reunion at Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in Barbour Co, AL. I saw her name, surprised by what was listed, most likely, an auto- correct misspelling that wasn’t caught....
The Door Is Open- New Room Conference 2021
On the final night of the Seedbed.com New Room Conference in Murphreesboro, TN Friday night, September 24, 2021, as I watched people walk through the open door, I was reminded of a prophetic word spoken to me over 4 years ago. The last time I thought about this was in December 2020, a few months after my husbands death, when I found out I would become a great grandmother the next year. I couldn’t help thinking how like Naomi my life had become, grieving the loss of spouse, then being restored to joy and vision for the future by a baby……. I had overlooked Sarah’s word from the Lord that going...
Visions and Heavenly Realms
“Isaiah received a vision. And it transformed his ability to see. It radically reordered the ways he viewed the past, present, and future. For a brief, life-quaking moment, the curtain was pulled back and he was able to catch a glimpse of the baseline reality of this universe—Yahweh is enthroned as the one and only God, unrivaled in his reign……… This vision gave him a way to perceive. And he was never able to see the world in the same way again.” Seedbed Daily Text 9/24/21 Lord, give us a vision for our world, not just a view from our present perspective. Pondering in the Word…. Third...
Behold! God’s Revelation of Himself
“Behold!” With each step of Jesus’ life and ministry described in scripture we are given revelations of the truth of who he is through the eyes of first one person after another - Mary and Joseph, shepherds and Magi, Simeon and Anna, John the Baptist, satan (in the wilderness), wedding guests in Cana, his disciples, those who were healed, the centurion, Nicodemus, the Syro-Phoenician woman, Saul the persecutor, and on and on and on. But when WE behold what manner of love He has given unto us and experience the transforming work of His Holy Spirit in our own lives, becoming holy as He is...
Anxiety as Idolatry
I had not considered how anxiety betrays an innate idolatry…. That is a helpful insight and something to be aware of in the future. Anxiety, also expressed as “worry”, suggests that we are desiring an outcome that we fear we may not get. That does seem quite contrary to trusting God who is our all-sufficient “I Am.” There are people who are like pressure cookers of anxiety, emotional instability, depression, confusion, anger, or assorted other distresses or dysfunctions who use God and religion like a pressure release valve.....as often as needed to give themselves relief from their...
Lamenting Prayers
I heard Tera Beth Leach preaching on laments by God’s people and I remembered my own recently written response to Covid from early last year to now. In a lamenting prayer I wondered what lessons we were to learn from this pandemic, violence, and division as a nation, as a community, as people of God… I'm not sure the world or any nation or any institutions of man, even the church, can learn the lesson God intends for us in this. I think we have to learn one by one what response we will make to it all.... in the end that's all any of us can control-our own response to the circumstances around...
On Suffering
“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Something shared in social media by a friend and worth remembering; . “In Gethsemane, the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.” C.S.Lewis Not my will, but Yours. Amen. My observation: I realized that the Apostle Paul, who also asked three times to have a “thorn in the flesh” removed, found his prayer answered with the promise of the...
Reflection on Psalm 51 and the Heart of Transformative Change
Psalm 51: 7, 10 “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow…….. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” This Scripture is the memory verse for Step 7 in the Twelve Step study that we use with women at Titus 2. Today I was considering these verses as a young lady and I discussed this Step and I had these thoughts about it: This series of requests for cleansing by the Psalmist depicts a familiar pattern in Scripture…..a progressive movement. The first phrase, “Purge me with hyssop” suggests...
The Nazarene – Designer Original
For those fasting and praying today, consider this; Nazarites were to be OT examples of holiness in the world. They were to live by a strict set of rules and be an example to the world of righteous living. Some performed that role better than others. When they were filled with the Holy Spirit of God , they were used by God to accomplish great things. But the Holy Spirit in the OT did not dwell forever in an individual and one did not necessarily know when the Spirit was present or was no longer with him until the consequences of bad decisions made it clear they had been left behind because...