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.
Eulogy For A Vietnam Veteran at Barrancas National Cemetery- Sept 30, 2021- Gary Huff
Gary Huff was 5 years older than me and he and Fran and Bill and I shared an era of coming of age that affected our generation significantly….. the 60s and 70s. Music, family life, education, the assassination of a president, the moon landing, and the Vietnam War. My favorite Uncle was an 82nd Airborne Master Sargent. Some of my most fervent prayers as a teen were for the safety of him and other deployed US military during the 60s and 70s. When my uncle volunteered for a third tour in Vietnam, I heard my Daddy ask his brother in law why he was going back again. My uncle responded that...
Looking Back at 2016….
(CBB-written in Jan 2016) There are some, I expect, who wonder why I, at 62, continue to explore new "vistas", pursue new goals, and continue going after ministry activities and opportunities with passion and energy.....because that's who God made me to be. God's not done with me yet. I'm not done with life yet. "Retirement" is not a word that fits easily into my vocabulary. Moses was 80 when God called him to his greatest and God-chosen work! For many of us, the opportunity to do the things in life that we really love and have been prepared for come only after years of working in...
“Bummer Lambs”
"Bummer lambs"...…..A lot of people feel that way in life and need the tender one-on-one care of The Good Shepherd to experience the feeling of being truly loved! I’ve often felt that God creates some of us with a profound depth of loneliness in our souls to draw us more closely to himself. Perhaps this is how God crafts some of his most devoted disciples..... simply by his choice of our family and how we feel nurtured within them or do not......Only God, who is called in scripture The Lifter of My Head can fill that deep cavernous void that some try to fill with so many other things of this...
Good Old Days
Sept 28,2020 Word for today from Ecclesiastes 7:10: “Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.” Keep your focus on today. Each day is a gift. Open it. Enjoy it. Be blessed by it. Be a blessing to someone else through it. Thank God and make some memories to carry forward into tomorrow. But for those who live The Awakened Life, we know that if tomorrow does not arrive to us, only the hands of the clock will have been stilled. Everything else of value about who we are continues in the Timeless Eternity that is our true home in fellowship...
Letting Go By Bits and Pieces
From Sept 28,2020…… what COVID is doing to some people….. What good does it do to continue in the body if one’s spirit and soul are strangled to death by isolation, anxiety, loss of the important relationships and activities of one’s life? Only those who are willing to sacrifice that biocentric view of life that preservation of one’s physical well-being is the be-all and end-all of one’s existence will know the joy of truly living into the fullness of life -spirit, soul, and body-while it continues and when the physical life ends, according to God’s timing, one’s spirit/soul will gently...
Liminal Light
This is a testimony and significant part of the reason why I am so adamant about no smoking at Titus 2 or around my home. Written a couple of years ago, I have shared it a number of times with women in recovery. Kicking nicotine along with other chemical dependencies provides significantly greater long term sobriety success according to multiple long term studies. “I have written in the past about randomly smelling stale tobacco smoke in the past and, after medical consultation, Christian counseling and discussion with others who have experienced the same phenomenon, I had recognized that it...
Trauma-Informed Church
I observed some folks mentally applauding this meme: “If churches want to help people heal they need to become trauma-informed. Everything is not the devil.” As it garnered “likes” I thought to myself ( and posted): Who or what do you think was responsible for the evil that caused some of that trauma? When one has smelled the harassing spirit of fear, knows what the spirit of envy and cowardice looks like, recognizes the spirit of deception, sees the spirit of paranoia or suffering standing in the presence of a person you begin to realize how present evil is in this present dark realm. Not...
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...