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.
At the Edge of History
Early in my young adult life I was taken in by the courageous, persevering women of the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama who became spiritual mothers to me. They worked through many means, including the League of Women Voters where I myself volunteered and studied how to change the world, one person alone, one task at the time, in the face of overwhelming opposition, standing only in the name of what’s right and good and fair (as exemplified in the life of Christ for nearly every one of us, though some of our sisters were Jewish and others were Universalists, and...
Plowed Fields
"The best yields always start as broken fields." (From The Broken Way by Ann VosKamp) The Lord spoke to my heart on March 20, 1997 as I drove past this lovely fresh-plowed field on U.S. Hwy. 231 South, just north of Cottondale, FL. A sudden burst of light, like a lightning bolt, seen out of the corner of my eye, caused me to turn toward this view and I felt the Lord say, "This is you!" i was surprised and delighted by the Lord's Word that afternoon. I went home and began reading passages about "field", "plowing", "planting", etc. in an effort to discern God's will. I was...
Wilderness Wooing
You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.-Robert Murray McCheyne Pastor Donna Pfeffer is leading our ladies through “”Discerning the Vouce of God” by Priscilla Shirer. Today Shirer’s lesson was on hearing God in the wilderness..... using principles from the life of Moses I had been reflecting on some thoughts from Ann Voskamp, too, this week on being in the wilderness not because you’ve been banished but in order that you might be wooed. “Behold I will...
Same Kind of Sinful as Me….
Text message from a young lady in recovery: "Why does satan continue to fight a war with God he has already lost?" Me: "Because he is stubborn and willful......just like us." God is sovereign. His will is ultimately going to be done. Yet we, like satan, continue to think we can negotiate with, rebel against, or ignore God. How is that any different than what satan has always done? God is patient. He will bring about his justice when he is ready. In the meantime, he patiently and lovingly redeems the mistakes and bad choices of all of us when we are willing to submit to him in repentance and...
God’s Heart
I had a call from someone who has struggled with depression for a decade or longer. A couple of times it has taken him to the dark, despairing edge of suicidal ideations. Thankfully, God was always there to bring him back from the precipice of destruction. He had an experience in the last few days that led him to call me to ask some questions. He had been listening to a radio news program from a large metropolitan area near his home. There was a report of a 2-year-old child killed by the mother’s boyfriend. He found himself suddenly weeping uncontrollably at the thought of such a tragedy. He...
A Word Well-Spoken…..
When it comes to evangelism, I prefer the St. Philip method....by divine appointment, where they are, one-on-one, answering their questions, teaching the Word, celebrating a covenant, and equipping the receiver to take it home and duplicate the process...... When it's by God's design you can "be bright, be brief, and be gone" and the message will have been exactly what it was supposed to be. Some of the most memorable and life changing events of my life consisted of no more than 2 or 3 sentences well placed by divine appointment. The fire of the Holy Spirit will bring parties together,...
Why Spiritual Counseling Is Useful Adjunct Therapy to Mental Health Counseling- Reason #2
Last week I wrote about spiritual attacks and the fact that there are sometimes demonic influences causing dysfunctional behavior and thinking in people. Discerning and addressing such demonic influences is only one reason why spiritual education and counseling is a valuable adjunct to mental health counseling. A second reason involves the issue of personal identity. Many times people lack sufficient self- awareness, understanding, and self-confidence to be able to stand in their own emotional, mental, and moral strength. Instead, they are constantly looking to others as a frame a...
Waiting for the Return of Christ…..
Joshua 1:6-8 New King James Version (NKJV) 6 Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall [a]divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may [b]prosper wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you[c] shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will...
Why Spiritual Counseling and Mental Health Treatment Should Be Concurrent
I wrote about a spiritual attack on someone and having observed a pattern in that attack that I had seen before. I have experienced a few spiritual attacks myself on occasion, so it is a matter of interest to me. Several news service articles have been written about a psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Gallagher, who provides assistance in “discerning” the presence of demonic spirits in individuals referred to him by others. He observed: “ ‘The clergy of many different faiths who have sent people to me sense that something is happening that is of the world beyond.’ These victims, he said,...
Deep Rivers and Broad Deltas
I had a conversation with an individual in a service ministry in which the individual shared that he knows that his very active service ministry will have to change in the next few years and he sees God’s hand at work preparing him and circumstances around him for that eventuality. He shared that there are several routes that are becoming real possibilities in how it can go and he’s in a bit of a quandary in praying about which one is truly God’s will. As we talked I asked him, “Why does only one of them have to be truly God’s will? Consider this: For many years you have proven yourself...