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.
Spiritual Direction….Gift Not Vocation
About ten years ago I was encouraged by a friend to apply for a new program being offered through our church’s regional office, a spiritual direction training class. It was to be a three-year program. I applied, along with her. She was selected for the class; I was not. Other interests and areas of growth occupied my time for the next decade. However, in 2014 I was assigned a ministry coach and worked with the coach through phone contacts for over two years. At one point in our coaching, she told me that the spiritual work I was doing was not in her area of expertise. She was a technician...
Peculiar People
Titus 2:14 (KJV) says that Christ gave Himself to redeem us from sin and “purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Bill and I listen many mornings to the teaching of Dr. David Jeremiah at oneplace.com . Today he was teaching from Revelation 14 regarding the 144,000 witnesses bearing the mark of Christ, singing before the throne in Heaven. “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as...
“Why are you doing this?”
"There are two choices in the Christian life. You can drift along, or you can employ your talents enthusiastically for the glory of the Lord........God is not going to measure the use of our talents against those of other people, but only against what we ourselves are capable of doing according to how he has equipped us." Charles Stanley John 13 Jesus, knowing that He had come from God and was going away to God, stood up from dinner and removed His outer garments. He then wrapped Himself in a towel, poured water in a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with His...
Titus 2 Ministry Continuing to Grow
The photo at the top of this post was sent to me by a friend several years ago. I've seen a lot of what people called their own "rock bottom", but I had never seen one quite like this! This week we celebrate our 4th anniversary of Titus 2's ministry to women. A friend wrote on a personal FB post that Titus 2 is changing lives. Titus 2 Partnership, Inc. is also going to be changing its ministry outreach. We have sought to be proactive in helping to educate the community, to cooperate with various agencies to work for improved recovery outcomes, to make recovery support accessible to...
Hey, SJW, how’d that social action work out for you?
Thirteen years ago I engaged in some correspondence with a well-known social justice warrior (SJW) theologian/preacher. He did not like my read on what brings a person to salvation and a real relationship with Christ.....conviction, repentance, confession, belief in Jesus. Sadly, it has been borne out that his approach did not work with some key individuals in his own life who have forsaken the Christian faith to set up a SJW "church" that excludes Jesus altogether, denies the existence of heaven, and simply tries to love people in lieu of directing them to salvation.. Banking on "good...
And When I Die
Under the foggy haze of pain medication during my second child's delivery a problem in delivery gave me the impression that I was dying....I was not alarmed. I thought to myself simply, "This is what it feels like to die......" and prepared to surrender myself to death. It was not what it seemed and I later marveled at how easy it was to surrender without fear to the notion of death. I guess thinking of Barbara Bush's death has reminded me of that time....and this dream about which I wrote Awake from Dying…… by Cathy Boyd Byrd | posted at www.disciplerofself.com Jan 12, 2016 “There are times...
Grandfather God?
I shared this with a believer who expressed fawning adoration of several of her spiritual role models. "God has no grandchildren." There is no such thing as being "grandfathered" in to the Kingdom of God. Each person is adopted as a child and is a co-heir with Christ. So be sure you are connected by first-degree relationship to the Triune God......Not through clinging to the coat tail or pedestal or hanging on every word of a pastor, teacher, friend, family member, mentor, or televangelist whom you have made your spiritual parent, trusting that their knowledge of and relationship to God and...
Christian “Yoga”
Yoga: THINK Young Over Growing Aged You know, for years I resisted anything having to do with Yoga, associating it as I have with Eastern meditation techniques and Buddhist or New Age religion, which it has been and which can take one into a dangerous spiritual realm for those who are not well grounded and don't know how to guard their hearts and minds. But God, after all, created the human body and moving the human body in any configuration of positions and moves that increases flexibility, agility, strength, mobility, and balance is useful, especially as we age. A Christian who is...
Let’s Start At The Very Beginning
There are days when I begin discipleship work with someone new that we sit for three hours or longer….I have a prescribed list of topics that are necessary to cover in our first private session. Defining expectations, stating disclaimers, making the priorities and goals clear, introducing new terms, making assignments, and assuring mutual understanding right at the very start. Invariably, we wander off task into places that this new would-be disciple needs to go. She doesn’t feel safe. She’s not sure. She is afraid. Not of me, but of the process…..and sometimes of God. (Well, maybe sometimes...
Civil War In The Church…….Really?
Civil War In the Church…..Really? Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. What was his entire ministry but a civil war against the way the Jewish faith had been corrupted, had rebelled against God, its leadership having become a colluding partner with the culture of its day? What was it but civil war when Martin Luther opposed the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, the selling of indulgences and the collusion with political entities of his day? When great revivals rise up what are they but civil unrest in opposition to systems that have become complacent and blind to their faults? I am not surprised...