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.
Prayer Prepares the Banquet
Today’s New Room Conference workshops that I attended were on prayer. I know that the Lord has had me working with a mentee on prayer in recent months most likely because of the oftentimes weak quality of my own prayer life. It has been an ebb and flow kind of thing for me most of my Christian life. Today’s sessions gave me much about which to reflect. When I got back to my resting place for the night I was tired and went right to bed. But as my brain began to drift to sleep, I had one of those simple single-frame visions with which the Lord has spoken to me before. It was an...
With All The Saints
Sermon- Carillon Beach Community Chapel - 9-18-16 Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4: 1-6, 11-16 I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.………. And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets,...
The Food Stamp Economy and the Paucity of Virtue
Over the years that I have been working with individuals who are homeless and women in recovery I have learned a lot about the food stamp economy. There are individuals who survive satisfactorily, in their current way of thinking, on the things they can buy with their monthly food stamp allotment, especially if multiple card holders are living under one roof and pooling their resources. And, although the funds accessible through the EBT card are supposed to only be redeemable for food at authorized food outlets, they are used to barter for all kinds of things. In my personal experience...
Ten Reasons Not To Be The Perfect Employee
Over the last 40 years I have worked in a variety of corporate environments dominated by men- in an office full of cotton brokers, in medical laboratories with male supervisors and owners, in field sales with major corporate organizations, in commercial insurance calling on almost exclusively male business owners, and elsewhere. I learned through work experience and in marriage that if I didn't set appropriate boundaries and speak my mind, I could easily convey wrong impressions or experience humiliation and resentment from feeling disrespected or used. I have been dismissed as "the little...
Don’t Quit Before the Miracle
Students at Titus 2 and others of us this week have been considering ‘resilience’. Resilience is defined as “the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like. Synonyms include buoyancy, rebound, bounce, flexibility, elasticity, adaptability, and staying power. Resilience is one of those underlying attributes that enables perseverance in life. Resilience is built into our physical bodies in many miraculous ways. I have seen it recently in a friend who...
To Know and Follow Hard After God
I use the Priscilla Shirer YouTube video entitled “Who’s Your Daddy” (link below) with our Titus 2 ladies as we talk about the attributes and character of God and what each one knows about God. A significant goal for our program is to enlarge each student's awareness, understanding and personal experience of God in order to foster greater trust in God. We also use a YouTube video entitled "Jesus in Every Book of the Bible" (link below) and a handout from the "Experiencing God" curriculum by Henry Blackaby that lists over 500 attributes/titles of God and the scripture references. God is...
Fighting Fair
Fighting Fair Recently I had an incident of conflict with a student whose repeated disregard for instructions had become so critical that she was at risk of being dismissed from Titus 2’s residence, which I knew would be disastrous for her given other circumstances of her life. Hoping to avoid that, I sought one last time to get through to her. When faced with conflict, her pattern in the past has been to run. This time, however, she recognized that was not an acceptable choice for her. She had to stay, cry, reflect, talk, negotiate, and work it through. It has led to much more open...
Come to the Healer
I have recently read Dr. Chauncey Crandall's "Touching Heaven". He, a cardiologist and born again Christian, began exploring the many ways of healing- spiritual, physical, mental, relational, etc.- as he began to see the power of God at work among his patients and in the illness and death of his own son. His story is inspiring and motivating. The Lord has called me to the ministry of healing and I have been learning what that means now for nearly a decade. As Crandall says..., "After everything that has happened, I've learned that my purpose is to treat the sick AND the lost. To discern...
Exceptionalist Entitlement Attitude….An Addictive Way of Thinking Observed
As I have worked in counseling and spiritual formation with women over the last 10 years, I have observed a particular attitude that it has taken me ten years to wrap my mind around and articulate what it is I am seeing. It finally all came together this past week as I was working with a particularly difficult young lady with whom I have worked for a while. She is very bright, an eager learner, but very much a rule breaker….any rule, every rule, every time. Not always willfully and intentionally, but with laissez faire attitude of “I’ll ask forgiveness (if necessary later because of...
First Rule of Handling Conflict: Don’t Run!
One of the most difficult tasks of communication that we find necessary to work on at Titus 2 is handling conflict. The first principle is "Don't RUN!" . Others might argue that the first principle is "Don't get defensive." If one herself or others she is witnessing have been subjected to a pattern of criticism and dismissal of her voice/feelings in the past and feels attacked, either directly or passively aggressively, that's likely to be the first reaction. Helping her move from defensiveness to openness in communication and asserting herself appropriately is a challenge. The Bible says,...