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.
Telling others……
March 20, 1997.....In a moment of ecstatic praise, I said, "Surely the Lord has created this beautiful world for His glory and my delight!" No sooner had the words formed in my brain than I heard, in my spirit, "Tell others." I knew it was God. But I didn't know what it was that I was to "tell" or to whom I was to tell it! It was the first lesson of many that I have experienced about the timelessness of God.It was not that phrase about beauty, glory, and delight specifically, that I would wind up "telling others". Rather, it would be, for the most part, things that had not yet happened to...
Update and correction….
I forwarded the timestamp post below ( See "Time in a Bottle") to a friend, a pastor, whose intellect I appreciate. And wouldn't you know it, he immediately replied, "Won't it happen again in a thousand years?"He's absolutely right.I get so caught up in the novelty of someone spending time on such minutiae that I don't critique the thought process very well. Oh, to have a mind that can see the flaws and catch wrongheaded thinking! A couple of years on the debate team and 25+ years in sales still haven't taught me to think as critically as I would like.There are those, however, who maintain...
Thinking about time….
I had the privilege today to review a new Bible study series entitled SALT-Seven Areas of Life Trainings, A Comprehensive Discipleship Series. It's a rather simple, straight forward, 28 lesson study that most anyone could work through in a day or two, with nothing more to distract her. The concepts are simple and supported with Scripture and applications to life are easy to draw.It was so simple I had to ask myself, does real discipleship seem this easy to some people? It has not been easy in the least for me. I struggle regularly with ongoing refining in key areas of my life. Sometimes I...
Time in a bottle……
A friend sent me this notice by email this week with the subject line: "not worth the time, but still interesting" On Wednesday of next week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00in the morning, the time and date will be: 01:02:03 04/05/06 That won't ever happen again. You may now return to your (normal ?) life. Who, I ask, has the time to sit around and think of this stuff? It's like the list of English palindrones I had gathered a few years ago. Palindrones are phrases which are spelled the same going backward or forwards. Here are a few for your entertainment and amusement. Some of...
Pharisees and priests……
We all can identify the spirit of pharisaism among us- those who hold themselves forth as more righteous than others, who separate themselves from the rest of us and flaunt their religiosity before us, often making others feel inferior and unrighteous.But how often are we aware of the trap of priestliness- the Caiaphas complex?I am reading The Ragamuffin Gospel, having had my curisoity piqued by three people in my life , individually and without awareness of one another, reading and recommending it to me. Anytime I get ganged up on that way by three unrelated, individual sources I figure God...
One step at a time……
I had written on July 30, 05 about my conviction that the order of the attributes described as "fruit of the spirit" in Galations 5:22 represents God's perfect will, though we, living in a fallen world, seldom experience them in such perfect order. At the time I was preparing to speak about the eternal things- love, joy, and peace. I feel all three of those things in my life. God has been working over the last 14 years to bring me to a proper understanding of them.Now, this past weekend I had an encounter with Christ that led me to realize that He is working on the patience part of the fruit...
Slow down the clock……
It is amazing to me that it is already Mar 15th. We're halfway through the third month of 2006, almost a quarter of the way done. Wasn't Christmas just last week.....? My life seems to be more full now than ever. Is that what makes the time seem to fly? If I dropped 50% of my activities would time correspondingly slow by 50%? I have a stack of papers on my breakfast room table awaiting the annual tax preparation process. I have to make that a priority in the next week, as I have to allow time for the accountant to work his mysterious way with the data and let us know the damage in $$$$ in...
The prelude to grace….
One of the joys of my job is the drive time. It gives me abundant opportunity to listen to teaching on Christian radio or on tapes or CDs. I keep a note pad and pen by me in the car so that I can jot down scripture passages when a particular teaching is something I want to consider further. Some days I come home with hastily scribbled words or references that I put into a pile on my desk until I have the time to sit down and review and meditate on them. Today was one of those days.David Jeremiah never fails to teach me something new. Today he was teaching on the topic of grace, something...
Cruisin’…..
My husband and I had the pleasure of cruising in the Caribbean for 7 nights recently. This was the fourth cruise for us and the accomodations on the ms Westerdam (Holland America Line) were the best we'd experienced. I must say, however, that I was disappointed in some of the ports of call. The hurricanes of recent years have taken a toll on the various islands. Grand Cayman, in particular, was a destination I was looking forward to. I found it to be much less impressive, to say the least, than my expectations. H. Ivan several years ago apparently devastated much of the island. There are...
When analogies break down……
I read Bennett J. Sims' book Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millenium for a class. In it he tells of one of his pastorates in Maryland where they undertook a construction campaign, using a well known architect. The architect planned a starkly modern sanctuary addition to their traditional Gothic campus. It caused division in the congregation. After much deliberation the leadership group polled the congregation and found that they were 75% in favor of the radically new plan, 25% against, while the leadership had been exactly the opposite, 75% against it and 25% for it. He said that in...