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.
Come, Taste and See That The Lord Is Good
Each new day is an invitation to join God in abundant life.... I had a busy day but not a minute was rushed or anything less than holy......I had blessings in conversations where I was able to speak God's Word into at least 6 lives with hope, joy, gratitude, and peace..... I watched as one longtime Christ-believing woman in a long dry personal spiritual and emotional wilderness began to grasp a vision of hope and realize God was right there with us ready to raise up a fountain of renewed life in her.....Amazing Living Holy Spirit .... her countenance was transformed by the Word as I beheld...
Rest In The Lord
..."forces of culture insist we give up an hour of sleep here, or two hours there—the grinding schedules, the unnerving stock piles of e-mail in need of responses, the early-taught/early-learned push for more and more productivity." Thus, author and professor Lauren Winner concludes, “It’s not just that a countercultural embrace of sleep bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.’ A night of good sleep—a week, or month, or year of good sleep—also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are...
On A Doctrine Of Love
In a recent devotional from seedbed.com JD Walt asked had we considered that the church has no "doctrine of love" and wouldn't it be a good thing to have? I contemplated his question for several days before he got back to it today in a devotional in which he shared a message first given at a New Room Conference. After to listening to Dr Dongell's message, I wrote this: I listened to JD Walt's seedbed.com's Daily Text, "Toward A Doctrine Of Love", this morning and Dr. Dongell's New Room message that was linked there ..... I have to say that JD set us up, implying that a "doctrine of love"...
As A Child …
"Christ has truly given the world permission to touch, to experience, to jump completely into the great and wonderful kingdom in which God reigns. In this kingdom, we can be as children who delight in knowing life with dirty hands, who like Thomas need the invitation to know, and like Paul see the need to give mind, soul, and body to the one who gave us all of himself. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. " Jill Carattini 4/4/2016
Character Profile Of A Disciple
"The Beatitudes aren't a list of activities but a character profile for one who is becoming more like Jesus." 4/4/2016 JD Walt, seedbed.com When the LORD showed me this truth about the Beatitudes in 2002 as I studied his Word, I was totally flabbergasted. All my life I had been taught that these were various types of individuals who were blessed and were received into the kingdom by virtue of some condition of having experienced certain things- becoming poor, grieved, meek, hungering for righteousness, needing mercy, seeking purity of heart, desiring peace, enduring...
Easy Peace And Cheap Unity
"Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2:34-35 Or how about that time in Matthew when he dropped this bomb? “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “ a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies...
Jesus Paid It All… For Everyone
This was posted by a young friend of mine who certainly has worked through a lot that she never deserved and for which she never got an apology.....When I saw this it occurred to me that Jesus' death on the cross was a choice by him to accept the sins of all who've wronged us, as well as our wrongs toward others. In that sense, it is an apology to all who've suffered at the hands of others that they never got from their human abusers, as well as an act of redemption for the sins of all mankind. I never considered that side of the equation. Wow. Considering Christ's sacrifice from that...
Justice After Childhood Abuse
When a child is silenced by threats of harm to his/her loved ones by an abuser or a parent chooses to believe and stay with an abuser because of her co-dependent needs instead of her responsibility to her child's protection or even accuses her child of seducing the abuser, the child's soul is damaged and that torment of unworthiness and inability to protect others and betrayal is felt deeply. Healing can be brought through listening and providing the balm that love and acceptance in Christ brings...... in allowing the pain to be expressed, the grieving to be done, the anger and resentment to...
Ambition
Years ago I had to go through a psychological battery for consideration of employment in the business world. I got a call from the recruiter who said there was a problem with my test results. He said the examiner said I was either the most self-actualized, honest, and transparent person the examiner had ever reviewed or I was in some sort of major distress. LOL! I retook the test at the examiner's request 48 hours after the first battery and got the job offer the same day. I worked there for nearly a decade before I had the opportunity to move to something new and more satisfying. Isn't it...
Bigger Battles
Almost 30 years ago I was working on a project with a group of Christian women. Some personal issues arose in the group (not involving me at all) and I became disillusioned with the way I saw them handle it within the group. I was talking to an older, wiser, more experienced friend about the situation and told her I had decided I would not do any more such projects with this group, as the difficulty with watching such conduct that seemed petty and hypocritical was more than I cared to be involved in. She said to me, "So let me get this straight. Because of your disappointment with a couple...