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.
Philosophy and Laughter
At Saturday's Women's Grief Gathering on February 19,2022, we talked about the therapeutic value of laughter during our discussion time. This article by Jonah Goldberg, who is quite funny himself, points out some interesting historical perspective on humor and gives some nice links to other writer's tributes to O'Rourke. I enjoyed O'Rourke's work. Humor is a daily requirement for my soul. Excerpt here: "Kierkegaard and Kant had more nuanced views of humor, seeing it as an effort to illuminate the incongruities and inconsistencies—even the absurdities—of existence. (This shouldn’t be...
No Dead Ends
Some things can only be said from outside the system. Several trusted advisors (some of them pastors) have offered me comfort and encouragement for having been discontinued from provisional deacon status by The AWFUMC by observing that I am too....."whatever"........(one thing or another- honest, outspoken, non-conformist, Christian, etc.) to associate with the self-righteous who make such judgments to protect what they perceive to be the reputation and unity of the club of the ordained. Understand making these judgements about who is worthy lies entirely in the hands of a dozen or so...
Stumps
Isaiah 6:8-13- Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, “Here am I.(Send me!” 9 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” 11 Then I said, “For how long, Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left...
Not Without Voice
3/16/17- Once again, I can only marvel at what a sense of humor and irony God has! Last year at the same time that the Alabama West Florida Conference Board of Ministry notified me that I was discontinued from provisional status as a deacon, the UMC Communications' magazine, The Interpreter, featured an article in which Titus 2 was mentioned for the Deacon Emerging Ministry Grant that had been awarded in the summer of 2015. I appealed the decision last year to the Annual Conference Clergy Session in June and was allowed to continue over the objection of the Board of Ministry. This year, on...
On God’s Time
Whatever appointments I set for my schedule today, God has appointments that will either converge with or preempt my own. I pray that I will be aware of God's presence in each of those and what God is doing in each situation, whether it is expressing himself through me to others or through others to me. God is always at work in the places, people, and circumstances of the present moment.
Avoid Vain Controversies
From 3/15/20 A friend shared a FB meme that points a questioning finger at the NIV Bible and its publishing house by comparison to the NKJV on the basis of a difference in a couple of verses or partial verses that are “missing” from the NIV. The NIV, as I understand it, is translated from what are supposed to be a greater wealth of older, better “vetted” manuscripts than the original KJV. I’m not sure what sources NKJV used but my understanding has been it was mostly a linguistics issue to make the reading of it more comfortable for today’s less rigorously educated populations compared to...
Poetry: Infant Sleeps
From 197 Seeing all these pix of infants among friends at church and with my children's birthdays coming up soon (40 and 38), I'm feeling sentimental about my young mothering years. A poem from that time of my life: Infant Sleeps What words can a mother use To describe an infant’s sleep; Those tender, touching moments A mother longs to keep? The tiny fists held close to heart, Legs drawn up under, tight, The cherished face with puckered lips Goodnight, my love, goodnight!
Poetry: Infant’s Sleeping Smile
From 1973..... Infant’s Sleeping Smile I’ve stood by your cradle and watched you Dream your silent dreams. Empty they are of a language But filled with humor, it seems. So recently from His hand you’ve come The two of you still share A private thought between you That makes a smile your prayer.
Poem: Surveying In Rural Alabama
How I passed the time all those years I was driving around 3 states as a sales representative: Surveying Property in Alabama Acres of yellow wild flowers carpet a field Soft and fragrant beneath the hooves of grazing cattle. A half mile further west, another is clothed in white. A pond mirrors the blue of the April sky As a single white cloud admires its own reflection. Along the roadside tentative buttercups Offer up the first of their spring churning While mounds of crimson clover, their blossoms waving Like so many pom-poms, cheer them on. Trees, recruited as volunteer sentinels,...
Discipline: Loosing and Binding
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again, I tell you...