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.
Wesleyans and Demonology
In February of this year, 2022, Peter J. Bellini wrote a series of three articles for Firebrand magazine entitled "Thunderstruck: The Deliverance Ministry of John Wesley." He cites various writings by Wesley on demonic encounters and classifies them according to how the situations were addressed, by ordinary or extraordinary means, directly or indirectly. "Wesley not only acknowledged the existence of demons but also often encountered them in his ministry. He did not profess to be an exorcist or claim special gifts for such a ministry. However, through ordinary Christian practices, such as...
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
“Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” From 12/13/2003 This phrase, a motto used by the United Methodist Church since 2001, had grated somewhat on my nerves when it was rolled out as the denomination's motto. It had appeared to me that it reflected a little too much laissez fair with regard to the doctrinal positions of the United Methodist Church and the standards for membership. I think that most people’s interpretation of it allows just that kind of wishy-washy doctrinal belief and is being increasingly reflected in our denomination’s public declarations and in the voices in our...
Awaking From Doubt
29 was a hard end-of decade year for me. I remember it fraught with a lot of self doubts. At 29 I also did something totally out of character, a biggie, on the level of a violation of one of the Big Ten, something that my church background said would send me to hell. I was angry, confused, and passive-aggressively acting out. Of course, I didn't realize all of that at the time. It would be quite a few years later before I would understand the motivation of my behavior. When I "came to my senses" the next day and realized I had not immediately been struck by a wrathful bolt of God's...
Sleep Aberrations
We emphasize healthy sleep habits at Titus 2. Four years ago on a social media site I asked a question: "Is it just me or has anyone else ever experienced this?.....Today I laid down on a quilt on the floor of my office for a short cat nap, feeling very sleepy after lunch. I had a meditation CD playing low. I dozed off and slept maybe 15 minutes. As I began to awaken it was totally quiet. I was conscious of the quiet for about 2 seconds, then it was like a switch flipped and suddenly my hearing was awake and I could hear the music playing. That same sensation of a delay in the awakening of...
Spirit-Led Bible Reading
I had a sweet conversation with someone who shared with me that she had realized that all these years she'd been reading the Bible in a literal sense only and missing some of its meaning and richness. She said she has begun to recognize that there is spiritual vision and spiritual hearing and spiritual understanding that goes above and beyond reading words at face value. With tears in her eyes she said, "I think I have begun to receive spiritual eyes and ears! And reading the Bible is becoming so much more personal." We talked about Paul's experience after his Damascus Rd. encounter. We...
Myles Munroe …. On Prayer
Thinking about prayer: I re-read through Myles Munroe's book on the power of prayer one weekend. Although a controversial evangelical figure who died in 2014, I found his writing on prayer to be insightful. I began collecting prayers years ago. I have a book of prayers in a zippered Bible cover and I have stuffed it through the years with a number of prayers I have clipped and printed from various sources. I love reading through them. Some of my favorites, too, are prayers from the Bible. Not every prayer has to be my own thoughts or words.....So many people express things that make me say,...
Flower Or Weed?
The summer after Hurricane Michael a Titus 2 student and I stopped and dug up a clump of black eyed Susan wildflowers on our little road that were in jeopardy of being run down by trucks coming in and out pulling out downed trees in the acreage across the road from us. We set them by a fenced area where they can seed for next year. We enjoyed them until they went to seed. She asked me if they were weeds or flowers. I told her it depended on one's perspective. I told her about a passage from John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga I'd read years ago that had stuck with me. She wanted to read it. I...
Storming Hell With Water Pistols
Someone told me that he envisioned me as marching on the gates of hell with a water pistol. I'd had another describe my efforts in spiritual battle as being more like a fly on the rump of a stallion. LOL! I guess others see my efforts in spiritual warfare as pretty pathetically paltry and having little power or impact. I had even described my own spiritual work as guerilla warfare and myself as a subterranean termite in the war against evil......having to tunnel underneath sometimes to undermine and attack...…..which made the person laugh to whom I was talking. I don't command a brigade. I...
Fear of Death
One observation about the last few years.... COVID seems to have revealed in some folks a pathological fear of death which also may have been expressed as a pathological fear of living.
Suicide?
I got a call last night from a woman I met recently. She was immediately impressed when we met that it was a divine appointment, standing in a store aisle. I just thought she was lonely and needed a friend, having moved to our communityd recently and having had to divorce a physically abusive second-marriage spouse of three years. She is a little older than me, a nurse and psychologist.I had invited her to my home a few days later along with 9 other single women who come to my home regularly. She was in emotional distress last night over her brother’s recent suicide. She said she was in a...