I attended a Pastors Retreat at Black Mountain’s Ridgecrest Retreat in February 2026. The leader of Seedbed’s pastoral care team, Dan Wilt, sent out a notice to those of us who attended and offered a 1:1 time to review where we are post-retreat, to counsel and pray after this season since those few days.
Dan asked, “How is your soul?” That is a question for many of us as we meet with our band sisters or brothers weekly. But in the context of a retreat, it is deeper than the events, emotions, and experiences of the previous week. I appreciate the invitation to a one-on-one, but I feel like 30 minutes would be too brief to express all that this season has brought to me. So I chose to write to Dan instead.
“It is well with my soul. It has been well most of the time since several major life reorienting experiences in 1992-1997, even when under assault spiritually, relationally, financially, physically, emotionally, or vocationally. Even when I have found myself in travailing prayer on my face before the LORD. Because God is present; He is sovereign; He is good; and He loves me. These things I know. The Bible tells me so. My experience tells me so. The tradition that I hold dear tells me so. And my reason, interpreting all of those those things in connection to one another tells me so. Knowing I am a beloved daughter of the good and present LORD God,Jesus Christ, I can endure all things…… not always as gracefully as I’d like to, but He’s still cultivating and pruning me for more and better fruit.
I shared with 2 band mates last week how the two recent events- Pastors Retreat in February and the Spiritual Gifts Gathering in April provided a sort of bookend defining experience to this season of Lent. It became for me a time of consolidating and clarifying a number of changes over the last 5 years and reorienting my ministry’s focus.
After my husband’s death in Aug 2020, it didn’t take me long to realize that, without his presence and support on the home front, my personal living situation had to downsize in order for me to continue to have the time and energy to continue the very active women’s residential life recovery work I was doing. I accomplished the personal physical downsize early in 2021. At New Room in Sept. 2021 I felt very strongly the Lord’s urging to begin doing the same with the residential ministry. I labored over that decision more than was necessary, in retrospect, but in ’22-’23 it became a reality and the residential property was sold while we downsized from 6 beds to 2 beds in a rural ranch setting.
But late in ’23 a deceased donor’s estate made it possible to secure a downsized space in town at an affordable cost and we relocated into town, which made managing the 2 bed housing for women in recovery manageable along with various community-based activities in discipleship, teaching, and counseling.
In Feb ’24 at the first NEW ROOM LEADERS GATHERING, I was shown very directly and personally by the circumstances and the Lord’s word to me that my ministry was going to change further…. Eliminating the residential altogether and narrowing the focus while enlarging the territory. It was exciting to consider once I received God’s direct instruction through sessions with Jon Thompson, Bud Simon and prayer and conversation with others in the prayer sessions of that event.
In Aug ’24 I made the shift out of residential recovery ministry entirely and made another major personal downsize in relocating to Montgomery, AL from Florida rather quickly shortly thereafter. ’25 was a year of reorienting to my new home, transition, consolidation, and waiting. I continued traveling back to Florida 2X monthly to teach in 3 residential programs and continuing some benevolence case management work for 2 churches.
As the ’26 Pastor’s Retreat loomed, I was ready for what was coming next, having gotten settled in Montgomery and having begun small outreach steps to several ministries seeking the right place for partnerships. Partnering with other ministries, churches, and agencies had long been a mode of work since the Lord had put the name “Titus 2 Partnership, Inc.” in my heart and mind as soon as I was freed to move forward with starting this 501c3 ministry in April 2014. I had planned since registering in November to come to the Retreat free of expectations or burdens and simply “be” with the Lord and others attending. The night before I was to leave for the Retreat, a homeless woman whom I had been serving and discipling dropped a heavy load on me… She had been in treatment for kidney cancer that had reoccurred from cervical cancer over a decade ago. Her doctor had told her that day that the cancer is aggressive and additional chemo would not help. She reportedly had 6-12 months to live. She was shell-shocked. My mind went immediately to Good Samaritan mode… Having worked in residential care for years, I knew that if I had my own facility I could take her in, stabilize her situation, provide comfort, help identify resources and perhaps get her into an appropriate long term facility. But I didn’t have any of that here in Montgomery. I left in route to NC Tuesday afternoon with my heart burdened and my mind playing out options for assistance. I arrived Wednesday morning still carrying the weight of her situation and my own confusion about what role and what resources I was to engage on her behalf. It was clearly a throw back to the years of crisis residential care for marginalized clients that God had removed me from. Conversations and prayer with Bishop Dee, a prayer partner who also in attendance, and JD at least helped me articulate the conflict I was feeling. But JD’s reflection sheet that first evening helped me surrender it, at least for the rest of the Retreat time so I could be present to the experience of the Retreat. During Thursday morning’s session, I felt a clear peace about the situation at home as I felt the Lord tell me that He had called me out of that intensive hands-on care mode, that I was to move forward just as I had been, offering pastoral care and limited physical support for immediate needs as they arose—— occasional food or transportation needs, assistance with laundry, time spent in conversation, prayer, and listening. The rest I was to entrust to Him. I felt light and free and enjoyed the rest of the Retreat. Not long after I returned home, the woman called to tell me that a sponsor through Celebrate Recovery had offered her shelter in her home not far from my neighborhood. I could still be available without assuming more responsibility for involvement in her situation than the Lord was now directing me. By April 1st, an opportunity for ministry partnership with a newly reopening women’s facility in Montgomery became a reality after several months of hearing it was to open. By April 8, 4 families were in shelter and the director advised me that the Lord had given her the freedom to invite my ministry to take the lead role in women’s case management, counseling, and navigation assistance. She had observed my work through other activities I had participated in with her outreach ministries to homeless and marginalized families and individuals and had heard feedback from people I had counseled and served in other ways. It was a surprise and was joyfully received news as I prepared to head to Franklin for the Spiritual Gifts workshop.
Jon’s clarification of some things about spiritual gifts, which I have taught since 2002 in church and small group settings, brought some things into focus for me. In particular, his instruction on spiritual gifts tension. I readily identified with the concept and had experienced it from time to time between people and between myself and others. I had generally been able to navigate it even without the specific understanding and name that he applied to it. But I also reaiized that the tension I had felt in February as I came to the Pastors Retreat was a kind of internal spiritual gifts tension between my own gift of mercy and the gifts of faith and teaching. God was calling me to not exceed my limits with mercy and to extend further my gift of faith and stay focused on the gift of teaching to which He had assigned me as far back as 1997 and which He would use for even more purposeful transformation in lives.
Perhaps you can see from this Lenten experience between Feb and April, the kind of closure that I am feeling as I begin this new adventure, free from some of the time consuming, resource demanding, and energy sapping work of the 17 years since I had started residential work with women in 2007 and ended it in 2024. At age 72, but still with much time and personal energy to offer, I had begun to wonder how God would continue to use me as He began the shift in direction in 2021. I know that a new chapter has begun now. It feels good. It is well-paced. It has a high degree of personal satisfaction and knowing that I am fulfilling God’s will for me. It is sustainable for the foreseeable future.
In January 2017, an elder church matriarch spoke prophetically over my life. It occurred rather spontaneously during a small dinner party among 4 couples, Christian friends in a home setting. Here is how it unfolded. As we finished dinner our hostess, Debbie Zirbel and Sarah, slipped away. In a few minutes Debbie returned and said Ms Sarah felt strongly the urging of the Lord to speak a prophetic word to me. She asked if I as willing to hear it. I said yes. Debbie asked if I wanted to come to the bedroom or if I was okay with it being spoken before everyone. I told her I trust Ms. Sarah’s judgment and I was fine with whatever she felt was appropriate. She and Debbie circled us up in the living room. Debbie prayed and Ms. Sarah then spoke to me.
“This is prophetic word given to Cathy Byrd by Sarah LaBonte on Friday, January 13, 2017
Witnessed by Bill Byrd, Debbie Zirbel, Carl LaBonte, Michelle and Paul Grignot, and Jeff Thomas.
“Your business and your comings and goings and your ministry: He says that he sees every idle thing that has been done that you wanted to achieve. But He says that it is well done, it has been well done, my good and faithful servant. That He wants you to know how much that he appreciates your fervor, your strength, your intelligence, your knowledge of God. He wants you to know that He has set you aside for such a time as this. But He also wants to tell you that there are things ahead of you, that you have no idea of the preparation that has been made for you.
The things that you’re doing now are very important; but, He says, it’s just been a preparation for the things that are ahead. And the Lord says not to be concerned, just one day at a time, one step at a time. And that as the door is opened that you will walk through it and it will be a surprise and it will be pleasant, and you will say, ‘Oh, my goodness, just look at what the Lord has done!’ And He said, I will sit up there and rejoice because I know that you, too, will do what I tell you to do. And, He says, just keep that steadfastness in your heart. And God says He will walk every step with you, says the Lord.”
This occurred just weeks before I was discontinued from pursuit of deacon ordination by the UMC in March 2017 after several hard years during which my conference was shifting toward a much more progressive bias against traditionalists like myself. I had fought hard and hung in since the beginning of my pursuit of ordination in 2008, my commissioning in 2012, 2 years of provisional status, and the first ordination interview in 2014, which itself had been a real supernatural wakeup call to the reality of what I was facing under our new bishop and a drastically transformed Board of Ordination group. I was continued in 2014, discontinued in 2015, appealed and won continuation in 2016, then discontinued again shortly after Sarah’s prophetic word in 2017. She and I were not in the same denomination or congregation and she knew little to nothing of the battle I had been in. But her words offered hope and I trusted that I would walk through a door and find life “pleasant” again.
I walked through a physical door on stage at NR in ’21, a year after my husband’s death and as I faced decisions about downsizing Titus 2’s residential ministry. I thought that was the end of the story. But more doors were yet to come. Many other circumstances revealed God’s leading through all those years. I went back to see Ms. Sarah in Feb 2025 to tell her all that God had done. She didn’t remember everything that had been spoken but when I read the transcribed prophecy, that had been recorded and written down by our hostess, she remembered several things that had strongly been impressed on her. One was the word “idle” (as it had been recorded and transcribed by Debbie and which seemed strange to me at the time, as I had never been described as “idle.). But when I went to see her I told her that the Lord had clearly told me just recently that during those years of struggle within the UMC that I was at risk of making the UMC an idol, in my desire to see the UMC resolve its conflicts and be revived in the mode I had known it when I came into it in 1972. She smiled. She said God knew the correct word and would reveal it in His time, as He most certainly did. The years from 2014-2022 in the UMC were hard ones for me. My joy and hope about my own future within Methodism rebounded in 2023 when my congregation disaffiliated and became GMC.
During those years from 2012-2024 conflict in my life had been evident in my vocational ministry that led to starting my own 501c3, in the Titus 2 ministry and the direction to downsize, in my pursuit of ordination, in my own congregation’s hardship with major leadership changes and weathering, literally, a devastating Cat 5 Hurricane Michael that destabilized our congregation and community in 2018 and for the next 2 years, and in my personal life with family, as well. By comparison now, life now is truly “pleasant.”
Seedbed, NR, NRLG, introduction to great teachers like Carolyn Moore, Sandra Richter, and others too numerous to count, as well as JD’s Wake Up Call, Seedbed publications and congregational equipping series, and all of Seedbed’s other offerings provided the stability, nurture, and focus to keep on keeping on. It is where I encountered God’s presence and peace most often and most powerfully when life otherwise seemed so unstable and unfocused.
I have so many more examples of it, many recorded in my weblog, in correspondence with JD, in Wake Up call FB posts, and more. I have been led through fire and I have come out without so much as the smell of smoke lingering on me… (smelling smoke in my life is another story altogether in God’s equipping of me to counsel from a spiritual posture with people who may themselves be stumbling near the smokey abyss!)
So, consider this email our 1:1 debrief from the Pastors Retreat. I hope NR will do another one at some point. The beginning of Lent was a particularly good time for me this year. I will always come to Lent with readiness for what the Lord has to show me going forward.
With gratitude for all you and others at Seedbed do for the Kingdom of God, I remain……
Experiencing God’s BEST daily,
Cathy Byrd”
CBB. 5/15/26