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.
Doing Good Feels Good
I’ve been pondering “goodness” recently as part of exploring the topic in the Fruit of the Spirit. This article from October 14,2023, discusses hedonism vs. eudaemonism. Excerpted from an article by Matthew Little, "Hedonism Vs. True Happiness" in Epoch Times "There are two key kinds of happiness, and while our society is gorging on one, it is starving for the other. "Hedonic happiness (derived from the Greek word ‘hedone,’ meaning ‘pleasure’) refers to the feelings we get from creature comforts. It’s the thrill that comes with buying new shoes or eating a decadent dessert. Hedonic is...
God Can Have Regrets?
I love it when women I’ve mentored in the past are thinking deeply and engaging with God’s Word. One texted to ask,“I’m reading a book on obedience , it references, Genesis Six . How can the Lord have regret?” My reply:“God is a person, with emotions…. Our capacity for emotional responses is part of His image in us. God can know that something is going to happen and yet, even when it actually plays out in a worst case scenario of yielding to evil and painful consequences result to many people, God knows that He has to impose discipline or set boundaries against people He loves but with whom...
Hidden Health Risks Revealed
Wow! Just WOW! I happened up on an article about a man who suffered “erethism”, from effects of mercury poisoning, from removal of mercury amalgam dental fillings. Mercury is a heavy metal that’s found in the earth’s crust. It’s toxic to people, so even low levels of exposure can cause health problems. Prolonged exposure can lead to chronic mercury poisoning. This may be called mad hatter disease or mad hatter syndrome. This led me on a deeper dive about the subject based on my own experience, too! “Mad hatter disease causes severe neurological effects known as erethism. It can lead to...
Screen Fasting
David Foster Wallace: “In his 1992 essay “E Unibus Pluram,” he calls this a “new vision of the USA as an atomized mass of self-conscious watchers and appearers.” Our Shared Reality Is About to Self-Destruct Instead of participating in a “community of relationships,” he said, we become locked into “networks of strangers connected by self-interest and contest and image.” He believed this loneliness led to widespread depression—a condition with which he suffered intensely.Wallace also understood how, though screen entertainments helped him escape from depression, they simultaneously led to even...
God of All Comfort
“God is speaking to the prophet Jeremiah and through him, to all people when He says, “Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know,” Jeremiah 33:3. The struggles that lead you closer to God are worth more than any comfort that distances you from Him. The testing of your faith produces perseverance, James 1:2-3. Perseverance is a steadfast and enduring commitment to faith and righteousness, despite difficulties, suffering, and opposition. It is not just human effort, but a work of the Holy Spirit that empowers you to endure trials and develop...
“Well done, good and faithful servant:” A Reflection On Ripening Fruit
Since 1988 I have been teaching, leading groups, and discipling women toward Christian transformational living and spiritual maturity in areas that we all experience as part of the human condition--- brokenness, self- interest based moral ethic, and having lost one’s intimate connection with God. The issue of personal growth in spiritual maturity as people seek change has continued to evolve in my teaching over the decades. God has been speaking in my heart and mind about the role of the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5. This scripture is a portrait of an...
The Downside of Being “Kind”
“My therapist told me something that hit harder than I expected: She said: “People-pleasing isn’t really about pleasing others. It’s about controlling their perception of you.” And then she looked at me and said: “It’s what happens when fear starts driving—fear of rejection, fear of disapproval, fear of being too much.” You start performing instead of living. You start shrinking parts of yourself to fit into rooms that never had space for your truth. You call it kindness, but deep down… it’s survival. Because you learned early that love had rules. That being yourself came with...
”With You In The Spirit,” Dear Sister-Friends
I heard a pastor say, somewhat dismissively? how he dislikes hearing people say, “I am with you in spirit!” He said we know that one’s human spirit cannot be in two places at once since to be “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” i.e., as in death. He was referencing the phrase as it is found in 2 Corinthians 5:6. Paul states that he is confident in his eternal destiny and longs for the day when he can be "absent from the body" (NKJV) and be present with the Lord he loves and serves. That is generally interpreted from a human spirit perspective, one’s...
New To Bible Reading?
Exposure-> Hear and see. Curiosity-> Ask and explore. Information-> Gather facts. Understanding-> Discuss and consider. Knowledge-> Owned understanding. Desire-> “Hunger and thirst.” Insights-> Human reasoning. Wisdom-> Godly illumination. Abiding-> Led by the Holy Spirit’s Presence. Obedience-> In gratitude, joy, and faithfulness. Share/> Live it. Witness to it. Teach it. ❤️😊. CBB 10/6/25
Doublemindedness and Disappointment
“Do you struggle with the distance between what you thought would be and what is? Disappointment is sometimes God‘s way of leading you home. It is not proof that God is withholding something good from you. Disappointment can be a gift from God that feels nothing like a gift at all. It can be unexpectedly sharp, however, God will use it for your good. In your seasons of disappointment, God is your secure stronghold. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles, Psalms 34:17. His eyes are on you and His ears are attentive to your cries.” Dottie...