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.
Friends of God
The movement from servant to friend. John 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends. Up to this point it strikes me Jesus did not look at or consider his disciples as friends. They were servants. He expected them to follow and obey him based on incomplete knowledge and understanding. They did not yet know their master’s business. The Greek word for disciple is mathetes and it means a learner. They had been learning along the way as Jesus’ apprentices from his teaching, modeling, demonstration and debriefing....
Discovering Family History
Family History: (CBB 6/12/2018) Bill and I attended a funeral in MOntgomery today. It was a first cousin of his, Marie Echols, who died last week at 94. Her children gave Bill this picture of his father, William Harry Byrd, who had been her uncle, on the left in his 20’s around early 1930’s. The bride,seated, was his first wife. We believe this was in Flint, Michigan. We believe her name was Marie. They had an infant that died and she got TB and died in a sanitarium. At 45 he married Marilyn, in her early 20’a and a nursing student at Wayne State. Bill was their firstborn. They had another...
“Becoming” Through Self Improvement
This is a “mindfulness” coach’s perspective on taking charge of your life and making a change for the better. The definition of “recovery” , in her case,from PTSD. At the heart of this is basic cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT. This embraces the culture’s view of “Becoming” through self-improvement. She was very briefly dismissive of those who have “even sought healing from PTSD through spiritual pursuits,” as if that were a non-starter. She says first step is : “Face your dark side to find the Light.” Take a stand against your dark side. Really? What is that dark side and where did it come...
Blaspheming The Holy Spirit
I got this message from a former student and friend who asked: Hi Mrs. C, when you get a chance, could you please help me understand this? I randomly came across the scripture in my Bible study yesterday after speaking with a friend about the seriousness of blasphemy but why does it say that blasphemy against the son of man a.k.a. Jesus would be forgiven with every other sin IS forgivable, yet blasphemy against ‘the Spirit’ is unforgivable? My Dad used to teach us that blasphemy is the one and only unforgivable sin. Yesterday, I was sharing that with a friend of mine and then boom out of...
To Whom Shall I Be A Neighbor?
Cared-for people care for people. The lesson of the Good Samaritan.... Learn the Spirit lesson of caring neighborliness..... Gratitude for the love and care of God and his instruments of grace will challenge us to live like Jesus. Not "Who is my neighbor" but "to whom shall I be a neighbor?"
Suffering…..
Dr Henry Cloud.... “There’s this idea that time heals all wounds, and it’s a very popular one. At the same time, that kind of thinking can be a big source of pain for a lot of people. Time passing by itself doesn't do much for us at all. It's all of the things that we do that changes us, for better and worse, as we accumulate experiences. For those of us that accept the passage of time but resist making any changes, we shouldn't expect to see much difference. If someone breaks your heart, or hurts you emotionally, and you don't do anything to address the trauma that person has created within...
Sharing In The Suffering of Christ
Sharing in the Suffering of Christ........ A thought shared in social media by a friend, from C.S Lewis, and worth remembering; . “In Gethsemane, the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.” C.S.Lewis Jesus: "Not my will, but Yours". Amen. My observation: I just realized that the Apostle Paul, who also asked three times to have a “thorn on the flesh” removed, found his prayer answered with the promise of the sufficiency of God’s grace without having it removed either. Paul also wrote several times about identifying with the suffering...
Obedience By Confirmation or Consensus?
A close friend with whom I meet regularly for prayer and accountability sent me this photo of a page from Oswald Chambers' MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST: on June 18,2022: I shared it in a social media group with this post: "This Oswald Chambers Devo speaks to some of our discussions....." Our online group was doing an online summer bookclub of Ivan Filby's LIVESTREAM. One group member replied, "Thank you for sharing. That last paragraph is one I needed. I was in a class recently about listening for God’s voice ...... and instructor said to 'always have 3 others give you advice on every message...
Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart
"Gifts from God that are not acknowledged as such are deadly to the soul, because they thicken the illusion of self-sufficiency that leads to over-confidence and sets us up for failure.". Tim Keller, Prayer, Chapter 8. I awoke in the night with someone on my heart, someone God would have me pray for..... As I pondered the individual's situation, I reached for my phone to check the time and saw a text response to a question I'd asked that individual yesterday ......, and the quote above by Tim Keller, shared by someone I follow ...... and I knew this wisdom, learned by me and many others when...
Bingeing C.S. Lewis
I'm bingeing movies about CS Lewis tonight....... The Most Reluctant Convert The Life and Faith of CS Lewis Shadowlands Surprised By Joy I had read some of his works but I had not known how profoundly his Mother's death when he was nine, having had earnest child's prayers for her healing unanswered, had led him to a staunch denial of God's existence. Years later he began to doubt his own assumption of the absence of God as his intellectual peers made challenging rational arguments for God and his own brief fascination with occultism tapped into his imagination and led him to understand the...