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.
Worry Sin?
Philippians 4:7 (The Message): "It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life!" One of the ways that you know Jesus is at the center of your life is you worry less. Worry is a sign that something has replaced him as the central focus of your life. (From Rick Warren) Recently, a friend and I were discussing a particular Bible study by a well-known (and, at times, controversial) pastor. In the Bible study the author stated out of the gate that "worry is a sin.". My friend and I considered that statement for a few minutes. He had also discussed it...
Broken Cisterns or Gauges for Living Water?
An observer of the Asbury Outpouring asked of another who wrote about it like a farmer measuring rainfall, "How do we discern true out pourings. Is it only subjective/emotional? Many are commenting that the reality of it will not be evident for some time to come. Just curious. Your father used a rain gauge, what is our measurement?" Here is my own observation in that regard: ( It is)....the daily measure of a life lived in the Spirit..... What am I able to show at the end of each day as a libation drink offering poured out to God for what I thought and how I responded in bringing His Holy...
FAE and The Need For Mercy
Sarah Westfall writes beautifully about a human failing called "Fundamental Attribution Error." Most of us get caught up in a FAE at one time or another. It may be in an incidental momentary yank of the steering wheel as one overcompensates for a momentary lapse in focus that can become a spin-out and even a full head-on collision with an unanticipated reality later. Mercy is our only way out of a FAE...... God's mercy in helping us see our error...... our mercy toward ourselves for having succumbed to it..... and our mercy toward others whom we judged without all the facts because of our...
Jesus Revolution
I turned 69 last week. I was 15, in Southwest GA, in 1969 when the events portrayed in this movie were going on. I saw it around the fringes. But the longing that drove it was present in me, too. It would be a long journey of 23 years before the longing in me was satisfied. I took a 60 yo friend who struggled with alcohol and homelessness for a number of years to the movie "Jesus Revolution" yesterday. She had said how much she wanted to see it. She now has gotten her life back on track thanks to the work of Christ in her life. As we headed home from the theatre she said quietly, with tears...
LIFE: Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
A prayer partner, close confidential friend and I have a particular interest in scientific evidence of God's work in creation, including some aspects of biblical numerology or what the Hebrews call "sacred geometry.". She had sent me a brief video that detailed an interesting piece of genetic research about a repeating "fractal," or numeric sequence in the disulfide bridges that hold our double-stranded DNA together in its helical shape. We talked about this genetic molecular phenomenon and how its implications for Divine Creation (or Intelligent Design) are similar to those suggested by...
Gnats, Camels, and Pharisees
Someone asked me a few years ago about a quote attributed to Jesus, wanting to know the precise source and wording used in Scripture. The caller had heard the phrase at a funeral and wanted to remember exactly what it was this deceased friend had been heard to say often through the years. As we talked tonight about “do not murder” and the letter of the law in a physical sense and the spirit of the law in a broader sense of not harming another’s reputation or assaulting their dignity and worth, I was reminded of this phrase again. To "strain a gnat and swallow a camel" is to focus on...
Temptation, Sin, and Commiseration
One teaching in the Word I've used for years is focused on rebellion and recovery and the causes and cure. We use a "15-minute Bible study" on the topic that was first published in In Touch magazine by Dr. Charles Stanley. The causes of rebellion he listed as "impatience, fear, and greed." We also do a session of the three lowest common denominators of temptation- "lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life" from 1 John 2:16 as well as exploring the temptations of Eve (Genesis 3) and Jesus (Matthew 4:1-10; Luke 4:1-13). Interestingly, we are able to see the former three...
Choral Praise
After listening to the beautiful choral arrangement of "I Am No Longer My Own", I have spent some time today listening to "At His Name"- a choir musical. I miss choir music in church. For those of us raised singing in choirs, doing so is truly what worship feels like...... It can transport the soul of singers and listeners to heights as few other things can. In prayer during communion one Sunday in September 2019, I had a vision of being in heaven with an endless group of believers bowing before Christ and worshipping him with song. The next week, as we prepared for communion I asked God to...
Art and Life
Master Artists exhibition at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat with Titus 2 friends: 2/21/2015 I took my book about the painting- "Forgiven" by Thomas Blackshear, that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day in 1997 with me to an art show in February 2015. Thomas signed it for me and we had a nice conversation. He shared some wonderful stories about the impact the painting has had on his own life and the lives of others. Prints from two of his paintings- this one "Forgiven" and "Coat of Many Colors" hung in Mother Theresa's room! Lives have been changed as a result of his artwork. A truly...
Assured
I am neither a "glass-half-empty" nor a "glass-half-full" kind of gal. I am a "the glass-can-always-be-refilled" kind of gal. That is an optimism that arises from confidence in the Source and Content, not confidence in the container. It is rarely a case of either/or but more likely a case of both/and............God has created exquisite scales in creation that balance things........Like his very character, transcendent and imminent, mighty and meek......