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.
Trees and Fruit
I heard a sermon this week on the parable of the unfruitful fig tree. But for all my effort I cannot remember where or from whom I heard it. The message focused on the gardener's appeal to the master who had told the gardener to cut it down for having borne no fruit in three years. The gardener asked the master to give the tree one more year, or rather to give him, the gardener, one more year of tending it to produce fruit. "Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here!...
Going To Pot
From 1/15/2012: "A brief down day...truly Sabbath rest....no papers due, no books to be read, no tasks that must be done before Monday morning. (Although I really should be working in our yard! It's been so long since I did yard work, it's gone to pot .... oops, gone are the days when one could use that word innocently, I expect. Don't mean that literally 🙂 Although, did you read about the grandmother who had a lovely stand of marijuana in her back yard and when police showed up she claimed that she didn't know what it was, she was just growing it because it was a pretty plant?" When I sold...
Not Morbid, Just Fact
From 1/15/2015 "Because any day could be the last....... "But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." 1 Peter 4:7 G. Campbell Morgan: "I never lay my head on the pillow without thinking that perhaps before I awake the final morning may have dawned. I never begin work without thinking that He may interrupt it to begin His own." (1863-1945, a British evangelist, preacher and Bible scholar, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London)" I've had this conversation about the fragile, ephemeral nature of each day twice this week. The older one gets,...
Writhing Death Throes
From 1/15/2020 I have called our current circumstances "living among the death throes of the enemy who thrashes about like a snake whose head has been separated from the body....." He's dead.... just hasn't realized it yet. "In his first coming Jesus inaugurated his kingdom in the world. He’s already ruling and reigning, he has defeated( but not yet destroyed) the god of this age, and he is seated on his throne at the right hand of the Father. Yet the resistance remains; the combat carries on. In his second coming he’ll consummate his kingdom, not simply defeating and dethroning every...
Acceptance.
I came across this prior post today and, as God would have it, as I was preparing for our monthly women's grief support gathering, I had come across a BBC podcast on why we need sadness. It covered 3 philosopher's view of the significance of sadness, one being Shopenhauer and his "cynical" view that all one can do is accept life as it comes... sad, happy, or otherwise. Here's the BBC "Teach Me A Lesson" podcast link snd my prior post below. Our grief group wound up being a lively discussion! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0d5bpb2?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email ...
Wings Spread and Soaring
Also two years ago, from our oldest granddaughter... posted1/15/2021: Announcement from our oldest granddaughter, Catie Byrd Kelley who will soon be graduating from Mercer Law School. Woohoo! Shout out to you, Catie! So proud of you and all our grand girls! “I am so excited to share that I have accepted a post-graduation fellowship position at Alliance Defending Freedom as a First Year Lawyer Fellow that will begin in August! A HUGE shoutout to my supervisor-mentor-greatest boss ever Denise Mayo Harle for responding to my LinkedIn DM 2 years ago, letting me intern for her, and helping me...
From Merry-Go-Round to ‘Round The World…
Two years ago, Jan 15,2021, I shared a reflection by our daughter, Charlotte, about our youngest granddaughter, Riley....To see where Riley is now, another two years along, is remarkable! "I just had my last meeting with Homewood High School admin and teachers about Riley's 504 plan that was put in place during her freshman year when she entered the HHS school system. We moved from Crestwood to Homewood so we could be in a good public school system because of her mental health issues and her autism diagnosis. After we went through the plan and made a few tweaks during the meeting this...
When Life Recovery Ministry Is Hard
The post below this observation today is from last year-1/15/2022. I find that this week, too, has been equally difficult...... a Titus lady's challenging medical diagnosis, another fighting the grip of depression for several months, a need for help moving furniture, much organizing and purging of stuff to be done, getting a new student through intake and orientation, unfinished projects..... "It's been a stretching week emotionally. I learned last Sunday that a former life recovery student had died the night before from consequences of an alcohol use relapse. She had embraced Christ...
Prodigal Cliff Notes
satan always blinds your mind to the facts and consequences of your circumstances AT THE MOMENT..... Rev. Charles Stanley (sermon on the prodigal son) living in the moment..... the next step after such a life will always be downward. Wherever you are living today without God, it's a hog pen. The Prodigal Son: - willed his own way - wandered - wasted - wanted - woke up - walked back was welcomed home
No Ear Tickling
No ear tickling here..... "I see a danger you are in, which perhaps you do not see yourself Is it not most pleasing to me as well as you to be always preaching of the love of God? And is there not a time when we are peculiarly led thereto, and find a peculiar blessing therein? Without doubt so it is. But yet it would be utterly wrong and unscriptural to preach of nothing else. Let the law always prepare for the gospel. I scarce ever spoke more earnestly here of the love of God in Christ than last night; but it was after 1 had been tearing the unawakened in pieces. Go thou and do likewise. It...