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.
God Is With Us
When we know and love the Lord he sits upon the great white throne of judgment within hearts cleansed, purified and granted complete pardon. We can come anytime to seek his wisdom and judgment regarding our choices. He will guide us by his standards of good and evil, consistent with his Word and his timeless and eternal justice, mercy, and love and will keep our feet in the narrow way he has prepared for us. When we are living liberty in Christ, set free from the prisons of our fears, obsessions, controlling demands, deceptions, etc., we have immediate and direct access to the Supreme Court...
Response to Grief
I had a conversation with someone who shared that she had had a beloved relationship who OD’d on meth. It was suspected suicide but she fretted that acknowledging that might mean he is condemned to hell. She admitted that she pulled away into a world of her own where she could continue to be present with him. It lead to some serious mental health complications. We talked about that briefly then addressed her difficulty in dealing with the fear of losing people in her life. We talked about how many people pass through in the course of our lives. I told her, as someone pointed out to me, some...
Is It True That “Love Wins?” What About Obedience?
In an online devotional today the theme is trust.... "In God We Trust?" Seedbed.com/dailytext , August 25, 2002. For me, God has come to be the only person and force in which I fully can put my trust. For a number of years I have taught that God's Word is true and trustworthy and it tells us to put our trust in God, not in any person, not powers of this world, not riches, nor appearances, nor anything or anyone else. Only God is faithful, steadfast and true. His Word and His Spirit can be trusted..... Test it? Yes! By all means. And the testing will prove the truth. Today's text was...
Tribe of Spiritual Mothers In My 40’s
Tribe of spiritual mothers who took me in during my 40’s and taught me that we need never do life alone......loved me out of fear of being alone and into belonging to community of interdependent faith in Christ! I watched as four of them modeled the sufficiency of God’s grace in widowhood. A lesson in being the church as Christ instructed..... From front right: (St. Andrew UMC) Lois Acton (Milton) Gladys Brown (Bill) Yvonne Lilleston (Bill) Frances Carr (Norman) Amy Fulton (Rick) Cathy Byrd (me / back right) (Bill) Pat Coston (Stan) Jean T (Ed) Doris Hare (Norman) ...
Unwelcome Advisors
Many times I have counseled a person with a dysfunctional family member or close friend that she is not likely to be the one God will use to address this family member's issues, no matter how much she loves the individual, can see the issues, and wants to help. Sometimes one is simply too close to a situation and has too much history with someone to see the situation with the necessary degree of objectivity or to have sufficient credibility with the person she seeks to help. Help is more likely to come from an unexpected place and person.....at a completely unlikely time.....In such cases...
Jesus Came To Bring Fire
Jesus' words do not always come to us in seeming gentleness and with hope, but convicting and with warning.......unless we are able to read with hearts that are open to his own heart, with minds that desire to know his own mind. I"m preaching on this text Sunday. Over and over again he called the religious elite hypocrits...... I"m preaching on how the Pharisees lost sight of the promises to and purpose of the Chosen people of God. Part of the covenant was to bless all the families of the earth with the blessings promised to Abraham, but the religious elite wanted a preferential status,...
Experiencing Christ
Joni Eareckson Tada writes in her online devotional from 8/18/2014: Experiencing Christ "I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." Philippians 3:8-9 In today's reading, Paul describes what it's like to know Christ in terms of being justified, of being legally positioned on God's side. Here, Paul is saying that God has done something for us on His books. It's wonderful to have the Lord impute His...
Meager Dregs to Bread of Life
Today our devotional journey with Elijah and the widow of Zarephath continued as he asked her for water and a small cake of bread.... What she discovers in accommodating the request of Elijah is a glory story from which we may all learn... 1 Kings 17:12-14 12 “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” 13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first...
Ekklesia
Thoughts about "Church"- Ekklesia- Greek word for congregation, church Ecclesiology- originally it meant the furnishings and liturgies of the church. Now it generally means the study of the church, beliefs about the church, and how the church is intended to work in the world. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this list of some of the issues in one's theology of "church') Who is the Church? It is a visible or earthly corporation or a unified, visible society—a "church" in the sense of a specific denomination or institution, for instance? Or is it the body of all believing Christians (see invisible...
The Next Right Thing
I am, once again, at a point of facing a challenge......one with a deadline as well. It is a familiar challenge....a place I've been several times. I know that God is with me, but I still have to do the work. I would rather have a short cut.....a guarantee. But there is none. Life is that way. Each day we simply have to get up and do "the next right thing", as Elizabeth Elliott used to say, praying that we have the day's priorities right and that we are in God's will. If we are, then it will work out. Sigh If it were not this present challenge, it would be another. It seems, at times, that...