by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Aug 4, 2022 | Suffering
Joni Eareckson Tada makes a point here about the role that suffering can play in our lives. A pastor friend had done his doctoral paper on how suffering brings people to God. While I don’t believe God BRINGS the suffering, I do believe that there is plenty of it...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Aug 4, 2022 | memories
I spent most of my school years living just a block from a train track… We didn’t have lot of trains running through our small Georgia town, but it is still memorable. There was an afternoon train I recall Snd the engineer would through wrapped small...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Aug 3, 2022 | emotions, listening
Listening. It is a special gift that the Holy Spirit gives when one asks God to let you serve his people with a heart like his. . It is not always done with the ears. It is done with the heart. One can hear things with the heart…. and the eyes…. that the...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Aug 1, 2022 | redemption, Suffering
Joni Eareckson in 2017 observed the following about her devastating accident that had left her paralyzed for 50 years: “God allows all sorts of things he doesn’t approve of. God hated the torture, injustice, and treason that led to the crucifixion. Yet he...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 31, 2022 | emotions, Uncategorized
Feeling shame, in and of itself, is not bad. In fact, as Dr. Sally Satel notes in this brief excerpt from a longer interview, shame is a good indicator of an active conscience. What we do with our feelings of shame divides victims from overcomers. Victims allow their...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 31, 2022 | woundedness
The lie men tell little girls when they are grooming them and earning their trust and loyalty: “You didn’t do anything wrong.” And when an abusive controlling ‘boyfriend” turns his “girlfriend” into his pimped out asset and...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 31, 2022 | Idolatry
“Boston pastor Adam Mabry’s book Stop Taking Sides reminded Christians to take elections seriously, but also “trust Jesus, receive peace, and refuse the anxiety that betrays an innate political idolatry.” I never thought about how “anxiety betrays an innate idolatry…....
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 30, 2022 | Ministry
Last night a friend an I went to Niceville for an event in support of a new entrepreneurial women’s transitional residence ministry. It has been in the planning for several years, arising out of one woman’s passion, experience, and calling… We are...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 30, 2022 | Faith, Friendship, grief, Holy Spirit
I have written before about the phenomenon of observing light in a person. The first time I witnessed it was in 1995. It was in an individual with terminal cancer with whom I had prayed for months about issues of unforgiveness. I had been under a heavy burden of...
by Cathy Boyd Byrd | Jul 28, 2022 | Grace, sanctification
Justification is a solitary covenant with God. He extends grace to us e RN when we are still in our sin. We repent and receive it by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Sanctification is a communal process of shared covenant to encourage and live out the “one...
