Echoes of Joy: A Devotional for Animal Lovers

By Staci Mauney

Do you have a favorite memory of a childhood pet? Perhaps you have a furry family member in your life right now. In Echoes of Joy: A Devotional for Animal Lovers, author Staci Mauney recalls the lessons she’s learned as a pet owner.

From taking care of rabbits and birds to caring for dogs and cats, animals have always been a part of Staci’s life. In this 30-day devotional, she chronicles her adventures with her sassy Yorkshire terrier, Lilly, as well as other pets she’s had throughout the years. Through the antics of her pets, she has developed a deeper relationship with God and grown in her faith.

These messages will encourage you in your walk with Christ as Staci reveals spiritual truths she’s learned. You will feel joy and your spirits will lift as you consider the wonders of the animals with which God has entrusted us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Staci Mauney
• Release date: Sep 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463713273

Staci Mauney

Staci Mauney is a freelance writer and editor and indie author. She is the co-owner of Prestige Prose, a freelance writing and editing company found at prestigeprose.com As an author, she has written four devotionals in the Echoes of Joy series: Echoes of Joy: 30 Days of Experiencing God’s Grace, Echoes of Joy: A Daily Devotional for Christmas, Echoes of Joy: Growing Closer to God, and Echoall of which can be found on her website at stacimauney.com. Her Yorkshire terrier, Lilly, is the main character in her devotionals and her blog, which can also be found on her website. She has had short stories published in Chicken Soup for the Shopper’s Soul; Owl Hootings, Vol. II; Oklahoma: The Fountain of the Heartland; and the OWFI Report and has worked as a content writer for Oklahoma Farm and Ranch magazine. Staci volunteers for a variety of organizations in her local community. She has been a member of the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc. (OWFI) since 2007 and is an OWFI board member.

Book preview

These devotions are adapted from my blog Echoes of Joy. I started writing these messages several years ago as a way to encourage other Christians in their walk with God. I chose to focus on joy as a theme because we seem to have difficulty maintaining joy when life is overwhelming and burdens threaten to consume us. Often, we don’t really know what joy is, so how can we have it when our lives are falling apart?

Let’s start with a definition of joy. How do you define joy in your life? Joy is not necessarily the same as happiness, although it is possible to have both. Joy is much deeper and is one of the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22). The Greek word for joy is chara and is closely related to charis, or grace. Joy is the natural response to the work of God in our lives.

Having joy is a choice. It goes beyond emotion. We have joy because of his grace, which is then revealed through our actions and treatment of others. How will you express the joy found in his grace today?

Author’s Note: All scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version (NIV).

Day 1

Joy in His Presence

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Ps 16:11)

Before I leave for work in the morning, my Yorkshire terrier, Lilly, becomes very anxious. She tries to hide under the furniture, and she makes it as difficult as possible for me to catch her to put her in her crate. She doesn’t want to stay by herself all day.

But when I get home in the evening, she is ecstatic – a ball of wriggling, tail-wagging fur, licking me as if she hasn’t seen me in months. And the truth is, I am more than happy to see her, too. She is a good companion, always right on my heels, ready to keep me company, and unhappy when we are apart for more than a few minutes.

Lilly’s response to me makes me think about my relationship with God. He desires for us to respond to him the same way Lilly does to me – with unabashed abandon and joy. On the other side of that, he also responds to us in this way. He never withholds his grace and joy from us when we don’t spend time with him during the day.

So much of the time, spending time alone with God becomes routine, even if we don’t want to admit it. It’s one more thing on our list of things to do, so we hurry through our quiet time and our prayer time, if we even take time to spend with him at all. Then we move on to the next task on our list.

God doesn’t want us to hurry through our time with him. He wants to spend time with us as we give him our undivided attention. He wants us to enjoy being in his presence. But joy goes deeper than our feelings, and spending time with him on a consistent basis yields results such as a stronger prayer