The Encouragement Beginning

Way back in the day, I used to write stuff called "Dave's Random Emails of Encouragement". From 1999 to 2002, I wrote well over 100 essays, stories and short pieces about... well, things that happened in my life that gave me encouragement, and I wanted to pass those things along to other people. In its heyday, I had 125+ people on my email list, and over the course of those years, I would get tons of responses from people telling me they understood, or they felt the same way, or they needed to hear it, and yes, the occasional "dude... shut up."

I even semi-published... well, not really published, but printed out, gave small intros to each one, and put them in a 3 volume set that I gave copies to to a few people (I think McQ got a set, but beyond that, I have no clue).

Here's what I wrote at the beginning of Volume One:

There was Allyson Guy, Amy Alexander, Amy Valdmanis and Amy Worthy. There was Beth Sentell, Daina Richards, Hillary Kelly and Rebecca Glassco. There was Lara Smith, Mary Ann Crittenden, Misty Estes, Nathan Tutor, Shelby Logan, Stephanie Nipp, Sybil Johnson and Tad Roose. There was Tom Johnson, Ty Coffey, Wendy Brobst, Sharon Dobbins, Julie Haynes, Meredith Brazzell and Melanie Jackson. Kay Nichols. Jeff Herring. Chris Fulaytar. Alyssa Guy. Season Chappell. Amy Wible. They were there in the beginning.

September 1999, I wrote up an email called “Stephen”, because I had heard a guy by the name of EJ Smith speak at this Bible Study I had been attending for about two months at this lady named Sybil Johnson’s house. I thought EJ’s lesson was cool, and I wanted to share it with some of my friends. I got lots of response to it, and a few weeks later, I wrote another essay and mailed it out, adding a few more names to the email list upon request. So, from then, every time I went to a Bible Study, retreat, conference, Church service, or if God just taught me something cool, I began to share it over email. The first several emails were adapted from other essays, I just transferred the message from the original author to you, but as God began to mature me in Him, suddenly I found my own words... well, words inspired from God, not from other authors. I used other works to base my essays on, particularly songs, but I love to do my own personal take on the meaning of those songs.

Where is all this going? Well, I figure if I've got a blogsite, and its my words and writing, what a great way to share--actually, in September of 2005, when I was still unsure of what I was even doing (and sometimes I still don't know... ha!) I posted the first Email of Encouragement I'd ever written, as mentioned above.

Now, after all this time, I think its time to post them again, to let you, the Coffee Drinkers, read them, or re-read them, and maybe get a little encouragement of your own.