2024: week 20.

monday, may 13.

Last week, I was so good about writing and making notes throughout the week, but this week I was not, and I can’t remember at all what I did this day. I don’t have anything on my calendar. I didn’t take any photos. So um, moving on.

tuesday, may 14.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights were live recording nights at my church. Our team wrote some new songs and a bunch of us gathered for two days to praise and worship. Since Tuesday is a church service night and the live recording was an in-person only event, we re-streamed service from Sunday for the people who watch online — and I was the moderator in the chat for that, so I was in the broadcast room for Tuesday’s live recording.

I snapped this photo because the service on my screen was different from what was happening in the room (and what you can see on the far screen). The moment I captured just happened to have the same camera angle of hands on the keys on both screens. But if you zoom in, you can tell they’re not the same.

I love being in the broadcast room on these nights because the whole night is worship, and it’s particularly fun to watch people do their jobs during worship. The person sitting up front, closest to the screen at the front, picks which camera angles go on the main screen. The person in front of me puts the lyrics on the screen. And they don’t just hit the buttons and do the things, there is a rhythm to it. It’s not a passive thing. I’m not sure I have the right language to explain it, but it’s really beautiful to watch.

wednesday, may 15.

I got to attend and be in the room and worship on this night. Normally when we have new songs, we sing them during services for months leading up to a live recording night and I know which songs are my favorites already. This time, we only started singing these new songs in the past three or four weeks, which means I heard them maybe once before.

Honestly, I was kind of wondering how it would go — like how can you worship along with a song you know they’re recording when you don’t really know the song? But it was actually pretty amazing to experience how familiar these songs felt, how quickly we picked them up, and how seamlessly we entered into worship.

I’ve always felt this way about our songs, but it was extra tangible to experience how easy it was to worship along with brand new songs because they felt so familiar. Like I somehow knew them already. Like the veil between heaven and earth was so thin.

thursday, may 16.

This day was like my Friday at work because I had the real Friday off. That always makes a Thursday better, you know? After work, I packed and tried to go to bed early.

friday, may 17.

I drove to see my fam on this day. I did a little bit of work when I got there, and then T and her family came over to my parents’ house for dinner. Olive says “auntie” so clearly now, and she says it over and over and over. It’s the best.

saturday, may 18.

Evie turned one on Tuesday, and her party was on Saturday. It’s always fun to watch one-year-olds experience a birthday — cake and a candle and the celebration all for them — for the first time. That’s the thing about kids. They’re so brand new and learning everything. Evie didn’t know how to blow out the candle (or even that she should). Instead, she reached for the light.

Later, my dad and I played chess. GUESS WHO WON. (Me. It was me.)

I learned how to play when I was really little, but I haven’t really played it since then. Recently, I started playing this game on my phone that’s like a version of chess but not the real thing. It’s all the same pieces, but the board is different. I was terrible at it and lost every time I played, but I had so much fun trying to figure it out that I wondered how I would like the actual game of chess.

It turns out, I’m not that bad. I had no idea. I was truly shocked that I won.

sunday, may 19.

I drove back home on this day. It was a quick Fri-Sun trip.