Weeknotes 26:20

May 17, 2026

Week of May 10–16

Virtual Retreat

The ministry I work for, Revive Our Hearts, had a three-day virtual retreat this week. I had taken off Monday after a long graduation weekend and it was nice to be able to catch my breathe before the Staff Summit.

We met each day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings on Zoom. Each morning, we heard three 15 minutes messages for two pastors and a staff member of Life Action Ministries, the former parent ministry of Revive Our Hearts. We had about 5 minutes of personal reflection after each message to think through questions related to each talk.

Each day, we heard a different life story from a member of the Revive Our Hearts team. We wrapped up Tuesday with an update from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth as she continues to take her first steps through the season of widowhood. On Wednesday, we heard from different people about the origin story of Revive Our Hearts, which is celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. On Thursday, we wrapped up with a time where staff members could share what they took away from this time.

Each afternoon, we had free time to spend with the Lord and continue to process what we were hearing God say to us through the virtual retreat. I spent the time taking walks and praying. I also spent time reading and journaling. I am glad that we had the space each afternoon to process and make personal and just take some time out to rest.

I came away feeling a little less uneasy about a season of change my team is about to experience as our current digital team director is leaving Revive Our Hearts for a new opportunity. It was good to get some perspective from several of the message that helped me to see how God might want to use this time of uncertainty to build faith and develop character in both my life and the lives of my teammates.

Back to work

I returned to work on Friday after taking two days off at the end of last week and taking Monday of this week off. Then with the virtual retreat, I had over a week away. My workload was much lighter than I expected and it was a nice transition back. I was able to jump back into some projects and start thinking ahead to this week.

Articles I read

• The Sin We’ve Stopped Taking Seriously (Trevin Wax, The Gospel Coalition)
• Vibe Check Number 42 (Dave Rupert)
• The Difference Between Ben Sasse and So Many Other Saints (Tim Challies)
• Stuck in the middle: Being an engineer & artist in the AI era (Annie Sexton) – I appreciated these thoughts from Annie. I have had my own AI dilemma. On the one hand, I have many concerns about it and the industry. But on the other hand, I have found it a helpful tool at times. But I have felt very conflicted using it based on my negative feelings and concerns. I would like to try to write my own article to explore this in the near future.
• Last week in the studio (CW19-26) (Andy Clarke)
• Living in an Empty Nest (Tessa Lind) – My thoughts are more on this subject these days as my wife and I are on the cusp of an empty nest.
• The Gratitude Shift (Melissa Edgington)
• The Mortification Equation (Joe Smith)
• It’s 2026 and women are still asked to teach others to think a little bit and not be a prick (Ana Rodrigues) – I hate this aspect of our industry. I hate that there are so many men who have acted this way and not respected the women working in our industry. I applaud Ana for the courage to speak up.
• Pruning, harvesting, replanting, and other forced metaphors (Chris Ferdinandi)
• What’s Your Middle Name? (Paul David Tripp)
• How to Read the Bible Better (David Mathis)
• Dimensions (Patrick Luscri)
• Studio Notes #84 (Dan Cederholm)
• The Most Awkward, Important Part of Prayer (Rebekah Matt)
• Programming Still Sucks. (Steven Langbroek)
• Attack of the She Bears! (Steven Wedgeworth)
• Websites shouldn’t need maintenance. They need momentum. (Andy Clarke) – Unfortunately, I have seen this too often throughout my career. Websites are created but they are not really updated and evolved. I have seen many different approaches about agencies to change it but seems to be a continuing problem. I feel the pain in this as I do some freelance work under a “maintenance contract” and I am always concerned about something breaking on a site and not knowing how to fix it because of legacy plugins or code written by people no longer around.

Caught my eye

Handwritten Animation (Codepen) – I have not studied this enough to understand Ryan’s technique. I created a similar animations using SVG masks in the past.

See the Pen Handwritten animation by Ryan Mulligan (@hexagoncircle) on CodePen.

What I watched

• Speaking at SmashingConf Amsterdam! (Kevin Powell, YouTube)
• The West Wing (Netflix)
• All Creatures Great & Small (PBS app)

What I listened to

• Are we in a post-expertise era? (Kevin Powell, General Musings)

Books I am reading

• Made to Tremble (Blair Linne)
• The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood (Jane Leavy)
• Overcoming Sin and Temptation (John Owen, Kelly Kapic, and Justin Taylor)
• Humbled (David Mathis) – I read through this short book this week. One of the pastors who spoke at our virtual retreat mentioned the book. I found it very relevant to where I find myself in life right now.
• Stop Loving the World (William Greenhill)  – I had read the introduction to this book back in February and just recently picked it up again.

Walking – 18.2 miles

This was an unusual week because I was able to incorporate walks into my afternoon as part of my reflection time for our office virtual retreat. The temperatures were in the 70s so it felt great to be out. I would like to walk about 12-15 miles a week but am still struggling to make that happen during the work week.

• Monday – 3.31 miles in 58 minutes
• Tuesday – 3.02 miles in 54 minutes and 1.78 miles in 35 minutes (I took a walk with my son to help him clear his head between work and working on some personal projects to assist in the job search.)
• Wednesday – 3.8 miles in 1 hour 13 minutes
• Thursday – 2.61 miles in 50 minutes (I should have eaten lunch before going on a walk and needed to cut it short because I felt a bit weak.)
• Saturday – 3.68 miles in 1 hour 9 minutes

What I played

MLB The Show 23 (Orioles) – I played three games and went 2-1, losing the last one to the Rays, who scored the go ahead run in the 7th.