Saturday night Adoration – easily considered by many to be the “culminating” event of each Steubenville conference. The time when Christ speaks directly into our hearts; all of our wounds, our fears, our struggles, along with our joys, celebrations and hopes. God is good. He moves in big ways and does big things. But what if you don’t feel Him moving? What if you don’t feel Him doing big things? Is He still there? Do I still belong to Him?

Fr. Martin processed in with Jesus and knelt before Him on the altar. He led us in praying the Litany of Trust and one line stood out to me, “From the lie that I don’t belong, deliver me Jesus.” As I sat and adored our Lord, I found myself repeating this line over and over and offering up all of you as I did. “From the lie that I don’t belong…from the lie that I don’t belong… Lord, help your children know they are loved. Help them to know they belong!”

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As Adoration began tonight, Fr. Chris Martin led us in a beautiful prayer and the Lord wants us to share it with you.

The Litany of Trust

From the belief that I have to earn Your love

Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear that I am unlovable

Deliver me, Jesus.

From the false security that I have what it takes

Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear that trusting You will leave me more destitute

Deliver me, Jesus.

From all suspicion of Your words and promises

Deliver me, Jesus.

From the rebellion against childlike dependency on You

Deliver me, Jesus.

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Brian asked all of our attendees tonight to get out of their comfort zone.  That being said, it’s hard to ‘jump’ to God when you’ve been dropped a lot. It can be hard to believe that God cares about you. When you’ve been broken enough, the enemy likes to try to convince you of three things:

1. You’re alone
2. You are unloved
3. You are unlovable

If you live within these lies the enemy can control your actions.

For a lot of us, it’s much easier to remember the things people have said negatively about us or the times we’ve feel like we’ve been dropped. In those moments, we don’t want to jump or be open. We can sit here tonight and pretend our lives are perfect, but let’s be real with ourselves.

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Fr. Martin began his session on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory by calling up a volunteer from the crowd and asking her if she is “saved”. “Raise your hand if you think this teen is saved,” he asked the crowd. He was impressed when only a few hands went up. Then he asked if she was redeemed. Many more people raised their hands. He nodded and then clarified, “We are all redeemed, but we are in the process of being saved.” Jesus died on the cross and paid the price for our sins, but we could still reject Him.

What happens when we die?

Our lives are brief compared to eternity. So this is what we should remind ourselves when we have to make the sacrifice to choose what is good and pure and holy. When we die we all have the immediate judgment. At the end of all time, Jesus will come back. There will be no more confusion about Jesus and there will be a final judgement.

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This afternoon, Lisa Cotter reminded up that we live in a time when dating is really confusing. It is extremely difficult to navigate the dating world: there are no norms to dating anymore, and because of technology, as we scroll through our phones, we feel as if we’re connecting with someone, but in reality, we’re not. In order to connect with someone, you need that face to face interaction and we cannot get that through a screen. While texting is a wonderful and convenient thing, unfortunately it doesn’t let us see another’s emotion. We find it difficult to interpret what the other is saying and it can get confusing, so Lisa reminded us that “texting is for information, not emotion.”

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