Grace – who is from Chicago – grew up in a normal stable, Catholic family. She always knew that God wanted to be in her life.

One time, while kneeling in Adoration at one of our conferences, she felt nothing. She thought that something was wrong with her, so she decided to just listen to the music. Then, a lyric from one of the songs spoke to her heart:

“If Your grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.”

With those words, she experienced an overwhelming sense of being in a large ocean, and envisioned the people all around her as waves crashing. She knew that God was with her, and with everyone else, even though she didn’t feel it. As Grace said so eloquently:

“The most important thing is that you are here with God, and He is here with you.”

Nolan grew up as a “cradle Catholic” but didn’t feel like he knew God personally. At the age of ten, a lot of people he loved passed away, and he started getting bullied for being small. In response to these struggles, he turned to sins of impurity, but in so doing he felt a lot of shame.

Eventually, at a conference much like this – after the men’s session – he was given a chance to pray with one of the leaders. And this leader spoke the words of God into his heart…

The Father loves you.

…and all of those years that he had wasted were lifted off of his shoulders, and he felt like a new man.

I’d encourage you to listen to his whole testimony; if you do, you will be blessed.

During today’s women’s session, Jocelyn shared how one simple act of kindness revealed God’s love to her.

She started off as a very joyful child, but gradually she noticed people becoming annoyed by her. She started to feel ashamed of her joy until she could no longer feel it inside her and a sadness set in. Her parents saw that she was struggling and made her go to youth group. Even though that first time she didn’t want to go, she kept going. Gradually, God worked on her heart.

Gem, from Olathe Kansas, got really vulnerable and shared her story with us this morning. It started before she was even born; her birth mom wasn’t married and considered terminating the pregnancy. A group of Catholics (including her new parents) found out about it and started praying for her – and she wasn’t aborted.

Looking back on this situation, she now realizes that she should have been grateful – but in her heart she felt rejected and unwanted. She also struggled with fitting in. She thought that even God couldn’t want her.

One year at Steubenville, during Adoration, a feeling of God holding her heart overwhelmed her…

“I invite all of you…to open yourself up to God, because God will touch you if you let Him.”

Oscar is a lifelong Catholic who always had a good relationship with God. Everything was going well for him, until one day his sister shared with him that their dad had cancer. While he knew that his dad would fight it, his dad eventually passed away. Then, in his anger and frustration, Oscar turned against God and turned to sin. Eventually, at his mom’s prompting, he went to Confession, shared everything with the priest, and felt a huge weight lifted off of him. Oscar’s advice to all of us is simple:

I challenge you to go to Confession, so that God can open up your heart the way He has opened up mine.