Confirmation talk

Well, my youth group leader was asked to go to a confirmation retreat, and to bring two students with me. One of my friends and I was asked. Not gonna lie, I was absolutely terrified...getting up in front of 40+ confirmation students, at least half probably don't want to be there, sharing personal parts of my life for all of them to hear. When I got up I was so nervous, trying to remember why I had agreed. I spoke (a little bit faster than I should have), and gave my speech. It went like this:

"Well, I guess I should tell you a bit about myself first. I live in Lynn, grew up at Our Lady’s in Lynnfield, went to church every Sunday, CCD, and all that fun stuff. In my mind, God existed, Jesus died for me so I wouldn’t have sin, but it didn’t really mean anything. Middle of 8^th grade, I started going to Sacred Heart Youth Group. I went to SnowCAMPS, which is a weekend retreat for 7^th and 8^th graders where I discovered that people actually enjoyed their faith. There was also Steubenville East, which is a retreat for 2400+ teenagers and I first truly experienced adoration, and Soulfest which is a week long Christian music festival; who knew that Christian music spans every genre from rap, to rock, to metal. I also went to CAMPS, which is like SnowCAMPS but is a week long and for highschoolers. Through all these trips, I found God. I found the importance of having him in my life, and it finally connected for me.Well, then I started high school, and things were alright.

As time progressed though, it got harder and harder to keep up with my work, I felt sad a lot, and I just wasn’t me. I had started cutting, and several times, came close to killing myself. I started going to a therapist, but it didn’t seem to help.

My mood went up and down quite a bit, but the worst was the middle of May. I’m homeschooled, but go to classes at a place called New Hope Tutorials twice a week. In May, I had basically stopped going. I would wake up in the morning, afraid to go to classes cause I was so far behind at this point, and I would start to feel sick to my stomach. My mom tried to find help for me, and after one particularly bad cutting episode, I was brought to the Emergency Room for a Mental Health Evaluation. Thinking I wasn’t in any imminent danger, I was sent to a partial-program in Boston where there was group therapy and various things with a bunch of people who also have depression. I decided to call it the DA, depressed anonymous; I thought of it like the AA for depressed people. Anyways, I was there for 2 weeks, had started feeling better, though still not me. Summer started, I went away quite a bit, and for the next month, I had numerous depression episodes where I wasn’t at all myself.

I had stopped feeling God with me around May or April. Before, I felt like I could turn to him and I could feel his presence with me, but now. I felt that He just wasn’t there. Those times where I wasn’t myself, I needed someone with me, but God wasn’t there for me. One time that stands out in particular was when I was laying in bed, paralyzed because I was afraid that if I moved at all, I might do something regrettable. This was my lowest point, and I felt that God wasn’t there anymore. I went to Adoration and felt nothing; I asked for help but got no answer.

At the end of July, I went to Steubenville East, and was surrounded by many teenagers that were so alive in their faith. There was plenty of music, amazing speakers, and lots of prayer. I sang along, clapped, and jumped around with my friends, although my heart wasn't in it. Saturday night adoration…wow... We got into groups of 3 and prayed, and I started sobbing. Well, as soon as the brought the monstrance with the Body of Christ out, I just stopped. People around me were crying, laughing, or a strange mixture of the two because they had been touched by the Holy Spirit. Of course, I have to be weird and start hyperventilating instead... During this, I felt a tingling in my arms and legs, and a strange sensation going through my entire body; I knew that the Holy Spirit was touching me. I suddenly realized that God had never left me; He had been right beside me the entire time, but I had turned my back to him. Then I suddenly thought of something, something that one of my friends had said to me right before Steubenville, that one of the speakers had said, that just kept popping up everywhere; Jesus had died for me so that I could live. He had nails driven through his hands and feet, was tortured, was forced to suffer alone, and he would have done all that even if I was the only person on the Earth. I was overwhelmed by the amount of love He has for me. Even when I thought so low of myself, Jesus still saw me as an amazing person worth dying for. At that moment, wanting to kill myself seemed so ridiculous. After what Jesus did so that I could live…to turn around and try to end it all was like slapping Him.

This new-found love for my Savior had reawakened a thought that I had had nearly a year earlier. I wanted to do missionary work. I wanted to go to the ends of the Earth and show people who had never even heard the name of Jesus the incredibly love He has for them. I went home after Steubenville, and started looking up what I could do missionary wise. If I could, I would have gone that week.

I’m still aiming to do missionary work with my life. I want to go into the medical field, and then go to the most remote and dangerous parts of the world so that I can help people both physically and spiritually. God gave me a love for adventure, so I would be perfect for going out into these parts of the world. Through these trials, God gave me so much strength. I still have trouble with depression, but now I will never forget how much God love me. Plus, now I have a dream to strive for, to spread His love."

I pray that my talk effected some people to do, if only one. Maybe, just maybe, something one that retreat sparked their faith.