Emily Wilson- Women's Session- Steubenville On The Bayou 2017

[Music] I'm so excited to be with you I love singing with you I love being here with you how many of all have been to a student Ville conference before raise your hand awesome how many of you this is your first time raise your hand you love that excitement that makes me very happy so I just want to get one thing clear out of the gate I'm not here for the next period of time to tell you how to live your life I'm not here to tell you what to do I'm not here to preach at you or talk at you I'm a young woman just like you trying to figure out all the stuff that I'm about to talk about and I don't come here to stand on stages and have lights on me and tell you about stuff I'm actually quite a reserved and shy person but I'm here because your story matters to me what you're going through matters to me what you've been through in your life matters to me and I want you to feel during this time that you and I are at coffee together and we're just talking about life is that cool because if I had time I would sit down with each and every single one of you and hear your story and I was share with you and I would allow you to share with me because I would love to do that but since we're women and we love to talk I would probably be doing that for the rest of my life my poor husband would be at home alone waiting for me while I sat and listened to every single one of you but know that your story matters to me and that's why I'm here and I just want to share from my heart with you today is that cool so today I want to talk about a very special woman we find in John chapter 8 Ian if you could bring up that first slide of the scripture story I want you guys to be able to follow along here this is from John chapter 8 the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and making her stand before all of them they said to him teacher this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women now what do you say they said this to test him so that they might have some charge to bring against him you can go to the next slide Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground when they kept on questioning him he straightened up and said to them let any one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her and once again he bent down and he wrote on the ground when they heard it they went away one by one beginning with the elders and Jesus was left alone with a woman standing before him you can go to the next slide Jesus straightened up and said to her woman where are they has no one condemned you she said no one sir and Jesus said neither do i condemn you go your way and from now on do not sin again you can go to the next slide so Jesus is with we know this woman we've heard about her the woman caught in adultery can you imagine if the worst thing you've ever done in your life someone found out that that was the case and they brought you to stand in front of your youth group or your school or your family and they said this is the worst thing that this girl has done doesn't it make your stomach turn like that would be horrifying can you imagine the shame and embarrassment that this woman felt when she was caught in the act of adultery when they pull her out and put her in front of all these people the shame that she felt in her heart I can't imagine that the Pharisees say like this like this is the way that this woman is messing up in this show that her identity is in guilt and shame that her identity is this sin that she was caught committing and they say like we should throw stones at this woman for what she's done that she deserves to be brutally beaten for the sins that she has committed they point out her flaws and they show that her identity is her sin and her shame and Jesus shows otherwise but I want to talk about the few of the people that we can be in this story you can go ahead and take that picture down I want to talk about a few of the people we can be in this story and I want to talk about the first person that we can be is these nasty Pharisees right and the first like they they they look at this woman and they want to stone her throw stones at her for what she's done and who she is but I feel like in our lives we can be the Pharisees first toward ourselves right there's one thing we as women are really good at doing I'm really good at doing it and maybe you can identify with this but I'm really good at being hard on myself really good at being hard on myself and expecting perfection out of myself all the time whether that's in the way my body looks or the way people perceive me how many of y'all have ever asked yourselves questions like this why can't you get anything right why can't you look like her why can't you get it together and have a body that you're actually happy with why can't you do better in school why do you know guys talk to you or care that you exist why can't you get a date you're a burden you're annoying how many evolve ever ask yourself those questions or said those kinds of things to yourself I'm raising my hand hi yes right and this can start first thing when we get up in the morning right we wake up and we look in the mirror and how often do we think about all the things that we can we wish we could change about ourselves before we think about one thing that we love about who we are and who God created us to be right we look in the mirror and we think gosh I wish I could change that I wish I look better I look I wish my skin was different I wish my body was different and we begin our day like that what if we began like tooten like our days not throwing rocks at ourselves and tearing ourselves down but encouraging ourselves I have a favorite video of a girl encouraging herself in the mirror in the morning maybe you've seen it if you got that video Ian will you roll that video please I love her right how often do we start our day by looking in the mirror and saying I can do anything good I am a beloved daughter of the Living God God made me exactly the way I am because that's how he wanted me to look I can do anything good she says to herself but so often with the are the world is telling us that perfection is our true sign of worth that we need to be perfect that perfection is something that is achievable and attainable and that we should be going after it and that if we do not become the perfection that we are hoping to be or we are striving to be that we have failed I want you to know that when you fail it doesn't make you a failure because we're all imperfect human beings figuring life along I like out along as we go that we like we're in this vicious cycle of perfection because the world tells us that we need to be and then we feel like we're behind all the time and that we're not good enough all the time what if we started to change the way we think and started to believe like yeah I'm gonna mess up yeah I'm not gonna get everything perfect but I'm a beloved daughter of God and that is who he created me to be and I can live from that place from the very moment I wake up in the morning because when we can be merciful and kind toward ourselves it stop expecting perfection out of ourselves and asking us those questions and instead of affirming ourselves and allowing God to speak our identity into our lives when we can be merciful to ourselves and loving toward ourselves we are living the life that God has created us to live God didn't create us as women to just be hard on ourselves all the time and say things to ourselves that we would never say to other women your identity is daughter and when you are kind to yourself and loving to yourself you can live from that place amen we can also be like the Pharisees to other women how many of you have ever seen a woman being unkind to another woman how many a vote of you all have had a woman be unkind to you okay how many of y'all have been unkind to another woman right we've all been there we all know what that's like why do we throw rocks at other women why are we like the Pharisee sometimes when girls mess up or when we like want to tear other women down there's one word that that stems from and you can go ahead and bring up that one word on that one slide in security in security causes us to be the people who are standing there saying look at the way this woman has messed up look at that girl it is what causes us to tear other women down this is the root of why we tear other women down because we don't remember who we are as daughters of God because the reality is if we really look at it truly confident people never tear other people down why insecure people tear other people down because they don't feel good about themselves and they think maybe if I tore this other person down I feel I'd feel better about myself but it never works you can go to the next slide I came up with this formula because I found myself being very jealous of other women and being very very prone to tearing other women down and I realized that it comes from this place of competition of thinking like I am a competitor and a race with other women or a beauty pageant we as women we look to our left and we look to our right to see how other women are doing in school to see what they look like to see what their bodies look like right and we don't think we measure up I do it all the time and I look at where she is in her life and where she is in her life and then I start to feel behind how many of y'all have ever felt that like I'm behind I have I have felt that like I'm behind she's had however many boyfriends I've been single my whole life she's doing this in her classes and I'm not and I and it becomes a competition and then I don't feel like I'm measuring up I feel like I'm behind which breeds insecurity in me I feel like I'm not good enough I'm not doing well enough and it causes me to tear other women so often womanhood is treated as a competition because we as women aren't secure in our truest identity going back to that identity as daughter of God created brilliantly unique an individual like the maker of the stars in the heavens you know this and I know this but sometimes we forget it then the maker of the heavens and the stars and the oceans and the galaxies like hand-crafted you you and you and you and he created you to look like you and have the personality that you have but a lot of times we think like this isn't good enough I want to be like her but God says I created you to be you so how do we work on rooting that insecure like rooting out that insecurity how do we battle insecurity how do we root that out we go continually back to God to say God show me who I am show me who you created me to be when we're walking with God with a prayer life every day while praying every day helps us to grow in relationship with God and we can better hear God among the noise what the world is telling us and who the world is telling us we are and need to be when we're walking with God every single day we can hear his voice and we could hear him telling us what our identity is since I saw that video Jessica's daily affirmation I just love her and I'm like I just want to be like her I need to be like her if I'm gonna live as the confident daughter that God created me to be so I came up with this affirmation that I that I have used in my life to help me root out insecurity I say this to myself every day I say my name is Emily Wilson and I love and accept myself my name is Emily Wilson and I'm a beautiful and radiant daughter of God and to some people that's cheesy you know I heard so many times when I was young like you're a princess you're the daughter of the king and all that and that didn't really resonate with me but when I see this to myself like I know that I'm a beautiful and radiant daughter of God created uniquely and when I say this sometimes they don't believe it sometimes I don't feel like I love myself sometimes I feel like I'm just this huge mess trying to figure out my life maybe some of you know what that feels like but when I say this this helps me remember remember Who I am and when I remember Who I am I can live from that place and I could be confident in walking with God and making the decisions that he calls me to make in my life so you can go ahead if that would help you to root out insecurities in your life go ahead and use that because it helps us to have a holy confidence in who God created us to be we are also like the woman caught in adultery in our lives right our sin may be very different from hers she's caught in adultery there's it's unlikely you know all the view girls in high school like have been caught in adultery in your life but we all have patterns of sin in our lives amen there's all different places in our lives like we all have these different areas whether that's gossiping tearing other women down whether that's greed or vanity habits of sin impurity of our hearts and our minds whether that's sexual sin masturbation allowing ourselves to be used by guys we know our boyfriends guys we don't know we all have these areas where we turn our backs on God and that's what sin is sin is turning our back on God and saying I know better than you I'm gonna live my life the way I want to and the Pharisees show this woman like her identity is her sin and her shame and what does Jesus do Jesus shows her that sin and shame is not her identity that she can be made new in Christ why because Christ is mercy and Christ is merciful and he looks on this woman with love in the exact same way that he looks at us to say like you are made new in me you can be made new in Christ in that is love and he is mercy and he restores her dignity in that moment he restores her worth he elevates her dignity he elevates her worth by saying to her your sin does not define who you are your sin doesn't define you your shame doesn't define you your guilt doesn't define you because you are a daughter of the Living God you are defined by my mercy my love and the grace that I give if you could pull up that next photo after that Ian that would be awesome I feel like so often in our lives when we mess up or we get into these patterns of sin we think that Jesus is angry with us how many of y'all have ever felt like wow I've really crossed the line here and I messed up a lot Jesus must be upset with me I certainly have in my life being like oh my gosh there's got to be a boundary of Jesus's love and I have to have stepped over it by now like I have to have pushed the limits I love this photo why and I love this story why because Jesus I mean this woman is pulled out of like in the act of adultery and she's pulled out into the street and Jesus doesn't say what is wrong with you you've got it all wrong like can't you stop messing up like what is your problem he doesn't say any of that he goes and he looks at her with love and with kindness and he says has anyone condemned you neither do i condemned do you neither do i condemn you he raises her up with love and mercy and kindness and she approaches he Jesus approaches her where she is but she doesn't have to go seeking Jesus he comes to her right where she is in the middle of her mess it shows her kindness and love and so often were we're scared of the sacrament of reconciliation because we're like oh my gosh like there's just so much and maybe Jesus doesn't want it maybe just doesn't take it I feel like so often this is a picture of reconciliation of just coming to Jesus in sorrow to say yes these are the sins that I've committed and Jesus coming to meet us with love and kindness insane I can make you new I can restore your identity I can elevate your identity and your dignity Christ wants to meet you where you are and lift you up to a life of elevated purpose and dignity and strength exactly as he did with a woman but Jesus is firm in his command it's funny because he's loving and kind with her but he's firm in his command he says to her go and sin no more he doesn't say well like maybe you should like think about like stopping this or I don't know like just think about it he says like go and sin no more why because he knows that sin is never gonna fulfill her he knows that if she stays in this pattern in her life of like I talked about last night if just like going after these things that will never fulfill or satisfy that she will never find true joy that she'll never find happiness that she'll never feel the purpose that God created her for so he's firm in her command go and sin no more as he elevates her Worth and makes her new and it is a very same for us he wants us to recognize what those things are in our lives because living in sin does not bring glory to God living in sin doesn't show the world what our identity is and we can make a change to live virtue to strive for holiness and to live the life of femininity given to us by God that God created us for one of the most beautiful models of femininity the most beautiful model of femininity is the Blessed Virgin Mary who is awesome amen Mary's awesome yes claps for Mary love that marries beautiful and sometimes I look at the Blessed Virgin Mary and I look at how she can teach me about true femininity and true virtue I'm like wow like she was sinless like of course she lived virtue perfectly like she was sinless and I'm like you know a mess sometimes but there's so much that Mary can teach us Mary is said to be the new Eve the new Eve if you could bring up that verse it says for just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous rate so Eve says no to God when God says don't eat the fruit of the tree Eve says no and she does it and then when God asks Mary to be the mother of the god of the universe she says yes and she makes way for the redemption of souls by her yes and I love it you could bring up the next photos Mary shows me something very very cool so this is Eve on the Left Eve is often shown in arts and in photos reaching and grasping for her worth for love for all of those things she didn't believe that God was trustworthy and that God was good she thought she was deceived by the devil to believe that God was withholding something good for her just because he felt like it and so she reached and she gratzman she didn't trust God and then we have Mary beautiful Mary Blessed Virgin Mary over there on the right is she in this picture often portrayed is in a posture of receiving that she doesn't go looking and grasping for her worth or for her identity this she opens her hands to receive the identity that God gives her the love that God gives her the dignity the worth the value the beauty that God gives her and I feel like so often we are like Eve on the left I know I can be like grasping at my identity grasping at things that are gonna make me feel worthy of love grasping at things that are gonna make me feel important unknown are accepted and Mary like I talked about last night Mary can just sit before the Lord hands wide open and know that she's accepted and know that she's known and know that she's loved and live out her femininity from that place from a place of knowing who she is and receiving her worth from the God of the universe so we can look to Mary and ask for her intercession and guidance in living out our femininity in loving ourselves more not throwing rocks at ourselves not throwing rocks at other women one of my favorite prayers to Mary because I always want to get closer to Jesus and moms know a lot about their sons hearts are there any mothers in the room with sons okay lots of mothers I love that mothers know the hearts of their sons right mom's they know they just know their sons in a way that other people don't and Mary was the mother of God and she can teach us a lot about her son and one of my favorite prayers to Mary is it's very simple Mary teach me to love your son teach me love your son help me to love him more because she can do just that as well as live a life of authentic and holy virtue so when I was at these conferences I was like okay I want to live this life of virtue but how well like what does that look like like how do I live that and one of the things that they talked about a lot was chastity and how we can live that and a lot of times we hear the word chastity and we just think about abstinence right we just think like chastity saving sex or marriage and that's it well chastity is a lot bigger than that I want to talk about that briefly chastity is about purity of our hearts chastity goes back to the purity of what's going on inside here chastity has to do with what we consume with our ears and with our eyes and with our minds asking ourselves what contributes to the purity of our hearts because you and I both see everything that's presented us to us in the media every day right we see the articles that come up on snapchat we see what comes up on Instagram we see what's on the shows on Netflix right there's a lot of that stuff contributing to the purity of our hearts no unfortunately not and it's in our faces every day and it's so important to look at these things because if we're striving to live a life of holiness and virtue that's very problematic and difficult in our world today because the world is just like throwing vulgarity and promiscuity and all these things in our face like saying it's normal and saying it's cool and the more we consume that the more we are desensitized to it so if we're gonna be made new in Christ and live out this feminine identity in virtue we have to take a look like what is the music that I'm listening to like what kind of accounts am i following on Instagram like what shows am i watching on Netflix and like is this contributing to the purity of my heart is what I'm consuming like reflective of my identity as daughter has made new in Christ something to think about in living out the virtue of chastity chastity also has to do with saving sex for marriage which is a choice that I made when I was 16 years old this choice doesn't make me better than anyone else who has decided differently than me but it is a choice that I made and I got married to a very handsome man about a year ago woohoo would you guys like to see a little portion of our wedding I love weddings I love love y'all love love I love love so an if you've got that ready if you guys want to see a little clip this is our wedding Mass about one year ago with my sweet husband Daniel so I married the most handsome man who has ever talked to me my life that's for sure my husband is there in a little country called Holland and what you heard a Spokane speaking was Dutch cool right I thought I did a pretty good job with it it's not my first language but I said my thousand Dutch and I thought I did okay so um that was our wedding day and I talked about how I made the decision to save sex for marriage when I was 16 years old if you could bring up the photo of our wedding rings and that would be awesome so Daniel and I picked out our wedding rings very carefully we picked out these rings Daniel knew the one he wanted I knew the one I wanted and a lot of times when you see someone who's married you see their wedding ring you think oh they're married right the cool thing about the Catholic wedding Mass is that within the vows the husband and wife put a ring on each other and they say Daniel said to me he said Emily I give you this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity so when you see a person's wedding ring it doesn't just mean they're married it means that someone promised their life to them and Daniel and I both decided to save sex for marriage when we were teenagers a lot of times I thought like there's no guys who will wait Daniel waited for me which is a beautiful beautiful gift and I gave my virginity to my husband on my wedding in the next day I woke up and I have a lot of friends who chose differently than I did and I like I told you my decision doesn't make me better than any of them but a lot of them have told me I woke up the next day or I was in these patterns of sin in my life of giving myself away and I always had all these questions like what's gonna happen now like am I gonna get pregnant is he gonna tell his friends am I gonna tell my friends are my friends gonna find out where my parents gonna find out and there's a lot of panic and regret and fear but I've made that decision in the day after my wedding I didn't have any questions because they knew that Daniel was gonna be there a week from now three months from now five years from now I knew that when I called him he was gonna pick up the phone cuz that's what you do when your wife calls just pick up the phone right I knew he wouldn't answer my calls and he wouldn't just disappear and stop texting back I knew that if I got pregnant he would be there to support me and love me and I knew that I was loved for who I am and not what I could give or what I could do and there was a sense of deep peace and joy in that but like I said a lot of my friends have made different decisions than me a lot of women I know and I've talked to a lot of women who just who say like I gave away my virginity or I messed around with my boyfriend or guys I didn't know and I didn't like how it made me feel and that's might be your situation in your life you might be in these patterns of sin in your life and not like how it makes you feel guess what just like the woman caught in adultery God promises to make all things new that it is never too late to decide you know what I'm gonna change my ways I'm gonna change my life and turn toward a life that looks different than what I'm living right now and go to God to receive the love and kindness and mercy that he gave so many women through Scripture who were caught in just lives that they weren't happy with that weren't leading them close to God do not underestimate the power of a God who promises to make all things new I also know that some of you in this room might have had that taken unfairly from you and if no one has ever in your life apologized to you for that I want to be the first person to tell you that I'm sorry and that you didn't deserve that but that you could look for healing in a thousand places but that Jesus is healer that he is the divine physician and that in ways in our lives where we have been used wrongly treated wrongly disrespected that we can go to Jesus go back to Jesus to be healed and to find love and to be known and to be accepted and to have Jesus open his arms to us and say I love you I love you all that you are and all that I created you to be it is never too late to change it is never too late to run back to Jesus amen amen so we can live out the virtue of charity by being kind to other women by rooting out insecurities and seeing women as our sisters to be celebrated we can live out the virtue of chastity by what we consume with our lives by the way we live out the sacredness of our bodies because our bodies are and always will be sacred and we can live out the virtue of fortitude by the way that we live our life because if I'm being honest with you you probably know this living a life of faith as a young woman in our world today is really really hard it is hard to not do what everyone else is doing I went to Arizona State University this massive public school and I was made fun of so often for living my faith for not going to parties for not sleeping around so often people like Emily you're so stuck up you're so high and mighty you're such a goody two-shoes everyone in my friend like my dorm freshman year just tore me apart behind my back all the time about how much better I thought that I was than everyone else that I've so judgmental all of these things and I was quietly trying to live a life of faith and walk with Jesus and go to Mass on Sunday and it was really really hard but it was so worth it because I knew that the things that the world was telling me like this is what's gonna make you happy being popular and going to parties and sleeping around and having all these likes on Easter gonna be having all these followers and having all this stuff like I knew that that wasn't gonna satisfy me and that going with the flow would never make me happy and so I thought you know what I'm gonna live out the virtue of fortitude and I'm gonna try and stay strong who I know I am and living out my identity as daughter and it required a great deal of bravery fortitude is is bravery courage resilience that what God calls us to do is not zyy at all but I can promise you this because I've tried to live it every day of my life that is worth while to in our sin in our shame in our brokenness in our joys and our best moments in our lowest moments to continue to go back to the Lord and say Lord show me who I am and show me how I can be your hands and feet in the world and help me to make my decisions from my knowledge of my identity as your daughter and when I don't make decisions that reflect my identity as daughter as the woman caught in adultery was not help me to remember that I can go to you and that you restore my identity always that you elevate my dignity do you elevate my worth I want to be clear that this woman's decisions in her life didn't take away her value didn't take away her worth so often I hear from people that you know like our patterns of sin like lessen our Worth and our dignity and our value that's not the case God gives us infinite value that cannot be taken away from us by others but God restores her as daughter when he forgives our sins he washes us white as snow and elevates our dignity and Worth amen so these areas in our lives living these virtues living these virtues charity chastity and fortitude can help us to become more the women that God created us to be is it hard to live fortitude yeah it's hard to tell your friends like yeah I gotta go to Mass on Sunday no I can't go to that party no I can't see that movie is it hard to live chastity in our relationships yes when I decided to save sex for marriage it wasn't some walk in the park easy thing like you just decide that and just waltz onto your wedding day it is not an easy thing charity toward others is sometimes not an easy thing because we got a lot going on in our heart in our lives but these are the things that God calls to you and in those moments in our lives where we haven't lived out from that place we can go just like that woman just like the woman caught in adultery before the Lord just kneeling before the Lord and having Jesus come so close to us and say you are my daughter you are loved you are accepted fully for who you are and who I created you to be you don't need to wear masks you don't need to try and put up filters and try to look a certain way you don't have to look like the goddess filter in front of Jesus you can have the skin you have the body you have the heart you have he's going to look on you with love and kindness and say you are mine you are my daughter [Music] you

Channel: Steubenville Youth Conferences

Views: 1,585

Rating: 4.8367348 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Charismatic, Youth Conference, Youth, Conference, Evangelization, Steubenville Conferences, Steubenville

Id: xvUrWlCsjp8

Length: 36min 33sec (2193 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 06 2018