Sarah Shekaran, a student at the University of Toronto, travelled from Ontario to BC this past summer during a particularly “spiritually isolating” period of her life.
Fresh out of her first year of university, Shekaran was in town to attend “IMAGO”, a three-day conference hosted by Jesus Youth, an international charismatic faith group. She felt nervous to attend, especially since she did not know many people going.
Shekaran’s first year after graduating high school forced her into a spiritual desert. She felt disconnected her from her faith and the spiritual desert resulted in a “dry spell” of prayer. Though she appreciated her classmates and professors that she met at her university, the faith she shared with her friends from high school, particularly those from her parish youth ministry, were missing in those connections.
But as she met and spoke to other young adults in attendance at IMAGO, the role of community to form and strengthen bonds stood out in a particular way.
At the conference, she was surrounded by people who were “incredibly welcoming and unapologetic about their faith”. In their presence, Shekaran also saw her faith changing from something she simply inherited to something she could know and embrace as truth.
“Earlier in my journey, my faith was often guided by emotion, and I sometimes confused those feelings with the depth of my spirituality,” she noted. As Shekaran learned more about the Catholic Church and the reasons behind her teachings, she discovered a faith that is “not only felt, but understood and rooted in truth.” Further, it reaffirmed Shekaran’s conviction that “spiritual experiences are powerful gifts that allow us to encounter God in a meaningful way.”
While many can leave a conference or retreat feeling on fire for their faith, what allows these moments to continue shaping us is having a foundation built on truth and understanding, Shekaran said. This firm foundation of faith is also something that isn’t built alone; rather, it’s a communal journey with others on the same path. For Shekaran, her experience at IMAGO led her to build relationships with other Jesus Youth members, encouraging her to grow on her spiritual journey.
But for Renee Datur, an incoming first-year student at Langara College, to be in relationship with others was also to leave herself vulnerable to the possibility of being hurt by them.
Since joining the Couples for Christ Youth (CFC-Youth) community in 2023, Datur experienced her faith journey as a “constant push and pull” between where God was calling her towards and what she would have to leave behind. This was especially true last year as she discerned her plans after graduating high school while at the same time losing friendships with people she served with in CFC-Youth.
What made it even more difficult was that Datur still served as one of the more experienced leaders in their group. Many of the youth looked up to her for support and guidance, but they did not necessarily see how much she needed support as she struggled in this period of her life. Many times, her own pain seemed to “overpower the love” in her heart, further challenging how much she felt like she could contribute to the community.
Datur’s pain led her to realize that there was still a lot of hurt that needed to be acknowledged and reconciliation that needed to happen, but there was also “healing that [she] did not know how to begin.”
Like Shakaran, Datur was also in the midst of confronting her own spiritual dryness at a different conference. Coincidentally, CFC-Youth also hosted their national conference “As One” on the same summer weekend as IMAGO, at a different university campus in the Lower Mainland. Leading up to the conference, it felt as if she was still “carrying wounds that had not yet been healed,” leading to some hesitancy about attending. But the pull to attend came to her like a quiet whisper that ultimately convinced her to go.
At the conference, a number of events took place that Datur never thought “in a million years” would happen.
“There were people I never thought I would encounter again [at the conference],” Datur shared. “I had conversations I never thought would happen and moments of reconciliation that I did not realize my heart needed.” Over the course of the weekend, her wounded heart was transformed into a heart that was “filled with hope for the future, forgiveness of the past, and love for the present.”
For Datur, the conference was a beautiful reminder that anything is possible when the human heart rests in the divine heart of its Creator – even forgiveness and reconciliation. “Healing does not necessarily mean forgetting what happened or pretending it doesn’t exist,” she said. Rather, it is allowing God “to transform the way we carry that hurt” by trusting in his ability “to bring something beautiful out of experiences that once caused us pain.”
While Datur acknowledges that she is still learning, healing, and discerning where God is calling her to in this season of her life, she does so now with “a heart that is learning to trust him more deeply.”
“Even when I feel lost in the middle of my own story, God has never lost sight of the ending He is leading me towards.”
