What are you Seeking?

Claire Carlson, DCHS Senior

Senior at Dowling Catholic Claire Carlson recently attended Focus's Seek Conference in St. Louis, MO with 11 of her classmates. All 12 participate in Ut Fidem and are leaders in the faith among the school. Read about her experience at the conference:

My name is Claire Carlson, and I recently just went on Seek24. Seek was the first retreat that I went on that was more than just a few of my classmates. Seek is a faith conference held every year and over 20,000 people from all over the world attend. This year it was in St. Louis, Missouri and next year it is being held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Going into the conference I didn’t know what to expect. My sister had been so she kind of told me about it, but other than that I had no idea what to think. I was most excited to be in an environment where everyone came together for the same purpose: to worship and learn more about their faith. 

I enjoyed my whole experience, and I learned so much by going to all the talks. I think my favorite part was going to adoration. For the night of adoration, 4,000 more people from the city of Saint Louis joined us. There was something divinely beautiful about being in the same arena as 24,000 people all praying together. Before I went, I had talked to some people, and they all told me that I should be excited for adoration. I didn’t think much of it and I was more excited for all the talks, the concert, Mass, and everything else Seek had to offer. But in the end, adoration was my favorite part. I think every time I go to adoration from now on, I will be reminded of my experience at Seek and will forever cherish those memories. 

For the five days I was there, I went to 19 talks including, keynotes, the daily women's talk, and the talks I picked to go to. Out of all of the ones that I attended I learned so much and took so many notes on everything I learned. I was asked to pick a favorite talk, but I don’t think I can. Instead, I am going to share some of the most important things that I learned while at Seek: 

• You will always be loved. 

• It doesn’t matter how bad your sins are, he always wants us to come back to him. 

• Jesus wants to shine through our brokenness.

• You are made IN love, FOR love, and TO love. 

• We all suffer, and all suffering isn’t bad. 

• No matter what is happening bad on the outside, God can use it for good on the INSIDE. 

  This conference taught me so much about myself, my faith, and gave me hope. I was worried that when I go to college, I would lose my faith because I didn’t think that I would find people to go to mass with and live a life according to Jesus with.

I was scared. But, after going on Seek I have hope. I witnessed over 20,000 people taking time to go on a five-day conference to grow in their faith. The majority of these people were from colleges all over the country. Seeing that faith is a priority in so many college kids’ lives gave me hope that I will find these kinds of friendships at college as well as keep my friendships with the other 11 girls that went on this retreat with me. After going, I think I will be able to continue my faith strongly without as many worries as I had going into it. I am beyond grateful that I got this opportunity to go and am so happy with my experience, how it turned out, the deeper friendships I made, and everything I learned. Seek24 was a truly beautiful experience and I hope to attend Seek25 next year in Salt Lake City, Utah! If you ever get the opportunity to go on Seek, I highly recommend and hope you have a wonderful experience like I did!