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At morning worship, youth were asked to open themselves to God’s limitless love and to allow that love to heal their hearts and expand their own limited human love.

Jon Heinly, youth worship leader, and Andrea Guyton, who works with the convention’s social media, introduced the idea of limitless love by asking the youth to fill out an online survey about what they love. The survey included things like Apple or Android, favorite basketball player, favorite pizza topping and favorite superhero.

Guyton said the word “love” is thrown around so much we forget what the word really means.

Kim Litwiller speaks. Photo by Vada Snider.

Kim Litwiller, pastor at East Peoria Mennonite Church and Illinois Mennonite Conference associate conference minister, asked the youth to consider what love means to them.

“Love means Jesus and security and so much more,” said Litwiller, before reading 1 Corinthians 13.

She said Paul wanted the church to know what love is because the world will know that we are Christians by our love, but that we must be honest about what human love can do.

“If we are to be real as a church, we need to be honest that…human love fails,” said Litwiller. “Our love has strings attached, which causes us to fail to love unconditionally.”

Litwiller described how the limits of human love can cause pain and hurt within us, and that pain causes our own love to be limited as well. She encouraged the youth to let the Holy Spirit open their hearts to the hurts and pains they try to ignore, so that God’s limitless love can heal those hurts.

She shared about her own healing experience 12 years ago at a convention youth

“As I responded to the Lord knocking at the door of my pain, I experienced a healing that words cannot truly explain,” she said.worship session when she was attending as a sponsor.

Litwiller said that throughout the rest of that week, “I began to realize that my ability to love those around me was expanding in amazing ways.”

“[God’s love] not only heals us and heals the pain that is created through the limits of human love, but it expands our ability to love those around us in ways that human words cannot explain.”

The youth were invited to be anointed, as a way of inviting healing for the pain and the hurt that exists within and also as a sign of being empowered to love more fully.

“May the limitless love of God heal each one of us whole,” said Litwiller.

The anointing was a meaningful experience for youth.

“Being one on one with a person is very powerful, and them offering that anointing and healing is very special,” said Thalia Neufeld of Seattle.

“It kind of makes it feel like God is present,” said Jacob Smith Derksen of Seattle.