My Spiritual Walk Right Now

This post will be a little different from most of my posts.  There won't be any application to your life--I'll leave that up to you.  I haven't posted in a while, partly because I was kind of going through a little Spiritual dry spell.  So, here, let me tell you how my life is right now, and the things that led up to it.
   Well, right now I'm eating chocolate ice cream, enjoying every second of this great life that God has given me, full of joy and full of peace.  Last week, wasn't like this, though.  Last Sunday (the first of February), I was talking to a friend of mine.  She was telling me about how her life is and how her walk with God is and how she more and more has been wanting to hear God's voice.  She was talking about some of her struggles and things, and then she asked me how I was doing.  At that point, I was really at peace, really joyful, and really close to God.  So, I was telling her about how I was at a place of peace, and how this might just be the deep breath before the storm.  Well, I guess I was right.  God decided that it was time to put a little storm in my life.  Nothing fancy, nothing too bad.  He just allowed Satan to affect me.  He withdrew the feeling of His presence and kind of backed away (at least, it seemed that way). 
   For all of last week, I was struggling to really interact with God very well.  I couldn't really feel His presence, and I repeatedly asked Him to draw me nearer and to be able to see Him and be close to Him.  God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to not answer my pleas right away.  My life started to seem all crazy and frustrating.  I kept seeing all these things wrong with me and I just felt a little out of control.  It tested my faith in God, and it showed me something really important.  Through my time of peace, I think I started to not fear God as much as I should have.  Many times I forget how great, powerful, amazing, and glorious God is and how small and insignificant I truly am (though, I know that though I don't deserve it, I am still significant to God).  I kind of put God on the same plane as myself (without knowing it) and just saw God in light of what He could or was doing for me--I wasn't really having the view of being His servant, serving Him, who is so great and powerful...the Creator and Ruler of the Universe.
   So, anyway, my dry spell continued into the weekend when I went on a soccer retreat with my soccer team.  I prayed that God would use this retreat to draw me to Him.  On Sunday morning, our coach got us together and we had a talk about acting like a Christian on the soccer field, and then he asked if we had any prayer requests.  He said that we are a team and we should be here for our teammates on and off the field, so if anyone had anything that the rest of the team could pray for that we should mention it.  Well, I didn't want to mention that I felt far from God, but I decided to anyway and asked that they would pray for my spiritual life.  It just reaffirmed my confidence in the prayer of God's people when while we were praying I started to realize my attitude towards God and how much God still loves me.  I started to feel peace again. 
   Well, God continued to work on me and now I feel like I'm on the right track.  My coach had said something good: He said that God does everything for a reason.  Indeed, God used this short time of feeling apart from Him to draw me closer to Him.  He helped me in some areas, and made me reset my mindset towards Him.  Praise be to God.  So now I'm feeling much better, and I hope this peace and joy will continue.
   Hey, if you are experiencing any sort of spiritual battle or feel apart from God right now, feel free tell me about it and I'll pray for  you.  If you don't feel comfortable putting it here on the website, feel free to email me.  I hope that "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."