Dark Night of the Soul.....

So much of the Christian walk gets missed. I had attended a conference a number of years ago, on The Art of Hearing God. During our weekend we had a session on the Dark Night of the Soul. As new christians nobody tells us of these dark nights and dark dreary days that will come. It is in those days, those weeks and sometimes even those months that we may dare even say....that God has abandoned us, at least thats what we feel. I experienced that a few years after I began an extensive growing of my faith. I wondered what I had done wrong, was it something I said, was it something I questioned.....or was it just me....did he not want a relationship with me. WHY? The questions went unanswered for months, my prayers seem like they were hitting the ceiling. I heard nothing, I felt nothing....the closeness of the months prior to that had faded into darkness. What was happening. I had heard about it, but like most people I thought it would never happen to me. I felt so discouraged I felt so disappointed...not in him, but in me. Had I failed him. Had he moved on to use someone else. It was in those days that I found it even hard to open my bible, hard to even pray....but somehow through His strength I made it through. I found that my prayers were really heard and that the answered prayers came not when I wanted them, but when He had appointed them for. It's funny how our time line and His are so different, and I thank God for that. I think of some the prayers and had they been answered in the way that I felt they should could have led to much different circumstances in my life. And that I see now how He is using those days in my life, the good, the bad, the dark and the light to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will for my life. Scripture tells us that He will never abandon us, but I wonder if sometimes He doesn't draw back so that we seek Him out more. I see now how my faith in Him has grown through that experience. So when those days come....don't give up...don't quit..I'm sure Jesus felt so similiar as he prayed in the garden...enough so that he sweat drops of blood in His desperate cry for God to hear him....but this.....this to shall pass.