When I shared about my spiritual dryness with one of the mentors at L'Abri, he encouraged me to read a section of "The Screwtape Letters". It'd been 2010 since I read the book:

"God relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks...God will set [believers] off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation.

But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later, God withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives.

He leaves a human to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.

It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that humans grow into the support of people God wants them to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please God best...

God wants humans to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there God is please even more with their stumbles...

[God is most pleased] when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do God's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

It's difficult to explain how powerfully this passage seemed to describe my experience, honor my pain, and give me hope.

Perhaps my dryness is God withdrawing that shallow emotional sweetness so that I can learn to love the Giver more than His gifts.

And perhaps (instead of being disappointed with my lack of emotionality) God has been deeply pleased by my imperfect faithfulness, pained prayers, and honest stumbles over the past decade.

I sure hope so.

If you're going through a similar season, I hope you'll also find comfort in Lewis's words. You're not alone.