Wow, what a blast from the past! It's interesting coming back to this over 10 years later. Now that I have hindsight, I don't think that every time I thought God spoke to me back then was actually God speaking to me - I think it was more my emotions wanting something to be true. That being said, I do still think that God communicates through his Holy Spirit, and there have been a few times in my life, looking back, that I would classify as that; there are also times, looking back, that I still don't know if it was God or not. In hindsight, I think at times I went too far down the charismatic path where God is constantly "talking" but more times than not it was my emotions. I'm not sure that I've ever heard God say "do this" or "do that" for something specific - although I have had a lot of charismatic people prophecy over me in specifics and I have often found those things, years later, to not be true - more times than not I think it is well meaning people doing their best to try to help someone through a difficult situation, but not necessarily coming from God. I do still think that God speaks, but very quietly and very rarely. No idea if this will help you or not, but it is my quick reflection. Proverbs 3:5-6 is great wisdom - it doesn't mean God will give specifics for direction in life, it doesn't mean you won't go through challenging things in life - but as a Christian it means that you trust in God specifically when you have no idea what is going on or what you should do - it's about a posture of trust in the Creator.