"I'd been going through a dry period spiritually. A time when I felt the Lord was just not speaking to me," she said. "Then some of us from our bible study went to a soaking," (That's when women of the church pray over you while you lay down in a darkened room, and listen to soothing worship music).
Dannelle hadn't really wanted to go. "I had so many other things I needed to do! Lying down for a couple of hours seemed like a waste of time, but I went anyway."
"During the soaking, I suddenly felt like someone was holding my hand. There wasn't anyone there, but I felt it anyway. Then, after a little while, the feeling was completely gone, there was nothing. I wondered what God was doing. In a little bit I heard the Lord speak to me. "Even when you can't feel me, I'm still here." That was the first thing that happened.
Then, a few weeks later, she was out scouting a local flea market for some jewelry. There were all kinds of interesting things around, but her eye was caught by some big leather-type books set out on a table. She asked the owner what they were, and he said they were the books of the bible written in braille. She nearly lost it, right in front of everyone, because here was another instance of God speaking to her! Here was the bible written out, a bible you couldn't see. "You may not see me, Dannelle, but I'm here."
But there's more to the story. Dannelle bought the braille bible and decided to use a few pages to make bookmarks for the rest of the ladies in her bible study. She took it to Kinko's a few days later, and as the bookmarks were being copied and laminated, the machine started having problems. She and an employee ran over to check and see what was wrong. The employee fixed things, and as she did so, she became very interested in what Dannelle was doing with a braille bible. "Do you know someone who's blind?", Dannelle asked her. "My sister," the employee replied. "She was born without eyes."
"My sister loves to read the bible." the employee told her, "Her church bought the whole braille set for her, at about $1000. The books take up a lot of room, since one braille book only contains two books of the bible. So they're stacked from floor to ceiling in my sister's closet. Those books mean so much to my sister and she's read them again and again."
So, in three different ways God spoke to Dannelle, and I think he's speaking to us too. He is with us all the time, whether we can feel him or not. He's with us all the time whether we can see him or not. What an amazing God.
