Anna was too filled with joy and wonder to sleep. This was the night for which her soul had prepared her these many years. She heard the celestial music of the saints and the rustle of angel wings. Love had chosen her for this wondrous experience, so she was unafraid. The time was close now, for she smelled the fragrance of roses around her. "Oh, blessed angels, I love my God with all my being."
When I first began to enter the Silence, it felt like an alien atmosphere filled with menacing voices, capricious thoughts, uncomfortable feelings. But as the days and weeks passed, the Silence became a welcoming friend, a presence like the warmth of a fire in which I encountered the Divine Lover of my soul and experienced my Self as God's Beloved.