Smell the Rain

At the end of this story, it gives you two options. I think you will

figure

out what option I chose.

 

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor

walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still

groggy

from surgery. Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves

for the latest news.

 

 

 That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only

24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's

new

daughter, Dana Lu Blessing.

 

 At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already

knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped

like bombs.

 

"I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could.

 

 "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and

even

then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very

cruel one."

 

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the

devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived.

 

She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind,

and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from

cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

 

"No! No!" was all Diana could say.

 

She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the

day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a

matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

 

But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana.

 

Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw,' the

lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't

even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the

strength

of their love. All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the

ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God

would stay close to their precious little girl.

 

There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the

weeks

went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of

strength there.

 

At last, when Dana turned two months old, her parents were able to hold

her

in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though

doctors

continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much

less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home

from

the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

 

Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with

glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no

signs

whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was

everything

a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end

of

her story.

 

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving,

Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local

ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.

 

As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other

adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent.

 

Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do you smell

that?"

 

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana

replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Dana closed her eyes and again

asked,

"Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied,

 

"Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain."

 

Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin

>shoulders

with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him.

 

It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

 

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the

other children.

 

Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all

the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their

hearts, all along.

 

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life,

when

her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana

on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

 

 

 You now have 1 of 2 choices. You can either pass this on and let other

people catch the chills like you did, or you can delete this and act like

it didn't touch your heart like it did mine.

 

 

 

 

IT'S YOUR CALL! "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me."