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>
>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 Caesarian to
>deliver the 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 ballpark 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
>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."
> (Phil.4:13)
>When you are down to nothing .
>God is up to something!