DO YOU SMELL THAT? 
 

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."