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A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked
into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. 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 the couple's new daughter,
Danae Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and 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 Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never
walk. She would never talk. She would probably be blind. 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.
Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest
thread, Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep, growing more and more
determined that their tiny daughter would live - and live to be a healthy, happy
young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of
their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy,
knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.
"David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral
arrangements," Diana remembers. "I felt so bad for him because he was doing
everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't
listen. I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way!
I don't care what the doctors say. Danae is not going to die! One day she will
be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"
As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after
hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could
endure. But as those first days passed, new agony set in for David and Diana.
Because Danae'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 Danae 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 Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks
went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and announce of strength
there.
At last, when Danae 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.
Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted. Today, five
years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes
and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any mental
or physical impairments. Simply, she is 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,
Danae 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, Danae was
chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when
she suddenly fell silent.
Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?"
Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied,
"Yes, it smells like rain."
Danae 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, Danae 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 Danae
then 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 Danae on his chest - and it
is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
Author unknown. If anyone has a proprietary interest in this story please
authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as the circumstances
dictate.
Used with permission of Net 153 and author. All right are reserved. May be used
freely in Church newsletters etc. if publications are under 1000 and authors
name and link http://www.net153.com are
included. May not be published for profit without permission.
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