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Archiver > ARIZARD > 2004-10 > 1096991889


From: "William Smith" <>
Subject: Fw: Off Subject
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 10:58:27 -0500



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 Lou 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 Dana would

likely face if she survived. She would never walk,

she would never talk, she wo! uld 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.



Through the dark hours of morning as Dana held onto

life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and

out of 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 additiona

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 felt so bad for him because he was doing

everything to try to include her in what was going

on, but she just wouldn't listen, She couldn't

listen. She said, "No, that is not going to happen,

no way! I don't care what the doctors say. Dana 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, Dana

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, 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.

Today, five years later, Dana 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 impairment.

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, 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 chat! tering nonstop

with her mother and s everal 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."

(Phil. 4:13)



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