The Smell of GodA 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 is going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10% 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 is 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 a Diana could say. She and David with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day that 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 happy, healthy 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 couldn'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 - a marvel her miniature body could endure. But, as those first days passed, a 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 ultra-violet 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 an ounce 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 he mother had predicted.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for like. 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 some other children. Thinking back on her daughter's word's it 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.
Lord, Teach Me The Art Of Patience
By Thomas Fuller
Lord, teach me the art of patience whilst I am well,
and give me the use of it when I am sick.
In that day either lighten my burden or strengthen my back.
Make me, who so often in my health have discovered my weakness
presuming on my own strength,
to be strong in my sickness when I solely rely on thy assistance.
PRAYER WHEN YOU WANT TO WALK WITH GOD
Dear God, help me to walk with you all through today.
Give me today
something of the wisdom that was in your words.
something of the love that was in your heart.
something of the help that was in your hands.
Give me today
something of your patience with people,
something of your ability to bear slights and insults and bitterness
without resentment,
something of your ability to forgive.
Help me to live in such a way today that others may know that I began
the day with you, and that I am walking with you, however dimly, others
may see you in me. Amen.
ROSES AND THORNS
Author Unknown
A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully, and before it
blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom and
also the thorns. And he thought, "How can any beautiful flower come
from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?" Saddened by this thought, he
neglected to water the rose, and before it was ready to bloom, it
died.
So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose. The God-
like qualities planted in us at birth grow amid the thorns of our
faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the
defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from
us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We
never realize our potential.
Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must
show it to them.
One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach
past the thorns and find the rose within others. This is the
characteristic of love, to look at a person, and knowing his faults,
recognize the nobility in his soul, and help him realize that he can overcome his faults.
If we show him the rose, he will conquer the thorns.
Our duty in this world is to help others by showing them their roses
and not their thorns. Only then can we achieve the love we should feel
for each other; only then can we bloom in our own garden.
November 16 - Jesus Calling
As you look at the day before you, you see a twisted, complicated path, with branches going off in all directions. You wonder how you can possibly find your way through that maze. Then you remember the One who is with you always, holding you by your right hand. You recall My promise to guide you with My counsel, and you begin to relax. As you look again at the path ahead, you notice that a peaceful fog has settled over it, obscuring your view. You can see only a few steps in front of you, so you turn your attention more fully to Me and begin to enjoy My Presence.
The fog is a protection for you, calling you back into the present moment. Although I inhabit all of space and time, you can communicate with Me only here and now. Someday the fog will no longer be necessary, for you will have learned to keep your focus on Me and on the path just ahead of you.Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. —Psalm 73:23–24
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. —1 Corinthians 13:12
)))))))
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