The smell of 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.
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.
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.
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."
This morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven, He saw me, and He asked: "My child, what is your greatest wish for today?" I responded:
"Lord please, take care of the person who is reading this message, their family and their special friends. They deserve it and I love them very much" The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginning, but not its end.
________________________
This message works on the day you receive it. Let us see if it is true.
ANGELS EXIST but some times, since they don't all have wings, we call them FRIENDS
_________________________
The bottom of the white dogs were brown from chasing the four wheelers around the yard. We have given our dog Precious to Piko's mom them because their running dog died and Precious is a pretty and great dog to have for about anything. I'm grateful to have her in a place where she can have fun with other dogs and a lot of land to run. I was getting tired of her smell and having to care for her as well as our children. She lived with my in-laws when I was pregnant with Keiko and that was bitter sweet for me but this time it's mostly sweet. I don't think I want another pet bigger than a gold fish for a long while.
So after singing Happy Birthday to Kanalu and he blew out his candle he opened his gift from the Settles and WOW he got World of Warcraft. . . um yah a six year old playing WOW. He absolutely loves that game. He loves to meet up with his 11 year old friend Darian and run some quests. His favorite thing to do is to create characters. We had to put a cap on that one or he would have created over a hundred of them. I don't know what we are going to do after his 30 days online is up. . . He just might have to play by watching his daddy for the rest of the year. . . it is really fun to listen to Piko and Nalu play together.
So the pics I have posted have nothing to do with the weekend but it was just a cute moment when Kolu gave Keiko a cup of water and instead of drinking it she poured it all over herself and the walker. I guess she really wanted to take a bath and because she couldn't tell me she just tried to do it herself. . . at least that's what I'd like to think.
Last Friday night I was eating a soft taco supreme from Tacobell and Kanalu wanted a bite. . . so I held the taco up to him and he chomped down hard. . . I didn't expect that big of a bite. . . my finger was some how part of that taco. I squealed louder than I've ever yelped in my life and then cried like a baby who fell off the bed. Kanalu was in so much shock he started crying too and whimpered out. . . "I'm so sorry mommy". . . over and over again. My poor boy I held him tight because he felt awful that he just bit his mommy. It was quite a scene!
Later that evening I hear Piko say. . ."stop licking your lip boy you're making it raw." Kanalu replied, "but Dad it's itchy."
Saturday morning Kanalu wakes up and has water blisters on the tip of his nose and on that piece of skin between his nose and upper lip. Piko calls his mother. . . who is a nurse practitioner. . . to ask for a diagnosis over the phone. She said. . . it's INFANTIGO. . . I'm thinking ew only dirty kids get infantigo. So I looked it up on the internet and found that it could be caused by a bug bite or bacteria getting into a scratch and in some cases by stress. So that made me think. . . did he get it from some dirty kid at school. . .was it from a bug in the backyard. . . or maybe from the stress of biting my finger the day before?
Piko's mom advised us to clean the rash and then apply neosporine on it. So we did and all day it was still looking bad. The next day Kanalu woke up and there was rash now on his arm from him rubbing it across the rash because it was itchy. Oh yah infantigo is contagious. So then I got smart and bandaged Kanalu's two rashy spots. By Sunday night the rash was almost gone.
Monday morning. . . Kanalu's 6th birthday. . . I kept him home from school just to make sure he was totally healed. He was very upset that he'd be missing his birthday at school. So I emailed his teacher and she responded that they'll just celebrate when he returns to school. So that eased Nalu's mind and we went to Burger King for lunch to make his day special. We also went to the Base Exchange and got him a new outfit and a toy tank. For dinner he wanted Taquitos and rootbeer ice cream. . . "I hate cake mommy". . . is what he always says. To end his day he chose to play WOW with his daddy.
The next day he went to school and had a great birthday celebration.
We'll be celebrating his birthday further at his Nani and Boomba's house this weekend with his best buddies. . .the Settle boys. It'll be a fun weekend for him.
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