The Smell of Rain

Last week was an absolutely crazy week for me. My business is booming, which I am extremely grateful for, but we’re short on employees and long on work that needs to get done. I don’t think I slept more than 5 hours a night and often laid awake worrying about making sure we always give our customers great service. On top of that I had a ton of personal commitments I had to honor as well. So….by Sunday I still hadn’t written a Monday Message for this week.

 

But when I arrived at the hospital on Sunday afternoon my outlook totally changed. I got to see our brand new baby Granddaughter, Penelope Grace, born just hours before. There is something about a beautiful brand new infant child that just touches your heart in a special way. It reminded of what I have always known to be true… babies are God’s best idea!

 

So....I’m sorry I don’t have a Monday Message this week, but I can tell you a very cool story about a baby girl that will perhaps touch your heart the way Penelope Grace touched mine. It’s called “The Smell of Rain”. Check it out below……

 

Penelope Grace....4 Hours Old!

 

With every new child the world begins again.  

                                                                                          ~ Henry David Thoreau





 

THE SMELL OF RAIN

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as David Blessing walked into the small hospital room where his wife, Diana Blessing, was still groggy from surgery. He held her hand as they braced for the bad news. Due to complications, Diana only 24 weeks pregnant had just given birth to a tiny premature baby girl, only 12 inches long and weighing less than two pounds.

The doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. “I don't think she's going to make it”, he said. "There's only a 10% percent chance she will live through the night, and even if she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the probably future for their precious child, Danae. She would never walk, never talk, and probably be blind and prone to cerebral palsy as well. "No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter but within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

 

Through the dark morning hours as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana grew more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live and be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of survival, 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.”

 

Willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life 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 her parents. Because Danae's under-developed 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 ever so close to their precious little girl.

 

As the weeks went by, she slowly and miraculously gained 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. Two months later, though doctors continued to warn that her chances of surviving and living any kind of normal life were next to zero, Danae went home from the hospital, just as Diana had predicted.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply put, she is everything a little girl can be and more, but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One hot afternoon in the summer of 1996, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers where her brother's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother 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 chest 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 hopped down to go 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!