A cold March wind dancedaround the

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 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, 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 Danae 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 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 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 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 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
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, what so ever, 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, Danae was
sitting in her mother’s lap in the
bleachers of a local ballpark
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.
For I the Lord thy God will hold
thy right hand saying unto
thee. Fear NOT: I will help thee
Isaiah 41:13