The Dusty Stethescope

Sleep evaded me again last night.

I reached for distraction—scrolling through ideas for Christmas gifts for my people. When I searched for something for my young STNA/up-and-coming physician, I stumbled upon a site selling the most beautiful stethoscopes I’d ever seen.

Colors like jewels.

Patterns like joy.

One in particular caught my eye—a swirl of pink animal print and sharp, gleaming purple— shining with all things girlish and lovely. And for a brief flicker, right before unconscious thought becomes awareness, I mused, “this is the one I’ll ask for next time.”

But then—

my heart caught up to my body.

And I remembered where I was sitting: in my hospital bed at home, a ventilator mask pressed against my face, small plastic cups of pills lined neatly beside me, guarding against the next wave of breathless panic.

In the thick, holy silence of 2 a.m., I swear I heard the sound of my own heart dropping back into the deep, heavy truth of reality.

I will not be needing a new stethoscope.

Not now, not ever.

No more pressing the cool bell to a grandmother’s arm, listening for the soft rhythm of life beneath her paper-thin skin.

No more playing peekaboo with wide-eyed children, pretending it’s a game while I listen carefully to the music of their lungs.

Those days—those glory days—hang preserved behind glass, my green stethoscope draped like a memory across the frame. The strength that once carried me into the chaos of sirens and smoke has long since ebbed away, leaving behind a body most people only know in its fragility, not its former fire.

Suffering has a way of testing what our hearts truly believe.

It presses heat against the places where we’ve built our sense of strength.

And when suffering comes for the strong, it is often met with anger—

not at the pain itself, but at the theft of power.

On my hardest days, I don’t find myself begging for suffering to stop.

I find myself begging for strength to return.

That’s the honest prayer.

Not fewer storms—just stronger arms to stand in them.

And yet, even that desire reveals how frail my own strength really is.

Paul puts it even more vividly;

“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” (2 Corinthians 4:10)

We love strength.

We polish it, parade it, protect it.

And when it’s gone, we question the goodness of God.

But I am learning—slowly, painfully—that the taking of strength is grace.

Grace that empties my hands of what I thought I needed,

so that I might cling more tightly to Jesus.

Now, as I face this new season of weakness,

with tiny bursts of ability to go and do,

I ask myself: how will I use this small strength?

I’ve been praying—for hunger on my well days.

For Scripture to taste sweeter.

For my heart to grow restless for the things of God.

For apathy to break, for grace to deepen.

And when suffering returns—as it will—

may my heart be ready to receive it.

To whisper, thank you, Jesus, for entrusting me with this new hard.

Help me be faithful in it.

Help me reflect your goodness in the ache.

Let me be a mirror of grace—

a witness to the beauty that lives

in the losing of strength,

and the finding of You.