The Surgeon Who Recognized Her Hands

In 2019, Dr. Marcus Chen was reviewing applications for a competitive surgical residency at Johns Hopkins. Hundreds of files crossed his desk — transcripts, essays, letters of recommendation. But when he opened the file of a young woman named Priya Dasgupta from a small college in rural Ohio, he paused. He had never met her. Yet he recognized something. Three years earlier, he had watched an anonymous video submission to a medical conference — unsteady footage of a student performing an emergency tracheotomy on a choking stranger at a roadside diner using a ballpoint pen casing. The hands in that video were calm, precise, unhesitating. He had saved the clip. When Priya walked into the interview, she was nervous, unsure why a program this prestigious had called someone from her no-name school. Before she could introduce herself, Dr. Chen said, "I know your hands. I saw what you did at that diner in Zanesville."

She had never told anyone about Zanesville. She had not even known she was being filmed.

This is the holy disruption Nathanael experienced beneath the fig tree. He came to Jesus carrying his skepticism about Nazareth, his careful theology, his guarded heart. And Jesus said, in essence, "I already saw you. Before Philip ever called your name, I knew you."

The Almighty does not discover us when we finally show up. He has been watching all along — seeing the truest things about us before we ever imagine we have been seen.