"What's Your Biggest Problem In Life?"

Today, I had a neurosurgeon appointment to see if a cyst in my brain could be causing any issues. We didn't think it was (and it isn't), but we wanted to see a specialist to be sure.

It was a typical doctors' visit at first; the nurse practitioner took my heart rate and temperature and asked questions about the weird list of symptoms I have and headaches and other random things. She left, and then the neurosurgeon came in to talk to us.

He greeted me and got settled. Then he started asking questions. "All right, Zoë, how old are you?"

I told him.

"Are you right or left handed?"

I hadn't heard that one before, but I answered it easily.

"What's your biggest problem in life?"

I stopped short. What? This was supposed to be a meeting about whether or not I needed brain surgery. Did he mean health-wise? That was probably the fatigue. But it didn't sound like he was talking about health. Something about the question seemed to want a much deeper answer.

"Um."

I looked at him, and he smiled. "You can answer any way you want."

Okay, so not really a health question. My instinct was to say, "I'm inherently sinful and deserve the wrath of God," but I didn't. Was it fear of talking about my faith? Probably. But I realized later that the second thoughts in my head had been mostly because it isn't a problem anymore. Not like it doesn't apply to me, not like I don't care - just because it's not a problem anymore. Jesus covered my sin on the cross. It's no longer the biggest problem in my life. So what is?

"Should I go... theological?" I asked slowly.

He laughed. "You can say whatever you want. You can say you don't know. In neurology school, they told us to ask at least one open-ended question. What we're trying to figure out here is so narrow that you need at least one question that you can answer however you want. So here’s my open-ended question: what’s the biggest problem in your life?'

I was smiling now, baffled. My family has a bad history with doctors, so I'd been prepared for the worst, but this wasn't bad. It was just so unexpected. "I think I have to say I don't know," I finally told him. "I'd have to think about it some more."

We moved on. He asked about symptoms, we talked about my medical history and all the random things wrong with me, and he talked about what the cyst in my brain was, explaining to us why it was there and how it couldn't really hurt me at all. He told us about luminaries being consulted about cysts twenty times the size of mine and how they'd decided that nothing was actually wrong somehow.

At the end of the appointment (don’t worry, I’m fine) he asked if there was anything else we wanted to ask him. My mom said, "What’s the biggest problem in your life?"

"What's the what now?"

"What's the biggest problem in your life?"

He laughed, then hesitated. 'I’m looking for something, but I don’t know what it is.'

Suddenly he looked very thoughtful, just a little lost. Glancing at the computer like the photos of my brain would remind him why he was there.

"Is it peace?" my mom asked.

I was smiling again, mesmerized. Whatever I'd expected from a neurosurgery appointment, this sure wasn't it. The doctor shook his head. "No, no. That's boring."

We laughed the distracted kind of laugh you do when you agree with something but don't really know why or if you're supposed to. "Is it luminary status?" my mom asked lightly.

Again he took on a thoughtful look. I wonder how lonely it is that far up. I wonder how long this has bothered him. "No," he said after a second. "I mean... that just seems empty, too."

My mind was spinning, the same thought over and over: wouldn't the love of Christ fill him? Was my biggest problem that had been resolved still his biggest problem? "I don’t mind not having it," he continued, shrugging and picking up his stack of papers. "It’s just not knowing what it is that bugs me."

Then he was getting up, we were standing, it was over, we were leaving. But it left me with an odd sort of wonder in me.

Most people don't even know what they're missing. Even empty peace seems boring to the secular world; we need real, fulfilling rest in Someone who can really give us peace as well as a purpose, not aimless lack of anything that makes us feel. Something more than success and money. We think we have a purpose, we don't mind life without that thing we don't have - but we still want to know what it is, just to see if everyone else has it, if we could figure out how to get it.

At the end of the day, we all crave the love of Christ. We're empty for it.