Being Black, with roots in Louisiana, you’re usually one of only two things–Baptist or Catholic.  My mom was neither until she was in her 20’s, and then she raised her children within a non-denominational Christian church.  After accepting my own belief system in college and beyond, I stumbled upon the Episcopal Church.  My mom said it would be “too Catholic” for me, but in it, I found a sense of balance that I missed growing up.  I liked the tradition and the intellectualism of Anglicanism.  Moreover, as I started upon a journey of spiritual growth and theological study, I truly began to learn and fall in love with my faith.  The thought of God being made flesh through Jesus to experience all that it is to be human was an incredible thought on which I will ruminate seemingly indefinitely.  I’m sure it’s a thought that is ridiculous to some, but for me, it is the quintessential mystery with which  I am enamored.

Colossians 1:24-2:7. I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

Was something lacking in Christ’s afflictions? Was his dying on the cross insufficient in some way? And if so, did Paul (as he seems to say here) complete  what Christ had merely begun? The Atonement has long baffled me; I don’t understand how Christ’s  suffering saves people. But I have always been able to see his suffering as a sign of God’s presence with us when we suffer, which is to say, a sign of God’s love. Nothing is lacking in that love, for God has gone the whole way with us. When we weep, when everything is lost or seems lost, our God doesn’t send us a greeting card to say he’s thinking of us. God is right here with us, in the ditch, weeping alongside us. God knows  exactly what we are feeling, having felt it himself.

What is lacking, sometimes, is a love returned. God’s giving of himself is often the only giving there is. A one-way gift does not build a relationship, but a relationship is what God longs for and what we need. When we respond in kind and become willing to suffer for others as God suffers for us, we complete that relationship.

Thanks be to God for being there with us in our moments of need, as well as those of joy.  Thank You for the two-way gift — the relationship.