Reckless Love

 It’s Christmas Eve.  We have had quite a year as we settled in at a new church, raised a puppy, and continue to learn how to engage and parent a pre-teen and teen.  We are in a new season.  One that is sometimes uncomfortable as we encounter new territories in parenting and in our faith.  But we are all learning and growing as individuals and as family and encountering God and his presence in new ways as we step into all that he is doing in our church, our family, our ministry.   I say all this as a simple update and to segue into one of the things we have been learning in our new church community.  We have been pondering and encountering the Holy presence of God and viewing our response to Him.  Do we fear the Lord and keep him in his proper place of honor and worship?  Do we make him too small in our lives?  Do we know his heart and desire for us?  So as these ideas swirl in and around me, this advent reflection poured out: Lord, when you visited the Israelites by cloud and fire on