As Kierkegaard observed, our lives can only be lived by moving forward, but may only be understood in retrospect.  Now that I have come to the point where more of my life is behind me than in front of me, I can look back with greater clarity on the connecting threads that run through it, a tapestry of growth and change and vibrant color, smooth and coarse, often ragged and uneven, yet stitched together by the unbreakable chord of Divine Grace.