"Our time of fear, of living in lack and unhappiness, and moving toward hope and abundance, happens when we make beauty, truth, life, and love more than just some of the threads in the tapestry of our lives. We need to make them the warps.

"A tapestry, you see, comprises two main components: the warp and the weft.

"The weft threads are the ones we see when we look at a tapestry. They are the colored pieces that run horizontally and combine to form the completed picture a tapestry presents to the viewer. They can be long. They can be short. These threads don't run through the entire tapestry. That's why they're technically known as 'discontinuous wefts.' Each thread is knotted or tucked into place and then another is added. This process continues until the picture is formed.

"However, each of these thousands of threads need something to anchor them. Those are the warp. The warp runs vertically. Warp thread is also heavier than weft threads, which is why they make good anchors for the tapestry.

"If we use beauty, truth, life, and love as our warp threads, then everything that comes into our life — big or small, easy or difficult, happy or sad — is used as a weft to weave the amazing tapestry of our abundant life with God.

"Another thing that is important about a tapestry is that, historically, when making a tapestry the weavers worked from the back, not the front. While they worked with a design, called a cartoon, many did so while looking at its reflection in a mirror as the cartoon hung on the wall. The weavers did not see the completed image until the last weft was tucked into the warp and the tapestry was turned over to be viewed as a whole.

"So it is with our lives. Again, to quote Saint Paul, 'For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.' While Paul was a tentmaker by trade, he may have known about tapestry construction. Some fragments of Grecian tapestries have been found that date to the third century BCE.

"We weave the tapestry of our lives never seeing the entire finished product in our time here on earth. At best, we work from a cartoon looking in a mirror. Seeing a reflection. We set the warp of beauty, truth, life, and love. We weave the weft in part. The design we're working from will produce, with divine assistance, a beautiful picture of a life well-lived.

"Full.

"Rich.

"Pleasing.

"Abundant."