[adapted from What You Take To Heaven]

The Blessed Mother can provide you a way out of situations that have "no exit" -- at least that you can see. On earth, we just don't see it; neither do we clearly see our lives.

When a woman named Kathy Latrelle had a brush with eternity in 1979, she was shown the benchmarks that changed her life -- points at which she could have become embittered, but chose not to. She was shown times she'd helped others, which was of the utmost importance to God.

She also glimpsed her future as a winding path that stretched out below.

"Some sections of the path glowed in brilliant colors, every color of the spectrum," noted authors Lionel C. Bascom and Barbara Loecher in discussing Kathy's case. "At its brightest, the path was a glowing yellow. In sections the yellow gave way to brilliant, glowing orange, then red, then violet, and finally a deep blue and black."

Kathy understood that the bright sections were times of joy in her life; the dark, times of loss and pain.

She saw the beginning of her path, and knew this was her life in her twenties, with the dark spots and light spots. Her thirties were a gradient of color, starting with a long swath of bright yellow, then turning blue and finally black. The path remained black for a while, before growing lighter again.

She knew the dark section would be a time of terrible loss and death. The path stretched on through her forties, fifties, and sixties. She wasn't sure she would live through her early eighties. She understood that there would be pain along the way, but there was also great joy."

Often, the dark colors come through our choices.

You can be diverted from a direct route to your destiny.

This is where the devil operates: in diversion. In discouragement. In distraction.

Everything can be worked for the good when we let it.

It's how we make it.

It's how we take it.

When we divert too much, we subtract from what we were assigned to do.

This is wisdom, which you take with you after death. It is part of your identity.

Seek wisdom and the truth of who you are and what you must do will come to you, for wisdom is truth (whereas, knowledge can be interpreted various ways).

As Pope Francis has said, "The first gift of the Holy Spirit is wisdom. It is not merely human wisdom, no, the fruit of knowledge and experience. Obviously this gift comes from intimacy with God. For our intimate relationship with God. From our relationship as children with a Father.

"And the Holy Spirit -- when we have this relationship -- gives us the gift of wisdom. When we are in communion with the Lord, it is as if the Spirit transfigures our heart and helps it to perceive all His warmth and predilection. The Holy Spirit also makes the Christian 'wise.' This is, however, not in the sense that he or she has an answer for everything, or knows everything, but in the sense that he or she 'knows' of God, how God acts, they know when something is of God and when it is not.

"They know this, they have this wisdom that God gives our heart. The heart of the wise man has this taste of God. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts; we can listen to him or not. If we listen to Him He teaches us this path of wisdom, He gifts us wisdom which is seeing with God's eyes, listening with God's ears, loving with God's Heart, judging things with God's judgment."

Those enamored of their own "knowledge" or "intelligence" will one day learn the severe limits to them (and that -- forget IQ and SAT tests -- there is no human way to test them). They will learn that they didn't know or understand what they thought they knew and understood.

They will be surprised at how, with intellectual minutiae, they had blinded themselves.

Blindness comes with each wrong thought.

So, blindness comes with worldliness. Brilliance comes from God alone.

We can't see far when we are in front of ourselves.

We are meant to be those "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

Grasp each precious moment of life. Each counts. Purify it. Enjoy its challenge.

To prepare for Heaven, to purify here and keep pure, do, say, and think everything in the Presence of God.

Think always of His Presence.

The Eucharist -- Adoration -- greatly aid.

In every single act, see Him as your Audience.

He's the Whole Deal. He's the only One Who, really, in the end, counts.

Salvation (direct entry into Heaven) is His "standing ovation."

[resources: What You Take To Heaven]

[photo at top: Ken Crawford]