Oh, the Places You'll Go!

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to our girls’ school to read to Anna’s class for Read Across America. I well remember my first Read Across America Day—it was during my first appointment, in Jefferson, Maryland, and I was excited for the opportunity to get to connect with the community! I didn’t know that many readers bring their own books, so I just grabbed a promising one off the cart they had there in the cafeteria for readers to pick up. The book I chose? The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Yeah.

If you know that story, and let me tell you, the version I picked up was not an edited or toned down version, you can imagine my horror as I read through it to an elementary school class!

This year, Anna’s teacher had specifically asked parents to read one of their favorite Dr. Seuss books to the class (Read Across America takes place on March 2 each year, the birthday of Dr. Seuss). My choice was easy: Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Many of my friends received this book as a graduation present at some point. There’s even one account, floating around the internet, of parents who had each of their daughter’s teachers sign a copy of the book throughout her schooling, then give it to her for her high school graduation.

I received my copy, however, the summer between third and fourth grade. I was a camper at Manidokan (one of our United Methodist camps, a place I attended camp only once but would later live at for almost nine years!). That summer my parent’s marriage was beginning (it seemed to me at least) the deterioration which would ultimately, though slowly, lead to the unravelling of our family. I had at least looked forward to a week at camp with my friend Paige, only to discover we weren’t even staying in the same cabin! It didn’t take like before I was homesick and DONE. Just DONE.

As I’ve been blessed to volunteer as a camp counselor, I’ve had homesick, whiny campers. They can wear you down as a counselor, resisting all your best efforts to console and comfort them. So I can only imagine how much I wore on my counselors.

I don’t remember that though. What I remember was the counselor who gifted me a copy of Oh the Places You’ll Go!. I suspect she’d brought the copy as part of her bag of tricks to keep her campers happy and busy. Instead, she sat with me one day, patiently listening to me and reminding me how much she loved me, and even more so, how much God loved me.

Inside the book she gifted me, she wrote an inscription that included the reminder that God is love. Indeed, each time I read, or really, even just see the book, I am reminded of God’s love—because of her love.

When I read the book to Anna’s class, I reminded them what Chris and I often tell the girls when we watch Disney movies: Just remember, the scary parts are never the end. The story never ends in the worst part.

The book, if you aren’t familiar, not only encourages readers with promises of success and wide open spaces, but it also notes the ways life sometimes isn’t all boom bands and high flying. After celebratory lines about how, “Wherever you go, you will top all the rest,” it reads, “Except when you don’t. Because sometimes you won’t. I’m sorry to say so but sadly, it’s true, that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you. You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch…And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”

This isn’t just a book for children, is it?!

A boy in Anna’s class taught me something I hadn’t know about this book: it was the last book Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) published in his lifetime. Indeed, with its honest look at the challenges in life, situated squarely within the assurance that even these difficult times are passing (as is also the case with one of my favorite sections, about The Waiting Place).

We would all like to hear bands playing songs of celebration for us, and people celebrating us—even if only for our faithfulness to God. It is no fun, and certainly not desirable, to be stuck in the waiting place or left in a lurch.

But, as Dr. Seuss reminds us, “But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl…On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.”

For we who are people of faith, our confidence and resilience in times of difficulty comes not from our own fortitude alone (or even primarily) but rather from a confidence that God sits with us in times of waiting. God hangs with us when we’re up in a lurch. And God guides us down long, windy streets. May we gives thanks and trust in our God, who allows us to move mountains (Matthew 17:20), and who is ever able to “make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19)