Leave it to Dr. Seuss to be introspective with the most simple words and let’s not forget that they RHYME. Ever since my eldest was little I always found Oh, the Places You’ll Go! to be completely poetic. The rhythmic lines come out as a steady hum as I read my littlest to sleep. My heart always leaps when they grab it for me to read, if I’m honest it’s also because it’s pretty long and they’re asleep by the time I’m done, which means no fighting to be still and stay in bed. Win for both of us.
There are so many life lessons in this book, but for today the portion on waiting resonates with me most. The Waiting Place.
You can get so confused
That you’ll start in to race
Down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
And grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place . . .
I’m not sure about you, but when I find myself in the waiting place it can be suffocating and heartbreaking. When you’ve done all you can, thrown everything you’ve got to have some momentum and MOVE, and you stay stagnate…it’s depressing to say the least. You feel as if the literal weight of the world is on you and you are immobile. Why can’t you move? Loads of times it’s because of other people or situations keeping you from moving. So we wait. Lots of times we wait on God too and we get so frustrated when relief doesn’t happen instantly. Our faith is tested and we fail in constantly worrying instead of trusting. I can think of a time when I begged and pleaded for God to move on my behalf. I was answered with silence and it made me feel so hopeless. Honestly it wasn’t until after the dust settled that I realized God didn’t move so that I would grow. We choose how we respond to the waiting place. I hope you choose to view it as a growing pain.
He goes on to say that you (the reader) will get out of the waiting place because it’s not for you and that “somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying”. Things will be great again and life will go on, until it doesn’t. And you’ll be alone. “All alone! . . . Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.”
I’m afraid some times
You’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.
Ooooh, won’t that preach? I feel personally victimized by that last line. Well, not really victimized but I definitely relate. I think we all can in that regard. I play lonely games everyday, games I can’t win because I play against me. So, not only am I in the waiting place, but I’m also playing lonely games against myself. This is what I like to call the pit. And crawling out of said pit can be terrifying. I know people who are still at the bottom of a pit wondering how in the world they’re going to get out. Just the thought of climbing out of the pit is overwhelming to begin with, but I’ve learned (yes, I’ve had to climb out of one) that focusing on each step you take in the right direction–up–is the most important. “Do the next right thing.” Thank goodness this story has a happy ending, you weren’t concerned were you?
But on you will go
Though the weather be foul.
On you will go
Though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
Though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
A frightening creek,
Though your arms may get sore
And your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike.
And I know you’ll hike far
And face up to your problems
Whatever they are.
So, yes, I’m championing you to keep climbing out of the pit one reach at a time. And if you’re waiting, hold on–reprieve and help are coming, keep your eyes peeled it may not come how you imagine.
Love you all,
sd
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