Sympathizing with Eliza

There’s a moment at the end of My Fair Lady when Eliza Doolittle (the always lovely Audrey Hepburn) returns home from the night of a lifetime, still dressed in a gorgeous evening gown and decked with diamonds from head to foot, when she throws herself to the floor and sobs into the arm of a chair, “But what’s to become of me?  What’s to become of me?”  And Henry Higgins, the linguistics expert who has transformed Eliza over several months from a “guttersnipe” flower girl with rough manners and a terrible cockney accent, into a well-spoken, well-mannered, and beautiful young woman – who that very night, everyone mistakes for a princess – stands, incredulous, over the weeping girl.  Eliza is grief-stricken, frightened, confused, and even angry.  She doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself.

I think today I understand Eliza.  She’s coming down from an incredible experience in which she’s been entirely transformed.  One day she was plucked out from the gutter, the next she was waltzing with Statesmen and princes at a ball.  Of course she no longer speaks or behaves the same way as she used to, but the transformation has gone much deeper than that.  She no longer thinks the same way, nor does she view her own value in the same regard as she once did.  Higgins has completely changed her worldview, and exposed her to an entirely new life.  And now that the experiment is over, the bet has been won… Eliza succumbs to the realization that her life can no longer be the same and fears for her future. 

Like Eliza, I find myself transformed.  It is the end of a three-year season of my life and it seems that no area of my life has gone untouched.  Living in Kenya has exposed me to the third world and the people of an impoverished and corrupt nation – the extraordinarily wealthy scaling up the ladder to Western notions of success, whilst ignoring the great need around them.  I’ve begun a teaching career and spent 540 school days learning, adjusting, searching, and growing.  I’ve lived with six different women and learned much about living in community and the joys and sorrows of relationship.  I’ve worked under three completely different administration teams and seen co-workers come and go, student bodies change, seniors graduate, and this school become something completely different with each new year.  Most importantly, I’ve discovered more than I ever thought I could about my relationship with the Lord.

And I find myself on this day myself wondering, “What’s to become of me?”  I am walking away from a place that has utterly changed my mind and heart, and I’m walking into an uncertain future.  A door I had thought was open to me has now closed, and I find myself even more grief-stricken and perplexed.  God, what can you be doing here?  What reason do you have for taking me away from this place?  What reason can you have for keeping me so blind?  What do you have for me?  What would you have me do next?  I’m willing, Lord – so what’s to become of me? 

I’ve been reminded in the past week of other times in my life when I had made plans.  They were good plans – honorable and sincere.  Things like wanting to teach in an urban district, or applying to work for the Department of Defense Schools.  Different things I’d study.  Different areas where I could serve.  Relationships I thought were important.  Invariably, it seems that God, looking over the plans I’ve meticulously crafted, opts instead to stamp them “Denied.”  These were things I’d meant to do for Him, ideas I’d thought up trying to best use the gifts and talents and resources He’s given me.  Why was he giving me a “no” instead of the “yes” I expected?

In a few of these instances, hindsight has helped to illuminate the reasons why not.  The very fact that He led me to West Nairobi School here in Kenya was one of those instances.  I’d had a good little plan laid out, and He instead mapped this one out for me.  But in other cases, I still don’t have the answers I hoped for.  God said “no” without explaining why.  He has the right to do so – after all, He’s God.  But somehow that doesn’t make it easier to trust Him, even when I know full well that He is faithful, sovereign, and good.  And I’ll admit that I feel a little silly every time I realize that I’m calling out, “What’s to become of me?”  When “me” is never who it’s supposed to be about. 

I am entering a season now of waiting – waiting on the Lord to reveal His next steps for me.  I have hopes for what this future might be, but I think I’ve learned the folly of making plans.  I think God much prefers to keep us in the dark, walking by faith and not by sight.  And no matter how challenging it may be or reckless it may seem, it’s time now for me to trust that He has a far better plan than I could ever dream up for myself. 

So what's to become of me?  Heck if I know.  But it's time to trust Him.