Who I Want to Be

Becoming the kind of person who makes people reconsider. (and life updates)

Hey friends! It’s been almost a month since my last post. May and June were packed with birthday and graduation celebrations, finding new tenants for my home, working on selling my car, and preparing for my last day of work. Everything’s changing, and I’m both excited and nervous for the season ahead: new city, new school, new plans, and this (sorta) new blog to document it all. :)

Also, I can’t believe there are over a hundred of you now—what the heck? Thank you for subscribing and reading my corner of the internet.

I know most of my posts so far have been devotional-style reflections, but I’m hoping this break from full-time work and ministry gives me space to write more about grad school, my journey into academia, post-grad life lessons, social commentary, and the things I’m most passionate about: urban planning technology and policy, pedagogy, and storytelling.

I just might have a new series starting soon…stay tuned!

Anyway, here is another short story that is actually recent. This experience encapsulates one of my biggest goals for my personal life. I hope it inspires you to reflect on who you are and who you’d like to be. Let’s get into it!

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My roommate and I debate about food all the time, and I usually win. I win because she says insane things like lemon juice belongs on eggs and cantaloupe is better than watermelon. Mind you, cantaloupe is one of the worst fruits on the face of the earth. Think about it. When you go to a cookout, what’s the fruit that’s most left over? Exactly. It’s those odd orange and green blocks of watered-down melon. My issue with cantaloupe specifically is that it seems like it should have tasted like something, and the flavor didn’t finish loading all the way.

Anyway, this debate about cantaloupe had been ongoing for over a year. Until something happened last weekend.

I was at a cookout, and they had fruit salad cups (so cute!). These had cantaloupe in them, as fruit cups usually do (unfortunately). I braced myself to finish the cup and eat the piece of cantaloup on the bottom. But then the weirdest thing happened. It was so good. Like I swear, it was the sweetest, most flavorful cantaloupe I had ever tried in my 25 years of life.

I actually gasped—because it was so good. (And also because I’m dramatic.)

And immediately I thought: “If every cantaloupe tasted like that, I would love cantaloupe. I would take back everything I’ve said about them.”

As I thought more about it in the shower the next day, I realized something.

My goal in life is to be like that little piece of cantaloupe.

What I mean is, I want my character, my personality, my expressions, and my lifestyle to be so “good” that when people encounter me, they rethink the negative things they believe about humanity, about Christians, (about Nigerians...lol) and whatever other categories I fit into.

This especially resonates with my faith. When I think of that cantaloupe, it was as if finally, the flavor had fully loaded. If there was an embodiment of how they should always taste, that piece was it.

And that’s also what I want to be. I want to live the way humans were designed to live. I want to fully embody all the goodness, love, joy, peace, patience, creativity and more that God intended for humans to reflect from Him. I want to live my faith so well that when people encounter me, they pause and think:

“Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to really be like.”

“That encounter was so nice. Maybe I was wrong.”

Especially if they hated previously Christians the way that I hated cantaloupe.

Of course, I won’t tailor my life to be palatable to all people. Nor is my goal to be liked by everyone. The bible and realities of life have clearly shown me that this is not possible or profitable.

But I will live in a way that embodies all that I believe God desired humans to be.

As of right now, I’m not sure if I can call myself a cantaloupe fan, but I am curious and less quick to comment when I watch my roommate eat it. I even tried it again. And it wasn’t that bad. I’m not yet ready to buy one on my own, but I’m looking forward to her buying another one. I want to try it again.

In a time when “Christianity” is rising in political and social conversations, now more than ever I want to fully express what being a Christian is really supposed to be. God-given fruit and salt to the Earth.

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And when I prayed about it,

I realized that perfect piece of cantaloupe is exactly who Jesus was—the full, unfiltered embodiment of God in human form. Not watered down by sin or religion or brokenness or distractions. And if we all lived just like Him, we would live just as we were purposed to.

And the world would maybe give a second thought to Christianity.

I’m hoping to be a reason that those around me do :)