"Bye Bye" Mr. Familiarity!!!

He kept on walking closer and closer to his final destination. There were many hallways in this huge building, and he had to find his way to room 500. He looked at the map again to be sure he was on the right path.

Before he made a left turn into the next hallway, he thought of what happened when he woke up this morning. Nwaneka gave him a huge kiss on his lips and said, “What do you want for breakfast honey? Make a special request.” His wife was a mushy-mushy creature. He was so going to miss her warm hugs and kisses for a long time. This morning she wanted him to make a special request, seeing as she wasn’t going to be with him for a really long time. He had asked her to please make him a large-sized pancake and put a lot of whipped cream at the middle, that was what he wanted and that was the breakfast she loved preparing most too, with a cup of steaming hot chocolate on the side. She obliged and got up to go to the kitchen.

Back to reality. He kept walking forward. He made the left turn and saw some soldiers standing in a long file to the left-hand side of the hallway, with their right hands raised to their temples. He halted and raised his right hand to his forehead too, and then kept walking down the hallway. He was walking towards the United States flag. As he walked towards the end of the hallway, he back-tracked to 6.30am that same morning. Nwaneka was still in the kitchen, and by this time the whiffs and sensations of the aroma was coming upstairs to their bedroom. He decided to sneak up on the twins, Taiwo and Kehinde. It was too early for them to get up because it was Saturday and they had no school. But he went inside their bedroom and gave them a kiss, each on their foreheads. Taiwo opened her eyes and said, “Good morning daddy,” and then closed her eyes again. Kehinde didn’t even budge. She was the more playful one and didn’t sleep for two hours after Taiwo had already gone to bed last night, so he already expected that. He snapped back to reality again, he had reached the end of the hallway and saw the big double-doors. He looked back and smiled. Then he proceeded forward.

As he entered the room, all the people who were sitting down got up to give him a standing ovation. He walked forward and joined the other five astronauts who were standing on the NASA platform. He shook hands with them and stood, with his left hand holding tight to his head gear. They kept on clapping for what may have seemed like a lifetime, until the space ship opened its doors. The six of them stood, waving their hands to the crowd, with silent promises of returning with the joy of accomplishing their task in space. They were traveling to the moon to investigate yet another phenomenon. One of them was going to place the United States flag on the moon when they got there. He blew a kiss to Nwaneka and the twins, as they stood waving to him amongst the crowd of people, and he said his final “bye-bye” to familiarity.

I remember one day in primary school in Port-Harcourt, they had just finished building a brand new library for my school. All the primary 4 kids, like me, rushed into the library during our class break to explore all the new books. My eyes settled on one of the encyclopedias, and it was about Space Exploration. That day, I came back home and informed my father that I was going to become an astronaut, and he threw his head back and laughed so hard. Then later when he was calm, he told me that was an excellent aspiration. Even though, now I know that he would protest a little bit if I said I was going to space for three years. I definitely do not want to be an astronaut right now anyways (lol).

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This story was inspired by the fact that sometimes we get so comfortable in our ‘comfort zones’ that we don’t strike out to explore who we are really meant to become. Your light is for the benefit of the whole world. I light my lamp so you can light yours too. I give, so you can start giving too. I extend my hands, so you can choose to extend yours too. Together, we can break the chains of unfamiliarity and do what we were designed by God to do. You are called for something greater than your little box right now. Have you ever stretched your imagination? Because the bible says that God can go above and beyond all that you can ever ask, think or imagine. Do you even have any imagination about how great you are? Do you think about it sometimes? Do you have secret dreams and visions? Break free! Say "bye bye" to Mr. Familiarity.

Proverbs 28:1 "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion..."