Life In The Branches

Life is full of stories. Stories that we love, stories that make our stomach sick, stories that make our heart soar or sink. Stories that make us FEEL something. I always have loved stories, because they connected me to whomever they were about, and many times stir my soul up. And I've realized that is what we all need sometimes, a good soul-stirring. 

But if I sat in a history class and my teacher rambled off the dates of when Joan of Arc was born and killed and a couple battles she won…I won’t really remember or care. But if you were like my actual history teacher senior year of high school, he told me she was a butt-kicking peasant girl of 19 years with visions from an angel to end England’s reign over France and reinstate her king Charles the VII. She loved her people and was captured and burned at the stake for her zeal. Let’s just say nobody slept in that class. We remembered that story. And learned from it.

      

This is my attempt to tell some of my story. It’s not as incredible as Joan of Arc, but I do believe it’s important because it’s part of a much bigger story happening. It’s a story that has been happening since the earth begun. For me, my role began to take shape when I was about 8 years old. I had just watched a documentary with my Pawpaw about all the different African tribes in Liberia and he recounted stories of what he had done there for years. Those stories and those people filled me with wonder. I couldn’t sleep and was laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling in my parents room and I began talking to The Father. I told him (with some sass if I remember right, and a whole lot of determination) “Don’t give me a normal life. Send me out.”

     

I never knew how much that request would seep into every piece of my life. I never knew that I would start to live life in the branches. Life in the branches looks different for everyone, but those who do it start to experience wonderful things. Wonderful and hard. Life in the branches is not for the faint of heart. It’s not living an easy or comfortable life. But it’s good. It’s like a journey with Aslan, the big beautiful and fierce lion from my favorite stories. Sometimes you encounter white witches, talking wolves, eternal winters, cursed gold, and hungry giants. But you’re with The Lion. He takes you through the wilderness but it’s an amazing adventure.

      

I didn’t know that this request would send me to Asia 11 years later and I would stumble upon the land and people I was called to give my life too. I didn’t know I would meet My Farmer. I didn’t know 2 years after that he’d ask me to be his wife. I didn’t know I would watch my parents get divorced, my mom almost die, my brother’s stomach be pumped, children be enslaved, friends go hungry, not know where I will live and most of the times only be able to see the very next step in front of me. I didn’t know I’d get to speak a language and live amongst a people that I hadn’t even heard about till I was 19. I didn't know I would see miraculous things happen that I never imagined. But that’s what Life in the Branches is like. It’s bearing fruit from the Vine and the Vine has a will of it’s own for what it’s growing. I can do nothing apart from it.

So this is my attempt to writing down bits of my story I feel led to share. They’re usually as weird as my name, Mookie. But I hope you realize these stories are whispers from the Vine, He is inviting you to a life in the branches too.