Bookends

It's been three and a half years since the left side of my face was a different color than the right. With a splash of water I to try to even out the color ... it could just be dirt. My second glance into the foggy mirror of a gas station somewhere in the plains of west Texas proves to be no different. The face staring back at me is red on the left side. The perfect line down the middle resembles faint war paint, and I'm convinced this sunburn symbolizes something more.

As I dry off my blonde 3 week old excuse for a beard I feel a strange sense of dejavu. I know I've never ventured this far into the Texas plains, but for some reason the rolling tumbleweeds take me back.

"That'll be $46.50" the clerk says with a smirk, after she did a double take at the condition of my face ... guess she sees these bicolor faces a lot. Walking back to my car I'm almost knocked over by the hard January wind and it hits me. I've been here before. Not physically, but I've been on this journey. Last time it was harder, last time it was Kansas. This time it felt different, this time it was Texas. Both times felt like an empty eternity.

At a crossroads I check both ways to pull out from the station. I can actually see the horizon both east and west, no cars either way, so I pull out on the flat as a pancake country road and push the pedal. I'm headed west ... to the mountains.

Traveling west seems to act as a hand turning the page in my life. Both times a pit in my stomach, both times my face changing color, my eyes opened, my story rewritten. This time I feel more confident, but mountains are unpredictable, I hope I'm ready for what awaits on the edge of these steep rocky slopes.

Three and a half years ago I left comfort for the first time and chose risk. I was scared, I thought about turning my car around, but God had different plans. The journey to the steep places of the west seem to have an affect on my life. But it's the struggle in these steep places that not only color my face, they shape my heart. Mountains seem to be my story's bookends.

Its the lie of this land that seems to encourage a lifestyle beyond the country club. It's a flee from comfort for me, a bold step towards risk. A journey isn't a journey at all unless fear covers, brings a shudder and spills tears. Once one tastes his tears in the face of the unknown and risks enough to trudge forward he will never go back.  Maybe this is why I keep finding my face red on the left.