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Why a verse from Habakkuk you ask? LONE PINE & HABAKKUK We were staying in Vince's mother’s vacated condo in Ridgecrest, a conservative town located in the California desert. She had recently been placed in an elder care home nearby and we were there to visit with her. I always loved the long drive out to Ridgecrest from Los Angeles. It started out as fairly green (in the rainy season that is) as you passed through the hills, then when the barren terrain took over, sand and scattered boulders become the landscape as far as the eye could see, with mountain ranges in the backdrop. The colors changed with the time of day from bleached out yellows to hues of purple in the evening. At last, making that final turn from a higher plane down toward Ridgecrest which would be glittering in the valley below like a little Vegas, the panoramic view of the desert always grabbed me, resulting in goose bumps of anticipation. We've talked about it - we couldn't live there, but loved visiting. I spent some of my free time, of which there was plenty, memorizing Scripture verses, and Habakkuk 3:19 was the one I was liking the most. I was working with the King James translation, but by now have adapted most of the others. I like the verse, it inspires me. So does Habakkuk himself because I see him as quite the character: tall and clumsy, musically inclined, and serious about God. As for the deer part, I envision a beautiful fawn light on its feet pausing in the silence as I too join in kind, reflecting, embracing the moment, rising above the circumstances, lifted to a higher plane, touching the Spirit of God. One day we took a day trip from Ridgecrest even further into nowhere, heading out to the booming metropolis of Lone Pine in the high desert with a population too few to count. The highlight along the way was a Crystal Geyser bottling plant off to the side all by it's lonesome. I was wondering how many miles the employees had to cover to get to work and if any of them ever had a blow out on the way. The scenic beauty of the Lone Pine area was unsurpassed, unique and inspiring with small gatherings of snow nestled in crevices of rocks avoiding the sun's reach. God's natural wonders - can't ever beat them. The sparse little western town was made up of a mixture of Native Americans, Caucasians, and being California of course it had it's share of Mexicans. Thank God for Mexican restaurants. We wandered into a sprawling antique shop which was in desperate need of a handyman's expertise and which apparently didn't know the definition of antiques, and then drove around the handful of streets trying to identify the home that Vince's aunt and uncle had lived in many years prior. We found it. Habakkuk 3:19 has memories attached to it. This is a good thing I think. |
