Not Seeing the Whole Picture

Recently my husband and I took a holiday down to Victoria, where we saw a game of footy with our beloved Sydney Swans at the most famous football ground in Australia – the MCG. We also saw and thrilled to the recently opened Australian production of Les Miserables. What an amazing musical!  In between those two bits of culture, both of which we thoroughly enjoyed, we took a few days to explore The Great Ocean Road. It’s something we have talked about doing for years and never got around to. This time we managed it. We were very excited at the prospect.

Before we left, I read up a bit about The Great Ocean Road and people talked about the sheer cliffs and wonderful scenery. So what I expected from reports I had read was to drive along a road that ran along the edges of the limestone cliffs all the way and looked out onto water and sandy beaches and amazing rock formations.  What I was expecting was what I wanted to see. That is not quite the case. In fact some of the time the road veers inland so that you cannot even see the ocean let alone the cliffs. All you see are trees. As for the sandy beaches we have them near where we live too. For a time my husband and I found ourselves seriously underwhelmed.  We hadn’t travelled all this way to look at trees. We have them at home, along with picturesque water views close by.

Of course as any of you who have travelled the Great Ocean road will know that is not all there is. As we travelled on we did get to see the limestone cliffs, and the famous rock formations known as the twelve apostles or those that are left of them. They are slowly being worn away.

We saw various other landmarks that caused us to reach for the camera. This one is known as London bridge. It used to be all one formation until it split apart and two people who were on it at the time were left stranded until they could be helicoptered off.

These are just some other shots we took along the way.

 

 

Looking out onto the vast ocean from some of these spots really does make you feel you are at the end of the world. 

What we saw made us marvel anew at the might and beauty of our Creator.  Amazing to think He created all this for us to enjoy and yet he did and so much more. We stopped off at so many scenic lookouts we practically lost count.

The Ocean Road trip made me think about the writing life. When we begin writing we can have certain expectations of how it will pan out. If it doesn’t happen quite as we imagined we can be underwhelmed and wonder why. It can become discouraging and it is this sort of discouragement that causes some people to give up and yes, that thought has crossed my mind more than once, especially recently. But as we found on the Great Ocean Road, our first impressions were not all there was. We weren't seeing the whole picture. Even those times the ocean was hidden from our view it was still there. The majestic cliffs were still there even if we couldn’t see them at the time.

Thankfully even when we don’t see the whole picture of not just our writing lives but our whole lives, God does. He sees not only the beginning of the road but the stops and detours along the way. Most importantly He sees the ultimate end and I’m thankful for that. Maybe it’s enough to know it is all in His hands.

Dale writes fiction, poetry and children’s fiction, and has written bible studies and Sunday school lessons. As well as writing and reading, Dale loves to sing. She is involved in the music ministry at her church. More information about Dale can be found at www.daleharcombe.com or on her Write and Read with Dale blog http://www.livejournal.com/users/orangedale/