The Whole Picture

By: Amy Marcle

An artist was hired to paint a mural on an empty wall in his local downtown business district.  He had envisioned the scenario he wished to capture and went to work right away.  He was told by the city council that he could use his imagination to come up with a scene that depicted the town’s past and present.  The gentleman gathered his tools and paint palette and went to work right away.  The size of the walls he was asked to paint took up an entire city block.  As he worked daily on his masterpiece, passers-by often stopped and asked questions.  “What are you painting?”  “What’s that going to be?” Some even made comments like “that doesn’t even look like anything to me.”  One day, the mayor made a stop at the site of the project.  He had noticed that the painter had yet to portray anything significant to the town’s history, as images were scattered across his concrete canvas.  “I can’t even tell what your painting!” the mayor scoffed.  The painter without so much as lifting his brush replied confidently, “That’s because you haven’t seen the whole picture yet.”

Often in our lives, we find ourselves in the situation of the mayor and the passers-by in this illustration.  We take a look at our lives and wonder “why is this happening?” or “what is going to happen?” Or we complain that our real-life scenarios are not aligning with the dreams we had for ourselves.  How many times does God put us in situations we don’t quite understand?  Maybe, it’s because we are not seeing the whole picture.

One of the hardest conversations I have ever had to have with my daughter was the night her sixteen-year-old cousin, Alyssa, was killed in an automobile accident.  I will never forget the look on her face when I relayed the news to her.  Shock, disbelief, fear, and sadness overcame her normally bright, happy face.  “Why?” was one of the first questions we all asked ourselves.  Why had God allowed a young life, that was so precious to us, be taken away so quickly?  Why had the driver of the vehicle at fault walked away with a few broken ribs when our Alyssa’s life was cut short? 

As the days passed after Alyssa’s death, I tried to make sense of it myself.  She was a great student, a great friend, a beautiful daughter and sister, and just a shining light to all she met.  And she loved Jesus.  Stacy, her mom, talked to us about finding journals where Alyssa had written letters to God during her time on earth.  She was passionate about teaching others about Jesus and sharing what he had done for her.  The more I thought about her love for God, the more her death made sense to me. I was not seeing the whole picture.  Perhaps, God took Alyssa because she had fulfilled her purpose on this Earth according to His will.  Maybe God was sparing her from some bigger picture that would have placed her soul in danger later in life. Maybe He was using her death to reach others…to warn others about how fragile life actually is.  While the picture of her life did not turn out the way all had imagined it being, it turned out perfectly for her considering she is now safe in the arms of Jesus, the one she longed to be with anyway.

At thirteen years of age, being diagnosed with Insulin-Dependent Diabetes was not a part of the picture I had of what my life would be like, the rest of my life at that.  I never once wrote down on a goal sheet that I wanted to be a diabetic, that I wanted to one day develop an eating disorder.  But allow me to illustrate how as a moody teenager, I was not seeing the entire picture.

On the day of my diagnosis, all I could imagine was a life of needles and glucose checks.  Saddened at the idea that I could not have spontaneous late night pizza binges with friends, I was not seeing the entire picture that God was seeing for my life.  And honestly, God was taking His time filling in the parts I was not seeing.  Little did I know that the portrait of my life was being intertwined with people from thousands of miles away.  Before it could fully appreciate the way my life was playing out, I had to wait for a character of another  story to be introduced into mine.  There would be many plot twists before I would ever comprehend why God had plagued me with this disease.

I did not suffer from an eating disorder during my teenage years as is common for the disease.  It was after I gave birth to our daughter that I began playing with my insulin to lose weight.  Insulin that I would not have even had in my possession had I never been diagnosed with diabetes.  Losing the weight I gained during my pregnancy could not come fast enough for impatient me.  Boy, was I wrong when I thought I would put on my favorite jeans two days after Haley was born.  The quickest way I had ever lost weight was in the weeks prior to my diabetes diagnosis.  During that freshman year of high school, I dropped thirteen pounds in a little less than two weeks due to insanely high, and unrecognized, blood glucose levels.  I knew I was tired and hungry all the time, but was not sure why.  I knew I was eating like a grown man, but still losing weight.  After my diagnosis, the doctors explained to me that the reason for the quick weight loss was because I was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis.  During diabetic ketoacidosis, your body begins to use fat and muscle for fuel creating massive weight loss as long as it goes untreated.  Keep in mind that diabetic also causes death if left untreated.  After my pregnancy, I chose to focus on the bright side of the weight I could lose if I could just let my sugar run “a little high” for a couple of weeks.  Those couple of weeks turned into years, and led me into a full blown eating disorder complete with starvation, diet pills, bulimia, and continuous insulin omission.  Insulin injections are not merely recommendations for a better life, they are a requirement for my life to continue period.  And, here I was omitting them, never focusing on the fact that death was often only moments away, but rather focusing on the weight that was falling off of me like leaves off an autumn tree.

If you are wondering what point I am attempting to make here, stick with me, we are getting to the big picture.  Had I never experienced the unfavorable affects an eating disorder and addiction had on my mental and physical well-being, I would have never been led to write a book about my experiences.  When I self-published “Slow Suicide,” I had no idea what kind of impact it may have.  I wasn’t sure if it would even reach anyone outside of my family and friends. The response was both inspiring and heartbreaking.  I was inspired by the amount of positive feedback I received.  But, it was heartbreaking to hear from other individuals who also suffered from the same type of behavior I had been exhibiting for so long.  These people found comfort in my book because they no longer felt alone.  Rewarding? Yes.  But, sad that they had never found anyone with whom they could discuss their issues?  Also, yes.  I felt that God gave me a disease he knew I was capable of surviving to help others understand that they were not alone. 

A friendship that was formed from the penning of “Slow Suicide” came from an unlikely source all the way in Wales.  My newfound friend, Sara, reached out to me via Facebook to tell me she had purchased my book and wanted to personally thank me for writing about how she felt.  She had felt alone in her journey, not being able to discuss with her medical providers the concerns she had, and was pleased to know she was not the only one going through this ordeal.  After a few years of talking back and forth, Sara, actually flew from Wales to Nashville, TN to meet me and my family.  We spent the day with her and her partner just touring the city and sightseeing.  Seeing her in person that day, completed a portion of the picture God was painting in my life.  The big picture I had been missing as I questioned His plans, was finally laid out for me.  Others would need to hear my story to help them cope with their own.

Sara now works tirelessly to promote awareness regarding Diabetes and Eating Disorders.  She’s speaks to medical personnel, mental health providers, and even to the Parliament regarding the importance of mental health awareness with health diagnosis such as diabetes.   She sends me copies of her speeches and every time she mentions my book being an inspiration to her.  She has probably sold more books for me than I have for myself.  I wrote that book in 2012 and just this week she sent me a screenshot of an Instagram post where someone had posted a page from my book describing how it resonated with them.  The big picture.

As much as I want to know the plans the Lord has for me, He does not reveal them on my timeline, rather on His.  We read in the Bible in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

The Lord’s plans will always be greater than our biggest dreams.  One day it will all make sense, when we see the whole picture.