I guess there is no better time than now to come out of hiding. Hi, my name is Brittney McNiell and I am addicted to running. Some people run in the morning, a few run for fun, some run for time, while others run for distance. Me… I run AWAY. When things get really hard, I make my exit. Well if things get kind of hard… actually if something gets slightly uncomfortable... I’M OUT. The greatest difference in the aforementioned runners and myself is the destination. When those runners lace up their shoes, they have in mind how far they want to go and how fast they want to get there. I, on the other hand, can’t even find my shoes and frankly don’t care where I’m headed as long as it’s away from THERE.
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“There” being the place of calling –– the adventure God has asked you to embark on. It’s that gut check everytime you hear the word ‘adoption,’ the double take when you see another woman getting healthy and fit, the heartache of hearing about another person KILLING it in ministry… all while you barely remember to pick your kids up from school (yes this has happened once… or twice). It’s that dream that keeps you awake at night. The thing that you are certain you will never be good at and most definitely aren’t qualified for… THERE. When “there” knocked, I RAN.
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Which brings me “here.”
Hello from the belly of a whale
**Insert obvious relatable story here**
Overview of Jonah 1 & 2: God spoke, Jonah heard but RAN and was swallowed by a great big fish. For more detail read the book of Jonah.
Overview of Brittney 2017: God spoke, Brittney heard but RAN and was swallowed by a proverbial fish. For more detail meet me for coffee.
This experience has qualified me to write the: “Whale Belly Survival Guide: 4 steps to surviving certain death at the bottom of the ocean.”
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Step 1: Retrace Your Steps & Identify Your Nineveh
Knowing how you arrived to a particular place is crucial to your rescue. Answer the following questions to identify your former location:
Why are you running? My flat out honest answer was FEAR. Raging, undisciplined, relentless, ferocious FEAR. The kind of fear the eats you from the inside out. Leaves you feeling hopeless and helpless, with more questions than answers but no voice to bring them to life. There is nothing like a year with the fishes to bring you face to face with EVERYTHING you are afraid of. Jonah and I may not share the same why, but it produced the same disobedience.
What are you running from? Like Jonah running from his calling to preach in Nineveh, I was in a full-on sprint away from my calling to ministry. You see, just a few years ago I had direction. I knew where God was taking me. Then everything changed. I still understood what He was asking me to do, but the means to get there no longer existed. I was left with a “what now” feeling, so I ran away from it.
Maybe you are afraid, too.
Maybe you’ve experienced miscarriage after miscarriage and your “whale belly” looks like giving up on ever having a family.
Maybe you lost the weight, only to gain it all back plus some and frankly can’t stand looking at yourself in the mirror let alone going to the gym.
Or maybe, like me, you felt God calling you into ministry but the fear of failure and the mountain of unknowns grip you so tight you can’t bring yourself to take that next step toward your Nineveh.
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Step 2: Don’t Set Up Residence There.
Your first instinct upon entering the whale will be to set up shop. Don’t do it. Don’t order a sofa and throw down a rug. Don’t braid seaweed into curtains and carve a coffee table out of fish bones. And for the love of all things holy, do not cross stitch a sign that says “Oh Whale” to hang above your bed. Make NO plans to stay here because you, my friend, don’t belong here! You are no good to ANYONE, including yourself, inside the belly of a whale. The people of Nineveh NEEDED to hear Jonah’s voice. SOMEONE needs to hear your voice and that can’t happen when you are fish food.
I learned this lesson the hard way! Either I’m not as smart as Jonah or something about an actual whale escalates things. He was in and out in 3 days. Here I am almost a year later… “Oh, don’t mind me, I’ve just spent all of 2017 checking out Shamu’s digestive system.”
While I firmly believe this was my single greatest season of growth, I have ZERO desire to go back. For me, the whale belly season was a time of bondage and fear, hurt and depression, bitterness and anger, inadequacies and tears –– buckets and buckets of tears. My mind was barraged with every failure and every flaw, like a horror movie rolling on repeat, shaken together with silence, darkness, seaweed and saltwater. While God is WELL able to use every circumstance in your life for good, I fully believe it’s not His intention for us to be bound in the belly of a whale. Someone forgot to tell me, “You don't have to stay here.” So this is me telling you… YOU DON’T HAVE TO STAY HERE. Depression, anxiety, fear and sadness do not have to be a way of life for you. God has been, currently is and always will be your deliverer.
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Step 3: Don’t You Dare Give Up. Don’t Walk Away.
Time in the whale belly can be brutally painful. You know you love Jesus with all your heart but the deep, uncontrolled, seemingly unannounced sadness has you certain you’ve been forgotten. You tell no one for the fear of being misunderstood. Then loneliness joins the sadness, suddenly you are throwing quite the “pity party of one.”
I spent the majority of 2017 “feeling” like I was barely surviving, let alone thriving. But I had to decide if I was going to give up or keep moving! I didn't quit and you don’t get to either! You, sweet one, are a warrior of the royal kind. While the battle to the ocean surface may appear painful, I promise you this, there is NO hurt like whale belly hurt. There is no disconnect as severe as the one caused by running from the very place God promised to meet you. When you want to quit, FIGHT BACK! When despair surrounds you, FIGHT BACK! When nothing makes sense anymore and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, FIGHT BACK!
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Step 4: Pray For Puke
As a mom I have spent a significant amount of time praying for those around me to NOT puke. *Sympathy pukers unite!* But as the awareness of my grim surroundings increased, it became wildly apparent that I needed to pray for PUKE. Jonah’s departure from the whale was messy but necessary. Surviving the whale doesn’t mean you come out clean on the other side. Landing on the seashore is merely the exit that prepares you for your entrance.
I may not know your Nineveh, but I know you have one. And I would venture to guess –– if you are still reading this –– the weight of it scares you a little. DO IT ANYWAY. Do the thing that scares you the most. Take one step toward God’s plan for your life today, then one more step, then another. The size of the step doesn’t really matter as long as the direction you are headed is THERE.
