On Smell

I just read through Jonah.
Chapter 1, Verse 17 reads:
"And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." (ESV)
Jonah then goes on to say a 9 verse prayer from inside the fish.

Yesterday at restoration church, a certain someone's office smelled pretty terrible. Chris said, "i think someone put poop in here." and he wasn't joking.
After looking around for a while, he found what was making the smell. A white paper bag that at one point had someone's lunch in it. I believe he accurately attributed it to chris tower. It was in the trash can. Now, you could smell this thing from the hallway. It was strong.
When we leaned over the trash can, it became difficult to take a breath.
And when chris picked up the bag and brought it to his nose, he choked, i'm pretty sure he teared up, and he quickly put it down.
No doubt about it. A 5 day (possibly plus a few weeks) old sandwich can smell pretty horrible.
Lets suppose that whatever fish Jonah was in had a stomach about the size of chris's office.
Fish, or wales, or whatever you have here, eat more than a sandwich from Calef's every day.
Raw fish, on its own, isn't really the best smelling stuff.
Imagine what stomach bile, half digested carcasses, and potentially other animals probably the same size of Jonah would smell like all mixed together.
With no fresh air.
For 3 days and 3 nights.

It was difficult for me to concentrate in that office, because there was the constant nagging of foul odor.
I couldn't have lasted a few minutes with my face next to that sandwich bag.

Jonah prayed for 9 verses, thanking God that he was in the fish.
If you can read through that without being completely taken aback, you simply don't understand it.

None of us have ever been swallowed whole by a whale.
But then again, most of the times, we don't thank God for the smelly situations we are in, either.