Miniature Martyrdom

Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy. Sometimes I don't. Let me clarify, more often I don't. Usually I open my eyes, the light hits them and I grimace. Cross eyed, I struggle out of bed. My feet hit the floor and I can practically hear the Schindler's List violin theme playing as I lament at what could have been; more sleep. Once in a blue moon I can even feel my pulse behind my eyeballs as my head throbs to the beat of some delusional dubstep inside my skull.

Usually, though, I don't take tylenol. It's not that I enjoy it when my eyeballs feel like subwoofers, I really don't. I think that it makes me feel like a mini-martyr, it gives me some kind of sick satisfaction to suffer through the little rave going on inside by skull aaaalllll by myself...as if I'm some kind of venerable doctor of the church or something. (Human pride manifested through "holiness" at its finest, my friends.)

See, if I was Therese Martin I would rejoice in this tiny suffering, that I may offer it up to the Lord. Every day she fell asleep in prayer. She was so weak that she could barely keep up with the simple household chores. Life in the convent was very difficult for her, yet she suffered through each small tribulation for her beloved, until she began coughing up blood. During those last days as she was gasping for air, I know she was gasping for heaven, for Jesus, in utter anticipation. Therese only needed 24 years to become a B-B-B-Bad to the Bone Catholic. I anticipate that I will need at least 4 of those lifetimes, if I'm lucky....

So, how do I get my morning-self from Point A, which is this:

To Point B:

St. Perpetua: Martyr of the Church/Total Boss.

See, the problem with martyrdom is that you can't bring it on yourself. Otherwise it's suicide. And then you're a murderer...which just sucks. What you can do, however, is accept it when it shows up in any form. Welcome the punch and embrace the kick to your gut as if it's the holy cross itself. Just like St. Therese. Just like Jesus. 

Saint Perpetua is my favorite example of this. After being sentenced to death for her refusal to renounce Christ as her Lord, she was thrown to the wild beasts to be torn apart. This brave lady didn't take it like a skittish death-sentenced captive, though. No. She entered into that arena a bride running down the aisle to meet her beloved, and she was. Meet you at the altar, honey? Oh no, not this one. More like, I'll meet you at the sword, after the bull and tiger-romp, my dearest.


 Not buh-dass enough for you? The most chilling, rocking, absolute BAD TO THE BONE moment about this whole ordeal is her slaughter. After a few failed attempts by a nervous and quite amateur executioner, she reached out her hand and quietly guided the sword to her neck. Oh death, where is thy sting? Yep. Not only did she live that way, she died that way. 

I want to be like that, guys. I want to give him every fiber of my being - even the beat in my heart and the breath in my lungs, in some way at some time. I realize that my chances of an actual slaughter for his holy name isn't exactly in the cards for me, (although you never know), but I want to be that type of Christian so badly. The type that gets out of bed for him. The type that stays up an extra hour to speak to him. The type that slays any aspect of her life that doesn't honor him. That welcomes the sword of shame from this world for his name's sake. The kind of Christian that drops everything and welcomes martyrdom, just as Perpetua did when the soldiers came knocking at her front door asking, "Are you one of them?"  May we always answer with her same words, "I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am - a Christian."