I’m not religious … due to the history.
“They tortured her from morning until evening.”
She was small — a slave girl, unknown, unnamed in the world’s records except for this: Blandina. The believers feared for her. When the arrests came and the chains closed around their wrists, they trembled not for themselves but for her frail body. Surely she would not endure what was coming.
The governor sought to break the Christians publicly. They were accused of atheism, of cannibalism, of crimes whispered in the dark. The crowds roared for spectacle.
They stripped her and suspended her on a stake, arms stretched wide, her body exposed before the jeering mob. The soldiers scourged her again and again. Hooks tore at her flesh. Each question came like a hammer:
“Swear by the gods.”
“Curse Christ.”
“Confess your crimes.”
And from torn lips came the same answer, over and over:
“I am a Christian. Among us no evil is done.”
They tortured her from morning until evening. The executioners themselves grew weary. One account says they confessed in frustration that they had never seen a woman endure so much and still breathe.
She was returned to prison — a dungeon thick with stench and darkness. The wounded lay around her. Yet those who had feared she would fall now said she strengthened them.
On the day of spectacle, they led her into the amphitheater. The crowd howled. She was tied again — this time to a stake — as wild beasts were released. The Christians watching said she appeared as if hanging upon a cross, and that her prayer stirred courage in their hearts.
The beasts would not kill her.
So they reserved her for the final day of games.
They scourged her again. They placed her upon a red-hot iron chair, and the smell of burning flesh rose into the arena. Still she confessed Christ. Still she would not deny Him.
At last, after enduring torments meant to break a nation, she was handed to a gladiator and killed by the sword.
She was likely young. She was certainly powerless in the eyes of Rome. A slave. A woman. Easily discarded.
Yet the letter sent from Lyons said this of her: that Christ showed in her what the world counts weak, He makes invincible.
No recantation.
No curse.
No surrender.
Only this:
“I am a Christian.”
opensenseme 