The martyrs did not seek to die

A martyr is sometimes imagined as a fanatic who despises life. It is quite the opposite: martyrs loved life—they had families, jobs, friends—and they did not throw it away: they gave it. When forced to choose between Christ and everything else, they had already seen clearly that there was Someone worth more than all the rest. That is why martyrdom is not improvised. No one gives their whole life all at once if they have not already been giving it in pieces: in the small daily fidelity, in the thousand occasions of being consistent when the cost is small. Surely no one will ask you for your blood. But they will ask for smaller versions of the same choice: looking bad for not lying, losing out for being fair, enduring a joke for not hiding your faith. That is where the same freedom is trained: the freedom of someone who is not for sale.