Okay, so how does one relate to a fabulously wealthy deaconess martyr from Ancient Rome who was so filled with God’s spirit that she was miraculously healed every night after torture? Saint Tatiana of Rome died during the reign of Severus, between 222 and 235 AD.

She was arrested and taken to a pagan temple to offer sacrifice. Instead, she prayed. An earthquake destroyed the idols. Her eyes were torn out, and she prayed that the eyes of her tormentors would be opened to the true faith. Seven of them converted on the spot.

The next day her wounds were healed, so they slashed her with razors. A wonderful fragrance filled the air. After that, she was beaten with iron rods but the men had to quit, since the rods were wrested from them and turned against them.

The following day she was not only healed, but appeared more beautiful and radiant than before. The judges demanded she sacrifice to the goddess Diana. Once at the temple, Tatiana sang praises to God, whereupon lightning struck the temple, destroying the statue of the goddess.

Enraged, the judges condemned her to the lion’s jaws – but once in the arena, the lion lay down, licking her feet and purring. For this, Tatiana was thrown into a fire, which, like the youths during Daniel’s day, didn’t consume her, so she was beaten again and locked up in Zeus’s temple for the night. When the court arrived next morning, the idol lay on the floor in bits. The judges, finally fed up, had her beheaded.

How can we, with our weaknesses and frailties and worldly concerns relate to or draw strength from someone like this?

The point of Tatiana’s suffering isn’t for us to see her. It wasn’t her faith that caused the earthquake. She didn’t, at night, in her cell, all alone, heal her wounds and regenerate her eyes. It wasn’t her ability at telekinesis that caused the men to be beaten with their own rods. Her power didn’t convert the pagans and destroy the idols. God did that. God touched the men’s hearts so that they could believe, and die to live eternally in His presence. He healed her because he loved her and knew she was up to the task he wanted her to perform. He destroyed the idol because He is a faithful God who wants all humanity to live in His love, the way Tatiana did, and the way we are supposed to. The point of Tatiana’s life and suffering is not to show us how perfect Tatiana was, but rather how faithful God is in the midst of our trials and tribulations.

In today’s culture, especially in North America and Europe, we aren’t likely to undergo the same kind of physical agony she did, but how often are we faced with torments that try our faith and our ability to react in a way that will bring praise and honour to God? If you’re like me, you probably run into situations every day. How often do we snap at the husband or the kids when we trip over the shoes for the 457th time? How often are we asked what our astrological sign is, or whether we’d like to have our palms read or our tea leaves read – as fun, nothing serious, it’s just a game? How often do we lash out in pain and anger when we learn that a friend has been spreading gossip about us, or says something that hurts us deeply?

“Those things aren’t torture,” you say. “That’s life! Get over it.” It’s nothing big? Nothing compared to Tatiana’s eyes being torn out?

When I yell at my son because I’ve tripped over his size 13’s, I’ve done something more than just spread the mad around. I’ve turned my back on the source of life, the fountain of all holiness and the very wellspring of my existence. I’ve shut the door of my heart in God’s face and told him to bug out.

It’s not physical and it feels like a small and petty thing, something that we wouldn’t ever compare to Tatiana’s suffering, but if it separates us from God, it doesn’t have to be big. The results are life shattering – we are no longer resting in God’s love and mercy.

Tatiana teaches us, through her physical agonies, that God will respond to our torments, as long as we’re open to him and trying, to the best of our ability, to submit to His will. Now I can almost guarantee that He’s not going to hit that palm-reading, horoscope casting co-worker with lightning, or turn the size 13’s into a little pile of smoking ash on the hall floor (but y’know, that one really makes my heart sing – piles of size 13 ash on the floor! Oh YES!), but He will respond and He will hold us up in faith.

Think of the times we’ve found the ability to hold back that angry outburst, state our case calmly and work to find a way to get the shoes put away. Or instead of phoning our friend and giving them the tongue lashing they so richly deserve, we hear ourselves telling them quietly how they hurt us. Or we just refuse the fortune-telling offer “because our faith forbids it,” and manage to keep the stinging, holier-than-thou lecture behind our lips.

That’s God healing us. That’s God smiting the idols. That’s God beating the torturers. He always kills with love – he kills sin, vice, illness and disharmony with love and patience and kindness, sometimes in such subtle ways that we can’t even see it. And as often as not, He’s killing our sins, our vices, our disharmony as much as he is the people we’re upset at.

It’s not that Tatiana was so perfect, or so in harmony with God that we need to look to her as an example. She was, but for most of us that kind of faith is not going to happen. God responded to her because God is faithful, loving and merciful, and He corrects and leads in love, always: whether we can see it or not, feel it or not. As long as we can, in however small and broken a way keep our eyes and hearts on God, keep the door of our hearts open to His knock, He will be there to heal us, smite our idols and beat our torturers so that we can remain the apple of his eye and shelter under the shadow of His wings.

Reprinted from the Spring 2009 issue of The Handmaiden Journal (Vol. 13, No. 2)