Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

– Hebrews 11:35-38 (ESV)

I’ve been a bit speechless lately. Not uninspired, just having trouble stringing words together. But I read this passage today and feel a need to, if nothing else, just lay it out there.

”. . . of whom the world was not worthy . . .”

Don’t you love that line? The writer of Hebrews stands with us in wonder at the faith of the saints of old. Though they were mocked, beaten, and killed, they were not defeated. The world just wasn’t worthy of them.

I wonder if that could ever be said of me. No, it couldn’t. Not yet.

But perhaps someday.

Oh, to be one of whom the world was not worthy!

Update 3:00pm: I just realized that that last line should more truthfully be “Oh, to want to be one of whom the world was not worthy!