Faced with a furnace, how strong would your faith be?

I've never published any of my fiction writing on this blog, but today is going to be an exception.  Today WordLive, the Bible engagement site I use posed this question, based on Daniel 3: "Faced with a furnace, how strong would your faith be?"
Along with it was a picture, and perhaps it was that which made me think and engage a bit more than usual.  I ended up writing the story- if you can call it that- below from my thinking about that.  Maybe it'll help you think too.  Or not.  But here it is, anyway.

   She stared at the gaping orange mouth of the furnace.  Even at this distance she could feel the heat, and see it glowing red between the cracks in the wall.  
   She had always loved fire.  Fire gave warmth and light, it could be used to cook.  It gave life; it spoke of companionship and comfort.  But she was terrified of pain, and burning to death had seemed almost the worst deaths she could imagine.  So really, it was no surprise that she should face it now, the ultimate temptation.    She could not take her eyes off the glowing death before her, beautiful in its’ ferocity and destructive capability.
   She thought of the pain as the fire would catch on her clothes, her hair, her very self.  A strand of hair had fallen across her face, and with her hands tied she could not move it.  Her quick imagination thought of it catching light, of the flames licking their way up it towards her face, her eyes...she flinched from the mere thought.  She wondered how long it would take for her to be consumed, how long she would have to endure before the relief of unconsciousness and death would come?  The light alone was blinding, the heat enough to make breathing difficult.  
   Her faith faltered in the face of such terror.  She couldn’t go through with it.  She was alone, and afraid, and face to face not only with that terror without, but with her inner fear.  She didn’t feel that she mattered.  Why should He, the One above, bother to save her?  It wouldn’t make any difference to the world.  Why should He even bother to help her bear what she must go through?  She was just one little person who didn’t really matter.
   But that wasn’t the point, was it?  It wasn’t about who she was, but who He was.  She had been praying in her heart for courage and strenght from the moment she was brought in, and now her prayers stepped up a level, with almost incoherent urgency, begging her God to have mercy and not make her go through with this.
   The king interrupted her.  “Your last chance,” he said.  “Now you see what will happen to you if you refuse, will you bow down and worship as I command?”  She looked up at him, desperate, terrified.
   “No,” she said.  “I won’t do it.”
   “Throw her in,” he said.  A guard lifted her up, and quickly, unwilling to stay near the fire for too long, threw her, bound, into the heart of the flames, too scared even to scream, trying still to pray but unable to think anything clearer than, “Lord, help!”