I searched for God and found only myself; I searched for myself and found only God.

F O O T P R I N T S

One night I dreamed a dream:
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to Me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered,
"My precious child, I love you and will never leave you, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that  I carried you."

 

BUTT    PRINTS

 
One night I had a wondrous dream:
one set of footprints there were seen.
The footprints of my precious Lord,
but mine were not along the shore.

Then when some stranger prints appeared,
and I asked the Lord "What have we here?
Those prints are large and round and neat,
but Lord, they are too big to be my feet."

"My child," He said in a somber tone,
"for miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
but you refused and made me wait."

"You disobeyed. You would not grow.
The walk of faith you would not know.
So I got tired and I got fed up,
and there I dropped you on your butt."

"Becasue in life there comes a time
when one must fight, one must climb.
One must rise and take a stand
or leave his buttprints in the sand."
 

           

 

The authorship of the poem is disputed, with a number of people claiming to have written it.