Like most college-goers, not being abreast of what was being taught in class was my specialty. This meant the backlog would become humongous by the time exams came by, and despite burning the midnight oil, I would be all at sea on the big day. That was when my thoughts would turn to God.
Like most students clutching at a straw, I would ask the Lord to give me the courage to write the exam without fear. I would derive much strength from my prayer. One story I particularly loved was of a defeated soul asking the Lord why it seemed He was not walking by her side when the night was darkest. Why was it that at such moments she could not see His footprints alongside hers, she questioned. After pausing for a split second, the Lord replied that this was because He would be carrying her when things were bleakest.
Till a month ago, I did not think there was anything more to this lovely story. It did not seem incomplete to me. I couldn’t remember where I had read it or in what form. But as I was looking for content for an article, as though by serendipity, I stumbled upon a book in a friend’s collection that immediately caught my eye.
A poem in the book, written by Margaret Fishback Powers, was titled Footprints in the Sand. It read:
One night I dreamed a dream.
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.
When the last scene of my life shot before me
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
There was only one set of footprints.
I realised that this was at the lowest
And saddest times of my life.
This always bothered me
And I questioned the Lord
About my dilemma.
“Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You,
You would walk and talk with me all the way.
But I’m aware that during the most troublesome
Times of my life there is only one set of footprints.
I just don’t understand why, when I needed You most,
You leave me.”
He whispered, “My precious child,
I love you and will never leave you,
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”
There seems to be a dispute over the authorship of this poem. However, in the introduction to Stories of Compassion, Kindness and Courage Inspired by the Beloved Poem FOOTPRINTS (50th anniversary edition), Powers says she wrote the poem in a coffee shop in the autumn of 1964 after a walk on a beach near Toronto with her then boyfriend, Paul Laverne Powers.