De-Evolution of the Footprints Illustration

Stage One — The Original

One night I had a dream.
I dreamed 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 realized 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 need 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.”

Stage Two — The Gift Industry version:

“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.”

Stage Three — The Revised Gift Industry version:

“When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

Stage Four — The Here’s a ‘TL/DR’ to the Other Versions version:

“I carried you.”

Stage Five — The future version

“You.”

…Does anyone find the rather truncated versions of this poem a little scary? I know this is not a Biblical passage, but it’s like perpetuating the punchline of a joke while jettisoning the set-up. Why not have a Klingon version? Or an Emoji version? Or render the whole poem in txt msg form?

If the piece of literature being quoted doesn’t fit on a bookmark or a pen or a mug, perhaps it’s not meant to appear on bookmarks or pens or mugs.

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• We had some lighter moments with the Footprints poem with some link list cartoons here and here; as well as the poem at the end of the link list here.

• Authorship of the original: I personally think it was Margaret Fishback Powers, but you can compare three versions of the poem here as well as the dates associated with them. I also prefer “I had a dream” to it being “a man.”