Footprints in the Sand

 

I took a walk in the sands of Redondo Beach. It’s not so easy walking in sand. Must be good for the glutes. I didn’t want to walk down where the water had compacted it into an easier surface to traverse, because I remember the tar which can come up along this beach, and it is not easy to remove from feet or shoes.

Walking in sand, though, is exhausting.

On a wall in my living room, there hangs a beautiful poem lovingly embroidered for me by Mom, many years ago. It is the famous Footprints poem, recounting an imaginary dialogue between a believer and Jesus. As the believer looks back at the trail of footprints in the sands of her life, she is disappointed that at times the two sets of footprints – hers and Jesus’ – reduces to one set. Sadly, she wonders why Jesus left her at those difficult times.

Jesus’ reply is that no, she has misinterpreted the evidence. The footprints reducing to one set came from the times when Jesus carried her. She was never left alone.

As I look back at, particularly, these last eleven years when Mom has been in three different assisted living facilities, I see one set of footprints. I have been so out of my comfort zone, so weak and lost to know which way to go, and that has drawn me to press in, to lean in to God. He has carried me through all the changes, all the agonising decisions, all the downsizing and distribution of another person’s lifetime of memories even while she was still alive.

I’ve written this before, but as I drove back to Josie Avenue for another load of possessions when we moved Mom into the first home, I was in tears. I remember which intersection on that road I was stopped at, tears flowing, when Jesus whispered into my mind, ‘In every teardrop there is a rainbow.’

The rainbow is the closer walk with him enabled by the weakness I felt. As Paul wrote, when I am weak, I am strong because Jesus empowers me.

My prayer as my steps begin to head out of the valley of the shadow of death is that I would not assume greater strength than I have. I want to continue to lean into God and not become self-sufficient and cocky.

May those parts of my trail where there is just one set of footprints, define the rest of my life. Totally dependent on my Saviour.