Battle Prints

One night a saint had a dream. 

He dreamed he walked through a battlefield with his Captain. 

Across the sky exploded the fiery bombs of the evil one. Bullets bit through the air. The saint’s hands shook with weakness.  

For each flash the saint noticed two sets of bootprints in the blood and mud: one belonging to him, the other to his Captain. 

When the last bomb, bullet, and machine gun finally fell silent, the saint looked back at the bootprints in the churned-up mud.  

He noticed that many times amongst the field of the raging battle there was only one set of bootprints. 

He also noticed that it happened at the very darkest and bitterest moments of the fight. 

This bothered him, and he questioned his Captain about it. 

“Captain, you ordered me to follow you, you said you’d be in the fight, with me all the way. But, I have noticed that during the bloodiest parts of the battle, there is only one set of bootprints. I don’t understand why when the battle was at its worst you would leave me.” 

The saint’s Captain replied, “My soldier, my precious brother, I love you and would never leave you. During the bloodiest moments of the fight, when you see only one set of bootprints in the mud, it was then that I carried you.” 

I have for years had a love/hate relationship with the “Footprints” poem. A part of me saw a lot of beauty in it, but a part of me also found it so trite. I realized that my biggest issue was that it was a beach, as if the Christian life is one of life on the beach. So I re-wrote it in a battle and I find it much more thrilling to my soul and true to life.