Informant: Okay there’s this story they always talk about where it’s like, there’s a man on a beach with Jesus, and he has these two footprints in the sand or two sets of footprints in the sand. And at one part he looks back, he looks back and he sees in his life there’s a time where there’s only one set of footprints, and he’s like, “Jesus, that was a really rough time in my life, what you doin’? Why you leave me?” Um, and Jesus is like, “No, during those times, those footprints were mine because I was carrying you, and that’s it.

Collector: Where’d you learn that from?

ML: Um, I’m not sure where I learned it from, but the instance I can most vividly remember about hearing it was in religious class, religion class, probably religion class to be honest. They sometimes say it at funerals.

Informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is studying animation in the film school here. She is from New Orleans, Louisiana. I spoke to her while we were eating breakfast in EVK one morning. We were sitting together with her two other friends, Ashley and Madeleine. Much of what she told me was learned from her sister or her own experiences.

This is an interesting story because it always seems to come up when there’s a difficult time. The story itself is based on a person going through stuff, and seems appropriate to be shared with young people as a way of reaffirming their belief in God, even when times are difficult. This story also seems to have spread pretty far because it’s a part of the Kairos retreat in Sacramento as well as being shared in a religion class in New Orleans.