The Weight of a Prayer
Story★★★★How much does a prayer weigh? The only man I ever knew who tried to weigh one still does not know.
Once upon a time he thought he did. That was when he owned a little grocery store on the . It was at the week before Christmas after the World War. A tired looking woman came into the store and asked him for enough food to make up a Christmas dinner for her children. He asked her how much she could afford to spend.
She answered, “My husband was killed in the war. I have nothing to offer but a little prayer.”
This man confessed that he was not very sentimental in those days. A grocery store could not be run like a bread line.
So he said, “Write it on paper,” and turned about his business.
To his surprise, the woman plucked a piece of paper out of her bosom and handed it to him over the counter. She said, “I did that during the night while watching over my sick baby.”
The grocer took the paper before he could recover from his surprise, and then regretted having done so! What would he do with it, what could he say?
Then an idea suddenly came to him. He placed the paper, without ever reading the prayer, on the weight side of his old-fashioned scales. He said, “We shall see how much food this is worth.”
To his astonishment the scale would not go down when he put a loaf of bread on the other side. To his confusion and embarrassment, it would not go down though he kept on adding food, anything he could lay his hands on quickly, because people were watching him.
He tried to be gruff and he was making a bad job of it. His face got red and it made him angry to be flustered.
Finally he said, “Well, that’s all the scale will hold anyway. Here’s a bag. You’ll have to put it in yourself. I’m busy.”
With what sounded like a gasp or a little sob, she took the bag and started packing in the food, wiping her eyes on her sleeves every time her arm was free to do so. He tried not to look, but he could not help seeing that he had given her a pretty big bag and that it was not quite full. So he tossed a large cheese down the counter, but he didn’t say anything; nor did he see the timid smile of grateful understanding which glistened in her moist eyes at this final betrayal of the grocer’s crusty exterior.
When the woman had gone, he went to look at the scales, scratching his head and shaking it in puzzlement. Then he found the solution. The scales were broken.
But as the years passed he often thought of it and wondered if that really was the solution. Why did the woman have the prayer already written to satisfy his unpremeditated demand? Why did she come at exactly the right time when the scale was broken? He had felt like a fool and hardly knew what he was doing.
Well, faith is a funny thing, anyway. And prayer is a funny thing. And miracles many not be mysteries after all—not if faith’s intuition picks the right time, when the scales are broken.
The grocer is an old man now. His hair is white. But he still scratches it in the same place and shakes it slowly back and forth with the same puzzled expression. He never saw the woman again. And, come to think of it, he had never seen her before either. Yet for the rest of his life he remembered her better than any other woman in the world and thought of her more often. He knew it had not been just his imagination, for he still had the slip of paper upon which the woman’s prayer had been written: “Please, Lord, give us this day our daily bread.”
Also attributed to: Faith Missionary Praises (source)
Faith Missionary Praises.
The point
A skeptical grocer challenges a poor widow to write her prayer on paper, then weighs it on his scale, resulting in an overflowing bag of groceries and a lifelong mystery.
Alternate wording
The Weight of a Prayer413 words
Louise Redden, a poorly dressed lady with a look of defeat on her face, walked into a grocery store. She approached the owner of the store in a most humble manner and asked if he would let her charge a few groceries. She softly explained that her husband was very ill and unable to work, they had seven children and they needed food. John Longhouse, the grocer, scoffed at her and requested that she leave his store at once.
Visualizing the family needs, she said: “Please, sir! I will bring you the money just as soon as I can. John told her he could not give her credit, since she did not have a charge account at his store.
Standing beside the counter was a customer who overheard the conversation between the two. The customer walked forward and told the grocer that he would stand good for whatever she needed for her family. The grocer said in a very reluctant voice, “Do you have a grocery list?”
Louise replied, “Yes sir.” “O.K.” he said, “put your grocery list on the scales and whatever your grocery list weighs, I will give you that amount in groceries.” Louise, hesitated a moment with a bowed head, then she reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. She then laid the piece of paper on the scale carefully with here head still bowed.
The eyes of the grocer and the customer showed amazement when the scales went down and stayed down. The grocer, staring at the scales, turned slowly to the customer and said begrudgingly, “I can’t believe it.” The customer smiled and the grocer started putting the groceries on the other side of the scales. The scale did not balance so he continued to put more and more groceries on them until the scales would hold no more.
The grocer stood there in utter disgust. Finally, he grabbed the piece of paper from the scales and looked at it with greater amazement. It was not a grocery list; it was a prayer, which said: “Dear Lord, you know my needs and I am leaving this in your hands.”
The grocer gave her the groceries that he had gathered and stood in stunned silence. Louise thanked him and left the store. The other customer handed a fifty dollar bill to the grocer and said; “It was worth every penny of it. Only God Knows how much a prayer weighs.”
How Much Does a Prayer Weigh?363 words
It was the week before Christmas, shortly after World War I, when a tired-looking woman came into the store and asked for enough food to make a Christmas dinner for her children. The grocer asked her how much she could spend. “My husband did not come back from the war. He was killed in battle.
And I have nothing to offer but a little prayer,” she answered. The storekeeper was not very sentimental nor religious, so he said, half mockingly, “Write it on paper, and I will weigh it.” To his surprise, the woman took a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to the man, saying, “I wrote it last night while watching over my sick baby.” The grocer took the piece of paper, and because other customers were watching and had heard his remarks, he placed the unread prayer on the weight side of the old-fashioned scales.
Then he began to pile food on the other side; but to his amazement, the scale would not go down. He became angry and flustered and finally said, “Well, that’s all the scale will hold.
Here’s a bag; you will have to put it in yourself, I am busy.” With trembling hands the woman filled the bag, and with moist eyes expressed her gratitude and departed. When the store was empty of customers, the grocer examined the scales.
He discovered that they were broken and they had become broken just in time for God to answer the prayer of that woman. But as the years passed, the grocer often wondered about the incident.
Why did the woman come at just the right time? Why had she already written the prayer in such a way as to confuse the grocer so that he did not examine the scales? The grocer is an old man now, but the weight of the paper still lingers with him.
He never saw the woman again, yet he remembers her more than any of his other customers. He treasured the little slip of paper upon which the woman’s prayer had been written from a heart of faith, it read, “Please, Lord, give us this day our daily bread.”