Weighing a Prayer

A visitor to our class gave me the following story last Sunday after class. I just read it now and I want to share it with you.

Shortly after World War II, a tried-looking woman entered a grocery store and asked the owner for enough food to make a Christmas dinner for her children. When he inquired how much she could afford, she answered, "My husband was killed in the war. Truthfully, I have nothing to offer but a little prayer." Although the man was unmoved at first, he thought of a clever response to the woman's simple request. "Write your prayer on a piece of paper and you can have its weight in groceries", he said sarcastically. TO his surprise, she plucked a folded note out of her pocket and handed it to him saying, "I already did that during the night while I was watching over my sick baby." Without even reading it, he put it on one side of his old-fashioned scales. "We shall see how much food this is worth", he muttered. To his dismay nothing happened when he put a loaf of bread on the other side. But he was even more upset when he added other items and it would not balance. Finally he blurted out, "Well that's all it will hold anyway. Here's a bag. You'll have to put these things in yourself. I'm busy!" With a tearful, "Thank you", the lady went happily on her way. The grocer later discovered that the scales was out of order. As the years passed he often wondered if that was just a coincidence. Why did the woman have the prayer already written before he asked for it? Why did she come at exactly the time the mechanism was broken? Whenever he looks at the slip of paper which bears that mother's petition, he is amazed, for it reads, "Please, dear Lord, give us this day our daily bread!"