The Snow Prayer
There was another little girl by the name of Mary, who also had learned to pray. Every morning and evening she would kneel beside her bed and pray out of a full heart. One morning her grandmother happened to be in the next room, but Mary did not know that she was there.
The Snow Prayer by Isaac M. Anderson, 1920.
Ps. 51:10. “Create in me a clean heart, O God!'
Have you ever really observed how beautiful the snow is? A few years ago there were two little boys from distant India, who came over to England. They had never seen any snow. So one morning when they saw the ground and the trees covered with hoar-frost and snow, they came running, clapped their hands, and cried, "See, how pretty, how pretty!"
Yes, the snow is beautiful. David had noticed this; for in his one hundred and forty-seventh Psalm he says, “He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth hoar-frost like ashes.” It was David, too, who first said the snow prayer. “The snow prayer? What is that?” you ask. Listen, and you shall hear.
There was once a little girl who was out playing in the snow. But all of a sudden she came in with glowing cheeks and out of breath. She was in such a hurry that she forgot to sweep the snow from her feet. She ran right up to her mother and cried, “O mother, you can’t imagine how beautiful it is out of doors! I couldn’t help it; I fell upon my knees right in the snow and said the snow prayer.” “The snow prayer? What is that?” “Why, mother! Have you forgotten it? Our teacher told us the other day that we must never forget that prayer.
The snow prayer is the prayer of King David: ‘Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ Do you not remember it, mother?”
The snow prayer is a beautiful prayer, isn’t it? You will find it in the fifty-first Psalm.
“Wash me” Imagine this: King David, old as he is, prays the Lord to wash him clean. For all he is so old, and for all he is so mighty, he is not able himself to wash away his sins so that he may be clean. He must ask the Lord to wash him, just as your mother washed you when you were little children. If David could not wash himself, neither can you wash yourselves. You cannot wash clean your unclean hearts ; for sin is a disease of the heart. Every day you must pray, “Wash me, O Lord.” The leper prayed in the same way, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matt. 8:2). And the publican prayed, “God, be thou merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).
“And I shall be whiter than snow.” Think of it, — whiter than snow! Have you ever seen anything whiter than new-fallen snow? No, but our hearts will be whiter than snow, if we permit the Lord to wash them clean every day.
There was another little girl by the name of Mary, who also had learned to pray. Every morning and evening she would kneel beside her bed and pray out of a full heart. One morning her grandmother happened to be in the next room, but Mary did not know that she was there. Grandma saw the little girl kneeling; so when Mary came into the next room, she asked,
“What were you praying for, Mary?” “Did you see me, grandma? I have two prayers, which I say every morning. Mother taught me one, the other I have made by myself; and the one that I have taught myself makes it possible for me to be good to-day.” — The Lord’s answer to the prayer she had taught her- self, the prayer of her heart, consisted in this that He gave her the power to be good.
Matt. 5:8. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
Anderson, Isaac. M. Love Divine. Rock Island, Il: Augustana Book Concern. 1920.