He who wishes to teach us a truth should not tell it to us, but simply suggest it with a brief gesture, a gesture which starts an ideal trajectory in the air along which we glide until we find ourselves at the feet of the new truth.
—José Ortega y Gasset
Preliminary Meditation
(1914).
Not all of life’ lessons are found in the textbook or discussed in the classroom. Some can’t be memorized like spelling words or calculated like math. Many of life’s most important lessons are taught by example. They are lived out in the lives of others. Sometimes they come to us quickly like a cold swift gust of wind that takes our breath away. At other times the new truth arrives slowly like a warm breeze gently washing over us. That is how it was when I learned the true meaning of forgiveness. I didn’t learn it in a day or a week but it took years.
It began on a Monday night during a make up test at the South Avenue Free Will Baptist Church. I was sitting on one of the hard pews in the cramped little santuary. The church was around the corner from our house and Momma was one of its’ newest members. She had enrolled my two older sisters, herself and me in the Beaver Creek Bible Institute, which was held there once a week.
I was a fifteen-year-old high school student who had better things to do for the next three years than spend my Monday nights with a bunch of old fogies.
I suppose I could have refused to go, but I didn’t. I’d been praying for mom to get saved for seven years. Now that she was born again and on fire for Christ, I was not about to douse her enthusiasm. I was hoping, however, that she would soon give up these Monday night classes and let us all get back to our normal routine.
Bobby Lynn Nichols, who was also enrolled by his mom and one of the few other young people in the class, was taking the test with me. Bobby and I had been friends since first grade. He and I had shared many secrets, some silly and some not so silly. We’d laughed at each other’s dumb jokes and stuck together throughout the years, like gum on the bottom of an old school desk.
We stayed home the week before to work on a science project and missed the Old Testament Survey test. We didn’t really have to miss class because it wasn’t due for another week. But we’d use any excuse to get out of going, after all this wasn’t real school.
Making the most of a bad situation, we decided to enjoy ourselves while the teacher and all the other old fogies were out in the social hall having refreshments. We were laughing, talking out loud and shooting spitballs at each other in between answering test questions. I’d finished the 10 multiple choice questions and was filling rather confident when I got to the third fill in the blank. I read it slowly to myself about three times. Then reading it a little louder to no one in particular, I said, “David’s predecessor to the throng was his son ________. Now who was that? I know the answer. Dang, I just knew I was going to ace this test.” After straining my brain a minute longer, I took a deep breath and went on to the next fill in the blank.
In the middle of the question I heard Bobbie say, also to no one in particular, “Let me see now. I believe David’s predecessor to the throng was his son Solomon.” That was it! That was the correct answer! I knew it the minute he said it. Without batting an eye, I wrote it down, I had never cheated before in my life and for some reason I didn’t consider this action as cheating either. I suppose it was because I hadn’t intended to and I didn’t ask Bobby for the answer. He just gave it to me.
The teacher, Preacher Smith, came back in and took our papers. I was almost certain I had answered all of the questions correctly. Normally that thought would have brought a big smile to my face, but for some reason my smile was a little pensive as I handed him my paper. But it was quickly forgotten as I went home and went straight to bed.
The next week we received our first report card. I was expecting to get an A in Sunday School Success and a B in Understanding Children and Youth. I knew I was borderline on the Old Testament Survey class. It was the hardest class I had. The make up test was hopefully going to pull my C average up to a B. As I scanned the report card, I saw one A and two B’s. Every body was comparing grades when Bobby came up to me and asked if I’d made that B in Old Testament Survey. I told him, smilingly, that I had. He said, “I knew you would” and then winked. The smile slid right off of my face. I immediately began to fill guilty. Bobby had considered our actions as cheating and now I was beginning to think he was right. I went home that night and had a hard time sleeping. I kept remembering the Biblical story of the couple who had sold their house and brought the money to Peter. They kept some of the money and lied about how much they had sold it for.
God struck them dead on sight. I wasn’t sure, but I thought they were in church at the time. I knew that I hadn’t cheated on purpose but I had written down an answer that had not come to me on it’s own and I had done it in church. I wasn’t really expecting to be struck by lightening but I couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of doom. Cheating in church! What would God do to me? I felt sick.
We were on Christmas break so I had two whole weeks to worry about it. My quilt seemed to grow as the offence did in my mind.
It is a verry delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimashun, and yures too.
—Josh Billings
His Sayings
(1865)
When class started back I looked around for Bobby. To my surprise he wasn’t there. Someone said that he had just talked his mom into letting him quit coming. I knew I had to make my confession and it was going to have to be alone. At the end of class I took a deep breath, got up with my books clinched in my hands and walked slowly to the front of the church. I could feel my palms sweat as I waited for Preacher Smith to turn around. He must have seen the fear on my face because he said, “ Marilyn is something the matter.”
I said, “No, I just need to tell you something.” Somehow I managed to tell him quickly before I lost my courage. When I finished I could feel the heat on my face. I was so embarrassed!
He actually took it quite well. Smiling, he told me he was very proud of me for my honesty. Then he said “ If while you’re here, you don’t learn anything else, other than the lesson this has taught you, it will have been worth it all.”
I wanted to protest that I had not learned any lesson at all because I already knew that it was wrong to cheat! I wanted to tell him that I was really a very honest person, a person who had simply made a mistake; a mistake that I would not make the next time. He just didn’t know me very well and I wanted to explain all of this to him but I didn’t. I was already embarrassed by the incident and just wanted to get it over with. What I really wanted him to do was change my grade, at least on that one test, so that I wouldn’t feel so guilty every time I looked at my report card. But he didn’t offer to do this and I didn’t have any more nerve left in me to make the suggestion. He would just have to think that I had, up until that moment, been a dishonest person who had just realized the error of her ways. I left that day felling somewhat better but not as well as I would have liked. I no longer worried about what God would do to me because I had done my best to make things right. But I didn’t think Preacher Smith or I would ever completely forget about what had happen.
Well, I did end up sticking it out and three years latter I received my Evangelistic Teacher Training Association Certificate. As I received my certificate I remembered what had happened that first semester and it dawned on me that Preacher Smith had never again mentioned the incident. I’d grown quiet fond of him and we had laughed and shared a lot of funny stories together but that was never one of them. From the moment we walked out of the santuary he seemed to have forgotten all about it.
He’s in heaven now and when I get there and he introduces me all around I’m sure he’ll not remember. “Remember what” you say. I don’t know. I forgot.
