Cheating

Cheating is not my thing!  I do not believe in cheating.  But when I was in fifth grade at Morgan School in Pendleton County, Kentucky, I was accused of cheating, and I admitted to it.  Here is what happened.

We had a spelling test every Friday over either 50 or 100 words, since we had been spelling and writing the words all week.  We each had a "spelling pad" for our work and for taking the test.  For some reason, I could not find my spelling pad; so I had to borrow a sheet of notebook paper to take my test.

While we were taking our test, the teacher was walking around the room from isle to isle, desk to desk. When she came to my desk, she said to me, "Ronnie, are you cheating?"  At once I was going to say, "No, of course not."  But as I was beginning to speak, I noticed my spelling pad on the floor beneath my desk with the words visible, which made things look really bad for me.  I was so embarrassed that I did not know what to do, so I just admitted that I was cheating in fear of what the teacher would do to a student who lied--and to her it would seem to be a lie.

At lunch time, she made me stay in the classroom; and she sat me down and gave me a lecture on how that Jesus would not want me to cheat like that.  I said, "Yes, I know," and things went on as normal.  I never lost my spelling pad from then on.

Later in life, after I had graduated from high school, gone to college and graduated, and at the time pastoring Riverview Baptist Church not far down the road from where Mrs. McCandless lived, I decided one day that I was going to visit her and let her know the real story about that day I said I was cheating on my spelling.

I knocked on her door, and she willingly welcomed me into her house.  We had a nice visit, and then I began to tell her about the time when she accused me of cheating (and it looked as though I were really cheating), but I was not cheating.  I told her that I said I was cheating because of what I thought she would do to me for lying (which, I am sure, she would have thought).   I laughed a little as I told her about it.

Then, to my amazement, Mrs, McCandless turned to me and said, "You know, I don't remember a thing about that."  Well, of course she would not remember!  It had only been almost 20 years since it happened, and she has had many students since that time.  How could she remember a little thing like that.  I was almost heartbroken, but at least I had the opportunity to tell her the truth.  That's all I wanted.

Now, you may think that I just did that because I felt guilty for cheating on my spelling test; and I know you may think that I may be lying now.  You may think what you like, but I will tell you with God as my witness that I was not cheating on that memorable day when Mrs. McCandless caught me.  I suppose you will never really know the truth, but I assure you that I have just told it.