Swallowing My Pride

A few weeks ago I made a very foolish mistake. A Thursday night was spent grading assignments from a class that I had recently finished teaching. I began to become concerned when a quiz and paper were not found with the other class work. That concern became fear when the missing assignments were not found in my files. An hour later that fear had become full fledged panic. Somehow I had lost two of the student's assignments!

The next morning I felt terrible about what had happened. There was a temptation to give the student an A for the assignments because I knew that he had given them to me. His quality of work pretty much guaranteed he would have a high grade on the missing assignments. Of course I could not do that because it would be dishonest. So I began to form a plan that would let as few people as possible know about my mistake.

My first thought was to only contact the student. He had done the work on his computer, and it was possible for him to send me those assignments by e-mail. Telling him about my mistake was a very hard thing to do, but what I dreaded more than that was telling the missionary who I worked with at the Bible College. He had worked very hard preparing me for my class and showing me exactly how things should be done. I felt very ashamed about what I had done, and wanted to make sure he didn’t find out at all costs.

I tried to read at the kitchen table that morning like I usually do, but was not able to concentrate. Finally I sat down at my computer and sent an e-mail to my co-worker. About an hour later he called me at home and helped fix the mess that I had made. Though I still felt bad about losing the assignments later that day I had a peace in my heart because I did the right thing.

We all make mistakes as human beings. What separates those who are successful from the unsuccessful is our response to those mistakes. For most of us the normal reaction is to hide that mistake from others and under no circumstances ask for help. But going to close Christian friends and asking for help in that time of need is a much wiser course of action.

The thing that keeps us from doing that is the same thing that made it hard for me to contact the missionary. We usually have a strong feeling of shame after making a big mistake. But it much easier to swallow our pride and confess what happened, than to fix the entire problem ourselves without anybody knowing (I know this from experience). I thank God that I was able to learn from this situation. I have learned that student’s assignments should be graded and handed back as soon as possible so that they are not lost. But more importantly I learned that the temporary shame of admitting mistakes is worth it in the long run.