A God of Second Chances

Last weekend, one of my writers at The Glorious Table came to me, confessing that she thought another writer on the team had committed plagiarism on her personal blog. Unsure what to do about it, she looked to me for counsel.

Plagiarism is a serious offense, and I had to think carefully about how to advise my anxious friend. I suggested that first and foremost, she give the other writer the benefit of the doubt. “Let’s assume,” I said, “that she didn’t intend to plagiarize. From there, let’s see if she’s willing to correct her mistake. If she is, we can move on.”

I spoke with the possible plagiarist, who confessed that the post in question had been inspired by another writer’s blog post earlier the same week, and that she had felt so impassioned about the content that she had unintentionally reproduced it almost exactly, point for point. She was quick to ask for suggestions about how she could fix her own post, and I gave her some.

I went back to the first writer and told her what had transpired. She expressed appreciation that I’d given our unintentional plagiarist the opportunity to make things right.

I said to her, “I learned a long time ago always to give people a chance to redeem themselves. To come clean. To choose integrity the second time around. Because things aren’t always what they seem.”

Then I told her this story.

In 1998, I was about to complete my teacher certification with a semester of student teaching. The university assigned me to a brand-new supervisor (she’d never supervised student teachers prior to that semester), who assigned me to two teachers at a local high school. I was excited to begin putting all my education coursework to practical use. My two cooperating teachers were excited to have someone else to do their jobs, as I quickly found out.

On Week One, they introduced me to their classes and had me observe. On Week Two, they all but disappeared, leaving me with the directive to spend the next several weeks covering specific concepts, books, and types of writing. That was it. No review of my lesson plans, no daily one-on-ones to discuss my progress. No offer of resources from their stashes. They didn’t even observe me.

I felt adrift and anxious. I reached out to my green university supervisor (who, it turned out, was friends with one of my cooperating teachers), and she lamely advised me to “talk to them.” I tried. They rather snidely told me that if I “couldn’t handle it,” perhaps I should drop out. I went to my university supervisor once again. She all but accused me of lying, adamantly insisting that these two particularly accomplished teachers at one of the top high schools in the metro area couldn’t possibly be treating me this way. I must be misinterpreting things, she said.

So I soldiered on, alone.

At the ten-week point, grades were due. The school had just installed a new computerized grading program, but my cooperating teachers told me I couldn’t have access to it, and that I would have to do my grades the “old-fashioned way”–with a calculator. I had just finished a unit on The Scarlet Letter and collected over 120 essays. They told me I needed to include those essays in the final grades for the marking period. I went home with a stack of papers and my gradebook. I worked nonstop the whole weekend. Still, on Sunday night, I wasn’t finished, and grades were due the following morning.

The next morning, terrified of failing, I went to my cooperating teachers and told them my grades weren’t done. When they asked me why, in desperation, I told them I’d had a “family emergency” over the weekend.

Yep, I lied.

I stayed up until three a.m. Tuesday frantically finishing my grades. But when I arrived at school, grades in hand, I was told to report to the principal’s office. I knew the hammer was about to drop.

The principal, whom I’d met only once before, confronted me, asking for hard proof of my “family emergency.” He wasn’t exactly unkind, but it was plain that my cooperating teachers had given him the idea that I was one step away from a reprobate.

I broke. I told him all about my experiences of the past ten weeks. It was clear he didn’t believe me. The lack of validation and support from people who were supposed to be mentoring me to success was growing by the minute.

I was dismissed right then and there. No understanding, no compassion, no second chance, no grace.

A few days later, the head university supervisor (boss of all the other supervisors), Dr. W, called and asked me to come on campus for a meeting. The principal had called my supervisor the day he’d dismissed me and given her his version of things, she said. That story had been passed on to Dr. W, but before she made a decision about next steps, she wanted to meet with me personally.

I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I walked into her office, but she smiled at me kindly, and asked me to tell her what had happened. Her compassionate demeanor gave me hope, and I walked her through the events of the past ten weeks, including the lie I’d told. I was very raw and open with her–I was pretty sure I had nothing more to lose, and that the thing that would be most likely to save me was ownership of my actions. As I finished my story, she looked contemplative.

Dr. W told me I was going to re-register for student teaching the following semester. She herself would choose my cooperating teacher. She would supervise me personally as well. I think she probably looked at my transcript before we met, saw that I was a straight-A student, and realized something had possibly gone very, very wrong. If I was really the bad egg they were making me out to be, I wouldn’t do well a second time, either. But I think she was pretty well convinced I’d been set up to fail.

Ten weeks later, at the start of the new semester, I walked through the doors of a very different school. It was a middle school this time, one of three in a struggling inner-city school district. Teachers and administrators faced all kinds of shortages and challenges. My students had myriad difficulties, from broken families to learning disorders.

It was a great semester. My cooperating teacher, Mr. L, was encouraging and supportive and fully present. My university supervisor kept in close touch, making sure things were going well this time around. At the end of the semester, I received the highest possible marks on my evaluation from both of them. I’m quite sure God had a lot to do with this. He made sure I had a second chance with people who would care for me, nurture me, and mentor me. The way it was supposed to be.

So when I encounter someone who’s floundering or faltering, I always give them the benefit of the doubt. I always give them a second chance. Because our God is a God second chances (and even third or fourth chances). Consider people like Abraham, David, Jonah, Jacob, and Peter. [Tweet “We all need a second chance sometimes.”]

Micah 7:18 says, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.”

Steadfast love. Second chances. Where would any of us be without these?