When I was still in high school, a dear friend asked me if I would do something for her. Very hush-hush. So after school we went down to Linton’s for coffee, and she told me what it was.

She was a fun part of our crazy crowd, but she wasn’t in most of our classes. She was a twin, but due to birth events she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and we all helped her any time we could. We loved her. I was always available to tutor, to explain anything I could, to anyone.

I was flabbergasted when she told me what it was. Her twin brother had been accepted at Temple University, but, much to her mother’s disappointment, she had failed the entrance exam. She had been given a chance to take it again, and what they wanted me to do was to take the exam for her and get her into Temple. I was amazed.

But after considerable discussion about the mechanics and the feasibility of it, I agreed to do it. My only obvious problem was dumbing myself down enough that Temple wouldn’t know the difference, (Ha. So stupid.) I thought I was helping. (So dumb.)

So, on the day, I cut school and presented myself at Temple on Broad Street in Philadelphia and took the test. I felt great that I was helping my friend. In fact, I went home that day and proudly told my mother that I had finally done something GOOD with my brain. She said, “YOU DID WHAT??!!??”

My mother was a Special Ed teacher in a special high school in West Philadelphia, and assured me in no uncertain terms that I was in big trouble, that Temple would know immediately, and how could I THINK of doing such a thing?? “It was for friendship,” I wept, and got ready for the ax to fall.

Sure enough, Temple right away called Germantown High School, and they easily tracked me down, since I had cut school that day, and before I could even get my wits together I was in the Vice Principal’s office confessing my sad tale.

Next step: my friend and I and our two mothers were summoned to school, I guess to decide what to do with us. Her mother to my mother: “We need to get our stories straight!” My mother to her (icily) “There are no ‘stories!’ ”

My dear friend didn’t go to college, anywhere. I did.

Over the years, as an adult, I have often puzzled over what my state of mind could have been to allow me to make such a foolish and dishonest decision. But I have come to the only possible conclusion --- I didn’t have Jesus. The Holy Spirit, I know, would have guided me away. Like the folks in the book of Judges, I was doing what seemed right in my own eyes. And I was wrong.

Jesus knew that the disciples (and all of his followers in future) would need help and guidance in their lives after He was gone, and so He promised them the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, ”If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”

John 14:15-17

I am so grateful for my mother. She was strict, and surely covered all the “don’ts” that she could think of, but she obviously missed this one. But without her love and guidance heaven only knows what I would have gotten into. I am so very thankful for God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. How on earth could I possibly live without Him?

--Norma Stockton