Hello everyone!  Welcome to the first blog/podcast of our new series ‘How are you Doing?’ and I guess that’s the best question to kick start this blog How are you all Doing?  How are you all coping during this season of exams?  How are you coping with the anxiety and stress that comes along with exams?
 
The best way for me to talk about my experience of exams and stress is to tell you a little bit more about me.  I graduated from university last summer, I’m a classroom assistant in a primary school and just a few days ago I sat my GCSE Biology exam.  Now I know what you’re thinking - you’ve graduated, you’ve got a full time job and you’ve just completed one of your GCSEs?!  How does that work?  I want to base my blog on plans and timing because for me that is what my exams have been all about.  When I found out that I didn’t have one of the qualifications needed to study a PGCE (I had spent the five previous years believing I did have a science GCSE), I felt that all of my work up to that point had been for nothing.  I felt my plans and dreams would have to change because suddenly they had been taken from me.  My first thought was ‘Why has God let me get this far in my plans for it to suddenly be changed?’  Then a few hours later my thoughts were ‘This is just another part of the story.  The story that I’ll one day tell and say I was confused and didn’t know what way my life was going to go but it all worked out.  God had it all worked out.’
 
Now I’m sure you’re thinking what has this got to do with you?  How does me having to re-sit a GCSE help you through your exam stress and anxiety?  To me, I feel the biggest factor in the stress and anxiety of exams is the thought of failure.  The thought of not being able to progress in your studies or be able to study your dream degree at your dream university.  I’m sure you’ve been told that if you don’t get the required grades that there’s no need to panic – there are other options and the opportunity to re-sit.  These ‘other options’ may not be very reassuring especially when it feels like all your hard work will be for nothing.  Take it from someone who is on the other side of exam results and has been left disappointed.  IT WILL BE OKAY!
 
We all have plans and dreams.  Some of you will get there in the time that you expected to and the rest of us (including me!) will have a few extra hurdles to go over BEFORE we get there.  I was never the girl who wanted to take a gap year, I wanted to get all my education out of the way and then live life.  But honestly, I’m so thankful that God has given me a break between my studies.  I’ve been given the opportunity to grow in my confidence, knowledge and experience in my chosen career and I’m also recognising what area I may want to specialise in when I have completed all my studies.  It turns out my disappointment has actually been a blessing in disguise.
 
So, my overall aim for this first blog is for you to take comfort from my exam experience.  I want you to know that if exams or grades don’t go to plan that it will be okay.  Jeremiah 29:11 says ‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’  We have a good God, a God who wants us to succeed and be happy in life.  Any unexpected bumps in the road or disappointments are not the end.  They are simply God’s way of saying ‘Not just yet.’
 
Now I am in no way saying not to try or not to put in the work towards your exams or assignments.  Just because we know God works everything together does not mean that we are to sit back and do nothing.  If I had gone with that attitude I would have went into my exams knowing very little and that would not have made the outcome any better.  Instead we must work towards our plans and goals while resting in the knowledge that God has a plan for our lives, we need only trust in Him and ask Him for the knowledge, guidance and motivation to work towards our dreams.
 
Whatever stage you’re at in your education - whether it be your first time sitting your GCSEs, AS or A levels.  Maybe you’re in the middle of university deadlines or you’re repeating exams.  I hope my blog reminds and encourages you that when we trust the author of our destiny, all the stress and worry can disappear.  God gives us peace in the midst of stress and worry as we place our hope in Him and the future He has prepared for us - whatever that looks like and whenever we meet it.  And to be honest, even though there’s part of me that loves to know what’s going to happen next, I also love the mystery of not knowing where God is leading me and the hope I have in Him makes me very excited for my future that I have yet to see.  Proverbs 3:5-6 challenges us to ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.’
 
I wish you all the best in your exams and assignments.  I will be praying for each of one you and also praying that you place your hope and trust in God - the one who holds the future and has perfect timing and purpose.