Oh no. It’s everyone’s least favourite season of the year, back again to torment us.

I am yet to meet someone who enjoys the thrill of going into an exam hall and trying to get down all their knowledge and understanding of a subject in 1-2 hours. Yet for me, equally as bad is coming out to find your friends discussing answers and realising what you got is horribly wrong. For example, after a history exam I asked someone if million or billion was bigger. In the heat of the moment, I had blanked and written that 4.5 billion people had been killed in some war. Oops.

Exam season is easily the most stressful time of year, with heaps of pressure put on by parents, teachers, peers, universities or colleges, and even future hopes and dreams. We hang so much on our exams – “I need to get a B in this, so it balances out with my coursework, which means I need at least…”.

It isn’t always easy to believe it, but you are not defined by your grades. You are not a number on a piece of paper, or a university offer, or ‘better/worse than expected’. You are a person. You have talents and skills and remembering an entire syllabus may not be one of them, let alone several different syllabuses. You have a personality and character which lead you to some friends, and as it changes with you, leads to new friends. You have creativity and imagination – even if you use that imagination to picture the worst possible outcome of the exams.

The Bible also says that you are loved (1 John 4v19). Before the world was created, God was planning you! He thought out how many hairs to put on your head, and the sound of your laugh (Psalm 139v13). He designed you to have relationships with other people. He has a future planned for you that doesn’t require entrance exams or getting perfect grades (Jeremiah 29v11). All that you have to do is say yes! And in the meantime, God promises to walk alongside you (Psalm 139v5), through the good exams and the bad ones, the stress and the relief, the 3-markers and the 30-markers.

From, a fellow exam taker.

(Side note – if you are really struggling with the stress, please talk to someone! Don’t struggle alone)