A Million Golden Pennies Worth

Botch Escape

My heart is beating very fast. Am I really about to write my final exams? Would this really mark the end of my study years in this school? Oh gosh I am so nervous. What if I am unprepared? What if I make a mistake like forgetting to write my examination number? What if I suddenly forget everything? This is my very very final paper. I have heard so many horrible stories. People suddenly go crazy, some fall sick, some even die and it always happens on the day of the final exam. What if I am next and I join the statistics of stories that touch the heart?  

In some deep far away hole where my rationality is, it calls out to me, struggling to get my attention, telling me that my fears are unfounded. But the people it happened to must have thought so too. 

My palms are sweaty. I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat. 

I bustled into the hall with my colleagues, some faces reflecting my fears, some not. I have to shut off my mind from my fears. I try to concentrate on my mother's face. She'll have baked the world while waiting for me and she is probably just as nervous as I am. It has been her lifelong dream to see her daughter graduate and become everything she had only ever dreamed of. She has given up so much for me. 

The pen is slipping out of my sweating hands as I try to concentrate on reading the questions. My heart is beating furiously. I had not noticed its increased momentum. I am sweating profusely. Am I having a panic attack? 

I couldn't breathe. My breath started coming in short wheezing gasps. 

Oh no! I am not having a panic attack, I am having an asthma attack! 

I fumbled in my purse. It had only pens in it, I must have left my inhaler. I picture it now on my bed right where my hand should have grabbed on my way out of my room but it didn't. My terror only made the wheezing worse. I put every muscle in trying to breathe but it only grew worse. Oh God! It was true. I was not destined to write this exam. I may even die.  

My mother will be devastated.  

Nothing good ever happens to me. I knew it. It couldn't all be great just like that. Nothing ever has, like I am jinxed or something. 

Now I really feel like I am going to die. I know I have drawn a crowd but everything is so surreal now, all I can see, hear or feel is my desperate attempt to squeeze in oxygen through my closed windpipe. I feel so hopeless like I am under the power of someone who is holding my head under water and no matter how hard I fight or thrash he won't let me go until I die. 

Someone was talking to me. Her voice, soft, steady and reassuring drew me out. I opened my eyes to the blurry figure hovering over my face. 

"Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus? He can help you He can help you now. 

I don't understand. I am dying I just know it. Was it an angel saying something about God? Am I dead? But I am still in pain. 

"Jesus defeated sickness and in his name I can stop it from hurting you" 

Sudden desperation gripped me. I don't want to die, I want to write my exam. If there's a God please let her help me. Please help me. Then she touched me.  

"I command you asthma, in the name of Jesus,to leave this girl this instant and let her write her exam" 

Everything went silent. I was so preoccupied with how silent and calm everything had become that I did not notice..... 

It stopped. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I stopped. I am not going to die. I am going to finish my exam. 

Before I opened my eyes she said "I gotta go finish up. I'll talk to you after the exam okay" 

What just happened?