Cumberlite - 2017 Summer

to be five feet of anger. I was sick of where I was at, physically and emotionally, so when job opportunities for my
family arose in Tennessee, I encouraged them to accept.
My anger bled into my junior year, but there was something different. I was at GCA and had a roommate. Kelly
was new to GCA and a junior, just like me, and before our first night was over, we were best friends. We clicked
immediately. Little did we know at the time, we had gone through some of the same hard experiences and could
relate to each other more than anyone else in the whole world. During second semester, we made a decision that,
although we didn’t necessarily want to, we were going to read the Bible every day––and we did. From the beginning
of second semester to the end of the school year we read one or two chapters every night.
Chaplain Josh was another life-saver. He noticed me in the library one day in the beginning of my junior year, and
asked if I was okay. One thing led to another and I met with him every week.
Senior year began, and I still could not shake my anger. I stopped reading my Bible, and started promoting my anger.
Poor Mr. Leeper had to deal with my opinions and anger in religion class. One day, he asked me to come meet with
him. I met with him just about every week this past year, yet my anger still would not subside.
In February, I was getting really fed up. Circumstances were forcing me to face a lot of experiences that I had shoved
in a box and not opened in years. I was so angry, and there truly was a real battle going on in my head. I heard what
Mr. Leeper and Chaplain Josh were saying, but I could not actually hear them.
During a meeting with Mr. Leeper, I told him how it felt like there was a real battle going on in my head and I felt like
everything was yelling at me. He stopped everything and he prayed, “Jesus help the yelling to stop. Help Becca’s
anger to go away.” As soon as he prayed that prayer, the yelling in my head stopped. The battle had been won. I
could finally hear what Mr. Leeper and Chaplain Josh were saying! Have you ever seen those videos where a deaf
baby gets a hearing aid in their ear and they can finally hear their parents? That’s what it felt like. My anger toward
God wasn’t there anymore! I realized that I was being forced to open up the boxes of my angry past, so that I could
move on and move closer to God.
Looking back at how far I have come amazes me. My GCA experience has provided me with people in my life to
encourage me every day. Staff like Chaplain Josh, Mr. Leeper, and Dean Heather have especially had to deal with my
stubborn and bratty opinions and I will forever appreciate them for that. My poor basketball coaches and team have
also had to force me to sit down and be quiet during a couple games.
My dad graduated from GCA in 1988, making me a second-generation student. He is one of the best men that I
know, and he owes much of his success to GCA. My dad, having also been thrown out of a couple basketball games,
remembers Coach Fox as someone who made a difference in him. It is interesting to see the commonalities in our
GCA experiences. It was the people here who made the difference for him, just as it was for me.
I have absolutely no idea what my future will look like, but I do know that one day I will be telling my kids about my
GCA experience and the difference it made for me, just as my dad tells me. As I said, my GCA experience began
before I was even at GCA, and it will continue on with me even after I leave.
“It was the people here who made
the difference for him, just as it
was for me.”
MY GCA EXPERIENCE
CUMBERLITE SUMMER 2017 7