Grace Unleashed
The Office of Spiritual Formation began the Spring 2017 semester with a full auditorium for January Community Chapel. The Cumberland Community Church (Smyrna, Ga.) worship band led West Point students, faculty and staff and local community members in worship, and Stacy Brungardt, Community Development Coordinator at Cumberland Community Church, gave her testimony about what it means to be rescued and transferred through the gospel.
Brungardt shared her experience of growing up in an impoverished community and broken home and encountering the Gospel for the first time from weekly Salvation Army volunteers. Yet, her heart was hardened by past wounds, and she spend more than three decades in cycles of abusive relationships, substance abuse and self-harming habits.
“Addiction is exhausting, guys… I spent years searching for something that was so elusive.”
-Brungardt
Brungardt then explained how God spoke His grace and love to her one night at the age of forty. After surviving a life-threatening overdose, she surrendered her life to God and spent the next year pouring over His Word, connecting to a Christian community and abandoning the addictions that had long kept her captive.
Referring to Isaiah 38:15-17, Brungardt said, “It was the fulfillment of this promise that caused me to unleash the Gospel and let Christ reign over my life and my addiction.”
Over a year after her salvation, Brungardt felt called by God to return to the dark communities she grew up in with the light of the Gospel. With the help of her church, Cumberland Community, she started a community outreach program. She is now on staff at Cumberland and leads community development.
Brungardt closed the evening by saying, “Delicate grace reminds me that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning, and that love is God’s sweetest creation.”
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