Jill Biden says SC ‘prayer partner’ helped change her life

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2021 file photo, first lady Jill Biden speaks during a visit to Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, Iowa. Jill Biden on Sunday returned to the South Carolina Baptist church where she says she began to repair her relationship with God following her son's death from brain cancer six years ago. She quietly flew to West Columbia to speak at the 50th anniversary celebration for Pastor Charles B. Jackson Sr. of Brookland Baptist Church but ended up giving one of the most extended explanations of how her faith wavered and how she found her way back to God.(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2021 file photo, first lady Jill Biden speaks during a visit to Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, Iowa. Jill Biden on Sunday returned to the South Carolina Baptist church where she says she began to repair her relationship with God following her son's death from brain cancer six years ago. She quietly flew to West Columbia to speak at the 50th anniversary celebration for Pastor Charles B. Jackson Sr. of Brookland Baptist Church but ended up giving one of the most extended explanations of how her faith wavered and how she found her way back to God.(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE / Associated Press October 19, 2021 4 min read

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – For years, Jill Biden couldn’t bring herself to pray, her faith shattered by the 2015 death of her son Beau from brain cancer at age 46. She felt “betrayed, broken.”

Then a face in the crowd at one of her husband’s stops in 2019 as he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination would, in her words, change her life.

Robin Jackson, wife of the pastor at Brookland Baptist Church in South Carolina, offered to be Jill Biden’s “prayer partner” when the Bidens worshipped at the church.

Thus began a relationship that the first lady said had helped “shape my life.”

Jill Biden talked about her South Carolina friend as recently as February of this year, but always without naming her. On Sunday, she returned to Brookland Baptist to help celebrate Pastor Charles B. Jackson Sr.’s 50th year of service and laid out in emotional detail how his wife had helped her reclaim her faith.