In 2020, Robin Jackson took a leap of faith that has changed her schedule every Wednesday since.
During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, attended Brookland Baptist Church of West Columbia, S.C., where Jackson’s husband, Charles, is pastor.
“It was during this service that President Biden reached over to me and said to me, ‘The music reminds me of my son’s funeral,’” Robin Jackson recalled. “Wow! I felt almost apologetic, because I was not aware of his son’s death. And so that led me to touch Jill and say, it’s OK. It’s OK. And that’s just the way I am. That’s my spirit.
Robin Jackson
“I noticed that the two of them perhaps were moved in the service by the preaching of the word and by the music. Of course, he had already expressed that. I saw and kind of felt that they were dealing with something, but I did not know what it was.”
Based on that small prompt, Jackson took the leap of faith that would change her life and bring her in closer relationship to the First Lady as prayer partners.
Jackson exudes a sweet and calming demeanor, while at the same time expressing assurance in knowing her place as a child of God.
Because she is “a child of the King,” she explained, she was willing to take a bold step few people might take. She asked the future First Lady if she needed a prayer partner.
“I felt that she needed something. She needed a friend. She needed someone, and being a first lady of a church, I understand that we need someone, we need to know that our parishioners care. We need to know that we have somebody on our side. We need to know that we have someone praying for us. And that’s just the person I am. If I can do anything for you, I will do it.”
Biden had some questions about what that meant, to which Jackson responded that a prayer partner is “someone who has your support and someone you can trust and be there for you and lift you up on a daily basis, to let you know that they are praying for you. I knew at the time that they were going through the campaign, and I can’t imagine how challenging that was for them, and so I wanted her to know that there’s just someone here lifting her up in prayer.”
To this day, the two try to communicate weekly on Wednesdays either to pray or just to say hello and check on one another, and Jackson has steadfastly kept her word in keeping their prayers and conversations confidential.
First Lady Jill Biden sits alongside Pastor Charles Jackson Sr. and Robin Jackson at Brookland Baptist Church. (Erin Scott/White House)
When asked how best to pray for a person of influence, Jackson has a ready answer: “When you speak of a person of influence, I like to think that we all have a humble spirit and that we consider ourselves (God’s) servants and take people for who they are and not look at their title.”
That attitude may explain why Biden recently made a surprise visit at the church to celebrate Jackson’s husband’s 50th pastoral anniversary.
“I said, ‘You are here.’ And she says, ‘I had to come. I had to come for you.”’
In the service, Biden said she was so distraught over the death of her son, Beau, and what she believed were unanswered prayers that she didn’t pray for years until she met Jackson that day during the campaign. “And in that moment, I felt for the first time that there was a path for my recovering my faith.”
The First Lady told the congregation: “In the depths of our brokenness we can start to believe that healing ourselves will never be possible. And the truth is, we’re right. We can’t heal ourselves alone. But with God all things are possible.”
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