The Rev. Dawn Rider of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Conway, South Carolina, has written to her state’s First Lady, Jenny Sanford.
(You may recall Jenny Sanford. She’s been the wife of Mark Sanford since 1989. Mr. Sanford, you’ll definitely recall, is the embattled governor who got caught up in a scandal of infidelity last summer before skating through impeachment proceedings and subsequently being censured. Mrs. Sanford moved herself and their four sons out of the house and, on Dec. 11, filed for divorce. She seems to be doing okay on the PR side of a very public dissolution.)
Using a style that is both inviting and bracingly personal, Rider offers Sanford the viewpoint of her own painful past, and of her and her husband’s efforts to patch things up after he was unfaithful to her.
I won’t lie, the past four years have been a long, hard road, filled with sweat and tears, but we’re still together. Our marriage is not perfect, but it’s better. It’s still a work in progress. And while I know there are no guarantees and no doubt there will be more counseling for both of us down the road, at no time have I regretted our decision to work it out.
In listening for God’s voice through all of this, my relationship and faith in God has grown tremendously and continues to grow. My heart has been forever changed for both the women and men who have had (and will have) to travel down this painful road. Before this happened I, too, would have been one of those women telling the offended party to get even – to make the other person pay double for the pain they’d caused. And because of this, I wouldn’t change what happened. As horrible and painful as it was, I have experienced so much growth. What we’ve gone through and the hard work we’ve put into restoring our marriage has been a powerful witness to our sons.
Many people will be giving you advice and telling you what you should do, but only you and God know your heart. I found that during that time, whenever I would have to talk with my husband, I would pray beforehand that God would give me the exact words I needed to speak to him. I prayed that I would be able to speak those words in truth and love, and not out of anger and hurt. I also prayed that if I didn’t need to say something that God would seal my lips to that. There were several times when I was ready to call it quits and have the whole thing over with. I would rehearse what I wanted to say when we met. However, He had another plan. Each time my lips were sealed, and I would walk away amazed in a sense. I thank God for that now.
In a brief video clip, Rider says she reached out to Sanford because
unfortunately, there’s a sisterhood and a brotherhood out there of people who’ve [lived through such situations], and to have positive advice and not just be, “Yeah, dump the bum now.”
The letter and video from Rider accompany a story at sunnnews.com concerning how the Riders have hung tough in the four years since Mr. Rider’s infidelity (coinciding with her in-depth preparations for the diaconate) came to light. (They’ve been together almost 27 years.)
How hard it’s been for them.
Most people understood, but some women in her church suggested she should “take him for everything you could get.”
She didn’t. Instead, she began praying and using her story to help the women she counsels through similar struggles and to remind the young men she mentored about the power, good and bad, inherent in their choices. She encouraged couples to be realistic about marriage, about the need to love each other through misunderstandings and hurt.
“Whether he came back or not, I would have had to forgive him,” she said. “I can’t sit around being angry and bitter and hurtful.”