WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. – For five years after the death of her son, Jill Biden said she lost her faith in God. She “felt betrayed, broken” when Beau died of brain cancer at 46, and she had stopped going to church or even praying.

But she found her way back, and she traveled nearly 500 miles last weekend to surprise the woman who helped her get there.

Robin Jackson, the wife of Brookland Baptist Church’s pastor, is that woman, and Biden said she “changed my life” in 2019. That’s when Jackson approached Biden during a service and said she’d like to become her “prayer partner.”

Biden didn’t know what a “prayer partner” was, she told PBS in 2020, but she was intrigued. They’ve kept in regular contact and have been praying together ever since. Every Wednesday for the past 2½ years, Jackson has texted Biden some words of prayer or just let her know that she’s been praying for her, and Biden texts back, no matter how busy she is.

“I don’t know if she sensed how moved I had been by the service,” Biden said about that moment she met Jackson. “I don’t know if she could see the grief that I feel still hides behind my smile. But I do know that when she spoke, it was if God was saying to me, ‘OK, Jill, you’ve had enough time. It’s time to come home.’ ”

Biden’s visit came as a surprise to Jackson – the result of elaborate efforts by the first lady and her staff, and Jackson’s friends and family, to keep it quiet. Jackson had been awaiting an already-thrilling event: a 50th anniversary celebration for her husband, the Rev. Charles B. Jackson Sr., who’s been leading this congregation for half a century.

Robin Jackson noticed state troopers and Secret Service stationed outside the church, according to Anthony Bernal, senior adviser to Biden, but when she asked about the extra security, her family told her it was because Rep. James Clyburn, a longtime South Carolina Democratic congressman, was coming. (He was not.)

Biden then walked in, bearing a giant bouquet of red roses.

Biden joined the Jacksons in the first row of pews inside the church, swaying to rousing renditions of hymns like “How Great Thou Art,” and “Oh How Precious,” and standing up to applaud the choir – one of the few White faces amid a predominantly Black congregation of hundreds. And in front of that crowd, Biden stood up and gave the deepest, most comprehensive account of losing her faith and coming back to it that she’s told to date.

Although the first lady has spoken about her relationship with Robin Jackson, she hadn’t mentioned her by name until now.

The two women met in May 2019, Biden told the congregation. That was about 10 days after her husband had declared he was running for president. They’d come to this service in South Carolina as part of the campaign circuit all Democratic presidential candidates were making. The state’s primary was the fourth contest on the schedule, and it’s where now-President Joe Biden, crucially, won big after poor finishes in the other three.

During that service, Robin Jackson saw the Bidens become emotional while listening to the choir, she told Live 5 WCSC, a TV outlet, in 2020. Joe Biden told her the music reminded him of his son’s funeral. After the service, Robin Jackson and Jill Biden exchanged phone numbers.

“Every Wednesday following that Sunday, my mother would text a prayerful reminder of God’s favor upon us,” Robin Jackson’s son, the Rev. Charles B. Jackson Jr., said Sunday. “And this lady of such high and great status and stature would return a text.”

His mother would return that one, and another would come back from Jill Biden. “And this would continue all the way till today,” he said.

Her office did not publicly announce Sunday’s visit and the Biden team tried to keep its footprint small and stealthy, which is to say a motorcade of only six cars and just four staff members. Jill Biden sat through 90 minutes of speeches and hymns. Then she stood to congratulate the longtime pastor but also highlighted “a different leader in this church: first lady Jackson” – a line that received a standing ovation.

Jill Biden has talked about her relationship to her faith before. Losing Beau, and with him her faith, consumes the closing chapter of her memoir, “Where the Light Enters,” which also came out in May 2019, two days after that fateful meeting with Robin Jackson in South Carolina.

Joe Biden, who was vice president when Beau died, drew on his Catholic faith. He loved reading the hundreds of letters that Americans had sent to the White House after Beau’s death, seeing them as a chance to remember what Beau meant to people.

Jill Biden handled her grief differently. She said in her book that she stopped going to church with Joe Biden and their grandchildren. The letters addressed to her sat in a bag in her closet, unopened.

“I’m not very public about my faith,” Jill Biden told the church congregants. “But it’s always been an important part of who I am. I chose it as a teenager when I fell in love with the peace of the quiet wooden pew, the joy of the choir like this magnificent choir here, and the deep wisdom of the Gospels. Prayers especially are a way that I connect to people that I love and to the world around me.”

But she didn’t pray for years until she met Robin Jackson, she said. “And in that moment,” Jill Biden said, “I felt for the first time that there was a path for my recovering my faith.”

Robin Jackson showed her that she could ask for help.

“In the depths of our brokenness we can start to believe that healing ourselves will never be possible,” Biden said. “And the truth is, we’re right. We can’t heal ourselves alone. But with God all things are possible.”