Steel Magnolia

Yesterday and today were shockers for me, as well as my fellow South Carolinians when we learned that our governor, someone that my family and I have supported during his controversial refusal of government stimulus money, had been cheating on his wife, and, truthfully, the state of South Carolina as a whole. Through all this madness, googling for pictures of this woman and reading emails that were published between Sanford and his mistress (yeah, I googled, I admit it), I forgot to read one little iota that probably many have skipped over - the statement released from Mrs. Jenny Stanford, First Lady of SC and my new hero.

As a young woman who experienced first hand what leads up to and the aftermath of failed marriages and now, as a woman with a husband of my own, my heart truly aches for this woman and her four children. I could not imagine how heartbreaking it would be to learn that my own husband found another woman more desirable than me and willingly broke vows made before God to be with someone else. But I can not fathom how personally humiliating it would be for everyone in the world to know and have a comment on his actions, to see correspondence between him and HER, and to fully understand that perhaps I was now left to fend for myself and my children alone. No, Mrs. Sanford will never want financially. But as we wives know, marriage is more than money. It is love and friendship and most of all trust between a man and a woman who commit to go to the grave joined as one. Can you imagine what this woman is going through?

I ask that we hold this woman in our prayers. I don't know her personally, but I do believe that she is probably a good woman and wife and mother and at this time is heartbroken over the public infidelities of her husband and the tearing apart of her family.

I think we can all learn and use what she said, as released in her statement:

"seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family."