Ron Carpenter Jr. may not have his mind set on reconciling with his wife, but he said repeatedly in a Sunday message that he loves her.
In an emotional service at Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, S.C., he warned the church it wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation and invited people to dismiss themselves before he revealed that his wife had more than one affair and had voluntarily admitted herself into rehabilitation center for psychiatric treatment.
“Right now Hope does not need your wrath. She does not need your anger. I have been around sin all my life. If this were just sin, I would not tell you this. I am telling you I have lived a 10-year nightmare,” Carpenter said.
“And I have almost totally been exhausted and my health is bad … shingles … and I can’t even tell you the health problems from trying to cover, believing behind the scenes that God was going to fix it. But after 10 years I cannot fix it.
“She does not need wrath, anger; she needs prayer, she needs support and she needs miracles.”
Carpenter went on to tell the church that he was so embarrassed he could hardly look them in the eyes. He said they don’t deserve to have to defend the leadership.
“If you are here—and I mean this from the depth of my heart because people feel like they get cruelly ostracized if they leave a church—if you are here and you don’t want to be under leadership that has had to fight these kind of battles at home, I do understand. I understand. You can leave without guilt or without anything else. I understand.”
But nobody got up and walked out. Instead, he got a standing ovation.
