“Step up, speak up, say something, do something!”
Those words were heard every morning for a decade on American Family Radio (AFR) in the introduction to Sandy Rios in the Morning.
As a fierce culture warrior tackling the issues of the day, always seeking truth, and not being afraid to speak her mind, radio host Sandy Rios was a favorite in the AFR lineup.
But Rios was not always a commentator and radio personality. In fact, by her own account, that was a path she never dreamed she would take.
In her recently released autobiography, God’s Velvet Hammer, Rios goes back to her humble beginnings and illustrates how God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people.
Music of her soul
“I was a musician. That’s how I served the Lord,” Rios told The Stand. “That’s what I studied and learned to do. I played the piano and clarinet, arranged music and wrote charts for bands, led choir and orchestra, and sang.”
She spent the first two decades of her adult life immersed in that world – touring, performing, conducting, signing record deals, and recording albums.
But life at home proved difficult for Rios. Her relationship with her husband, whom she had married in 1971, was rocky. Three years into their marriage, they welcomed their first child, Sasha, who was severely disabled. Six years later, their second child, Jeremy, was born.
While in counseling trying to salvage their marriage, Rios was encouraged to separate from her husband.
“I didn’t want that,” Rios wrote. “I believed in the sanctity of marriage, and I did not want to break up my little family.”
However, the marriage did end, and Rios knew that meant the end of her Christian music career as well.
“Being divorced in the Christian artist world was just an absolute no-no,” Rios explained. “And I respected that.
“I would have never imagined the wonderful musical opportunities [God] brought into my life, but I was grateful for them,” she added. “So with open hands, I let them go.”
Message of hope
Shortly thereafter, in the spring of 1991, Rios received a call with an unlikely job opportunity: co-anchoring an American broadcast for Radio Moscow, the Soviet Union’s official international broadcasting station at the time.
Glasnost, which is Russian for “openness,” had recently come to the Soviet Union after nearly 60 years of oppression and propaganda, and Christian ministries were taking advantage of that openness to spread the gospel there.
Rios was hired by Bible League International to spend two weeks in Moscow interviewing Russians. Their stories and testimonies would be shared through Seven Days of Hope, a special radio broadcast that would be transmitted to the United States to encourage Americans to donate funds to produce and send Bibles to the Russian people.
But there was one problem: Rios had no formal training in radio, reporting hard news, or conducting intense interviews.
“It was a big leap of faith,” Rios said. “But I took it, and I had to learn fast how to do hard news.”
Having grown up during the Cold War, Rios described the surreal opportunity: “Russia had perfected propaganda much like the Nazis did, and Radio Moscow was like the bogeyman to those of us in the West,” Rios said. “Yet there I was, co-hosting a show on the top floor of Radio Moscow. It was just amazing.”
In hindsight, Rios is confident that God used her time in Russia to prepare her for a future she could not see – hitting the airwaves at home in America.
“There’s no question God was preparing me. I had no idea and couldn’t see it at the time, but none of us can.” Rios said. “It’s like seeing the underside of a work of embroidery. All you see is a mess of thread and stitches, but when you turn it over, it all makes sense.”
Movement of God
Soon after returning from Russia, Rios received a call from Moody Broadcasting in Chicago inquiring if she would be interested in hosting an early afternoon show on its radio station. In particular, Moody wanted a woman with a broad appeal who could expand the audience leading up to their drive-time show.
Rios accepted and, over time, established her own diverse audience, eventually becoming the host of the coveted 3-6 p.m. drive-time slot.
Together with her talented team, The Sandy Rios Show covered hot-button issues in a way that appealed to all people but always from an unapologetically biblical worldview. The show was a great success and won multiple awards, but after a season in radio, the Lord had another assignment for Rios.
In the spring of 2001, her phone rang again, this time with an offer to move to Washington, D.C., and become president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the country’s largest women’s public policy organization at the time.
Rios accepted and was soon immersed in the culture war like never before, spending hours on PBS, MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and other major networks, debating and offering commentary on the day’s issues from a biblical perspective.
During that time, she earned the nickname “The Velvet Hammer,” a reference to her fearless and bold stance, coupled with her heart toward redemption.
“I can’t equivocate. I can’t play both sides against the middle when it comes to the things of God or moral issues,” Rios said. “So maybe I was a hammer in that sense, but I always had the hope of winning people to the biblical viewpoint – and ultimately to God.”
Microphone of influence
In 2004, after nearly three years with CWA, Rios returned to Chicago and back to radio with her former station and same time slot.
She remarried in 2008, and in 2010, her husband Bruce, an FBI agent, was transferred to D.C. Leaving radio again, Rios returned to the political and cultural battle there.
But Rios soon received yet another call, with another opportunity for radio. In February 2012, AFA President Tim Wildmon contacted her to see if she would be interested in hosting the morning show for AFR.
Hesitant to return to radio but encouraged by her husband, Rios accepted the offer and spent the next 10 years challenging, encouraging, and informing her listening audience.
Ministry of her life
All in all, Rios’ life, as detailed in her book, is not one of charting her own course, but one of waiting on God to order her next step.
Such waiting takes trust and dependence on God, something cultivated in Rios’ life early on after a brief period of rebellion.
“I’ll never forget when I got back into the Word, God’s Spirit surged through me as He revealed to me so gloriously what grace really is,” Rios recalled. “At that moment, I said, ‘Lord, I will go anywhere and do anything You ask. I never want to be apart from You again.’”
As suggested by the book’s subtitle – How an Ordinary Girl Was Called to do Extraordinary Things – such yielding to the call of God may take one down a path that far exceeds anything one could ever imagine.
(Digital Editor's Note: This article was published first in the September 2024 print edition of The Stand. Click HERE for a free six-month subscription.)
