JOLLYBLOGGER: This Week's Jolly Award

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Yes, once again, the hour you've all been waiting for, it's time to award this week's "Jolly," to a Jolly Good Blogger who has written my favorite post of the week.

This week's "Jolly" goes to Ben Wilson at Marriages Restored for his post Obedience in the Face of Adultery, Emotional Infidelity. The whole blog is well worth reading as it deals with a very timely subject. This blog is the story of how God is blessing a marriage that was stained with adultery. Ben, and his wife Ann, share openly about their struggles and the grace of God that has been, and is bringing them through this difficult episode in their lives.

This blog is a good balance to blogs like mine, which tend to be too rationalistic and "just gimme the facts mam." Here you have a story that illustrates the things many people say about the grace of God and God's ability to restore.

In this particular entry, Ben tells how he and Ann sought to obey God during the most excruciating time of their life, and how, over time, this obedience paid off.

It seemed like forever, but it was really a little more than a year when our obedience paid off and God's forgiveness humbled me and flowed through to Ann. The, at times, excruciating (see the root crucify in there, as in we hung in there as best we could) obedience was worth it and we experienced the resurrection of our marriage.

What a testimony for those who have gone through such an experience. We don't often see these kinds of things in ministry and I am grateful to know this story. In our church we currently have a friend whose husband has left her and we've been praying for her and for him for over a year. In the midst of this, the husband hasn't come back. We always keep hoping and praying, but at this point, the happy ending doesn't appear to be on the horizon. But, this friend keeps walking in obedience to Christ and even though the hoped for reconciliation isn't happening, at least yet, she is growing closer to Christ than she has in years.

Ben and Ann's story is the kind of thing I would like to share with the husband who left - who thinks that you can't rebuild. We need stories like this to encourage us. Also, this post speaks to a much wider audience than those who have gone through the fires of adultery. Anyone walking through any fire can be encouraged that obedience pays off. Thanks for sharing your story with us Ben and Ann.