He-Said-She-Said, Puppy Love – He Said | Sealed with a Kiss – She Said

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Song of Solomon 8:6 NIV

I have a box of love notes I keep from my wife. The birthday cards and scraps of paper remind me of lips I kissed and tears I dried before I met my bride. I don’t know if these relics of my broken heart are an act of unfaithfulness or simply a sad testimony to the passion a romantic who loved… and lost in the pursuit of puppy love.

First Kiss: We met in her basement for our first kiss. Everything I knew about smooching I’d learned from the movie Love Story. Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw kissed a lot: mostly with their eyes closed. This seemed only natural since the idea of standing that close to anyone, much less a pretty girl, terrified me. But there we were, two high school freshmen preparing to seal our love with lips coated in ketchup and mustard and hot dog chili. I advanced; she moved. I hit a cinder block wall. My aim improved by I never fully recovered from the miss… our that fist kiss that came moments later.

First Love: Like so many high school sweethearts our emotions ran hot and cold, off and on. We swapped love notes in hallways, lingering looks across cafeteria tables and class rings. I suppose we both knew it wouldn’t last but pretended it would, crafting names for our kids and careers that would allow us to travel. We parted ways the night of my first Jimmy Buffett concert: each of us leaving a piece of our soul with the other. There were others. Work girls and college girls and summer fun girls from the Chesapeake Bay.

Read the rest of this devotion.