{"id":1921,"date":"2012-11-05T04:08:43","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T10:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/?p=1921"},"modified":"2012-11-05T09:40:37","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T15:40:37","slug":"my-greatest-kisstake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/my-greatest-kisstake\/","title":{"rendered":"My Greatest Kisstake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This evening marks the 29th anniversary of what I call &#8220;The Great Kisstake.&#8221; \u00a0How or why do I remember the date? My Mom&#8217;s birthday was yesterday and my friend Cristi&#8217;s birthday is today. So&#8230;..I just happen to remember the date.<\/p>\n<p>It started simply enough. I knew her. She was a nice girl from a nice enough family. She had a cute car. But she was also a witch. No. Literally. It was the black dress, the pointy hat and the red lipstick that caught my attention on Halloween. And that&#8217;s what led to my greatest kisstake only a few days later.<\/p>\n<p>Eleven years later amid the debris of my life there was the haunting consolation of friends who said &#8220;We never really could see how you got together.&#8221; But I knew. It all started really simply, with a kiss.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/i.livescience.com\/images\/i\/19988\/iFF\/teen-couple-110914.jpg?1316032127\" alt=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"144\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In retrospect, I probably knew better. There were signs to which I should have paid attention, starting with her response to my gentlemanly question &#8220;May I kiss you?&#8221; (She replied &#8220;Why?&#8221;) But a team of wild horses couldn&#8217;t have stopped me from making the kisstake. I had replaced common-sense with a different kind of sense.<\/p>\n<p>Why do I write about this? Perhaps because my daughters are approaching the age where they might make a kisstake. It all came to mind as they watched one of those shows on the teenybopper channel that had a first kiss story line, and then, I remembered the caution I wish I could impress upon them.<\/p>\n<p>There were other kisses, most of no significance. But somewhere along the journey there is going to be THE kiss, and that&#8217;s the one that can trip you up, so you better consider whose lips you lock because it might just lead you to a destination you regret. In my case it ultimately cost me a tremendous amount of heartache, the only career I ever wanted, and left a vulnerable spot that the enemy often attempts to exploit. \u00a0But none of it had to happen, and wouldn&#8217;t have, if I hadn&#8217;t made the kisstake.<\/p>\n<p>Proverbs 4:23 says &#8220;Above all else, guard your heart&#8230;&#8221; A little kiss can be the path to the heart. Your heart is too precious. Use careful judgment, and don&#8217;t kiss every pucker that comes your way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This evening marks the 29th anniversary of what I call &#8220;The Great Kisstake.&#8221; \u00a0How or why do I remember the date? My Mom&#8217;s birthday was yesterday and my friend Cristi&#8217;s birthday is today. So&#8230;..I just happen to remember the date. It started simply enough. I knew her. She was a nice girl from a nice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1921"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}