"That all right with you honey?" he gently asked Leslie, who was sitting in the back seat. "Sure," she replied sweetly.
Eric and Leslie had stopped by to visit me during a drive through the Northwest. A friend in Colorado had told me about these newlyweds and the little book they had written. Their book told the story of how they had met and grown to love each other without following the typical pattern of dating.
You'd be hard pressed to find two or more romantic people. They adored each other, and it showed. Eric rarely took his eyes of off Leslie. Sitting in the passenger seat on the way to the restaurant, he slipped his hand behind the seat, and Leslie reached forward and clasped it. Holding hands when one person is sitting in the front seat and the other is in the back? I'd never seen that before.
After dinner, while we cracked open our fortune cookies, I had a question. "You two can't keep your hands off of each other,"I began teasingly. Leslie blushed. "Was it difficult keeping the physical side of your relationship pure while you were engaged?"
Eric took Leslie's hand and smiled at her before he answered. "Of course the desire for that was present---- it always will be," he said. "But no, it wasn't a struggle. Leslie and I decided very early in our relationship that we were going to refrain from physical contact until we were married. Our first kiss was at the alter."
My jaw dropped. "You didn't kiss until you got married?"
"Nope," Eric said, beaming. "The most we did was hold hands. And, Josh, we know that kind of standard isn't for every couple. We didn't make that decision to be legalistic; it came from the heart. Everyone, even our parents, told us we should kiss. But we both decided it was what we wanted to do. It was a way to show our love, to protect each other before we were married." And then with a twinkle in his eye, he said , "Let me tell you, Josh, that first kiss was the most incredible, beautiful thing in the world. I can't even begin to describe it. "
This is an excert from I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. An excellent book. The book that Eric and Leslie Ludy wrote ( the couple in the story above ) is His Perfect Faithfulness. Another fantastic book!
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