The Lesson of Love

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Once upon a time, there lived a man with his only daughter. He only had one daughter, and he loved her so dearly. She was his one and only treasure in this world.
The man watched upon her with delight, seeing her living her life like a flourishing rosebud. Time passed by quickly, and the girl grew to become a lovely young lady at age 16. And all of a sudden, things began to change. The girl started to meet and interact with boys her age.

And one day she came to her father, sheepishly admitting that she had fallen in love with a certain boy, who has occupied the special spot on her heart.
She asked her father if she might date the boy, because the boy told her he also loved her. The man looked upon his daughter worriedly, but then he smiled and said "Go for it, my daughter. Be careful of what you do."
So the daughter got into her very first love relationship with this guy. Two wonderful weeks passed, but then the guy started to change. He no longer told the girl he loved her as often as he used to. He no longer tried to impress the girl with gifts and surprises. The girl asked herself again and again, what might have gone wrong? And then she found out that her very first boyfriend had fallen for another girl, who was more beautiful and more attractive than she was.
Cryingly, she ran to her father and wept on his lap.
Why oh why, she whined. Why must this happen, this was her very first love. Her father couldn't say anything. He just held his tears back while comforting his broken-hearted daughter.

After going through a very difficult time to recover from her first awful experience in love, the girl met another wonderful guy, who told her he loved her and treated her so well, so she fell in love almost instantly with him. She convinced herself that this guy wouldn't leave her for other girls like her first boyfriend did, and so again, she asked for her father's blessing. The man looked upon his daughter worriedly, but then he smiled and said "Go for it, my daughter. Be careful of what you do."
So they began to date. At first everything was going so well, but then small differences started to show up between them, which escalated to bigger things as the guy mercilessly looked down upon her and stomped on her pride.
The girl ran to her father and wept on his lap.
Why oh why, she whined. Why must this happen, she already had a very bad experience. Why could her second relationship not be better? Her father couldn't say anything. He just held his tears back while comforting his broken-hearted daughter.
Then the boy apologized over his bad behavior, and asked if the girl would take him back. Happily the girl turned to her father with gleaming confidence, and asked for his permission. The man looked upon his daughter worriedly, but then he smiled and said "Go for it, my daughter. Be careful of what you do."
A week passed and they got into another argument. Much to the girl's disbelief, again the boy dissed her. She was hurt, and again they created a distance between them. Then he apologized again, and the same thing repeated itself. The girl was too embarrassed to ask her father for advice, so she just endured the boy's attitude. After all she didn't want to have a bad breakup again. She told herself, she just had to be patient. Everyone was different, and one needed to give in in a relationship, else it wouldn't be a relationship.
The girl became really sad and sadder with every day spent with her boyfriend. She no longer felt happy in the relationship but she didn't want to end it either. After much consideration and days of suffering, she finally ended the relationship. The breakup was really bad. They ended up as enemies, love turned to hate.
The girl ran to her father and wept on his lap.
Why oh why, she whined. Why must this happen, she already had a very bad experience. Why could her second relationship not be better? Her father couldn't say anything. He just held his tears back while comforting his broken-hearted daughter.

After two awful love experiences, the girl became really disheartened into falling in love again. She spent some time running away from boys who seemed to be attracted by her. She rejected everyone, she didn't want to give anyone a chance. She barricaded her heart in a thick iron safe, not risking it to be broken anymore. The man watched upon her doings, smiled worriedly at her and said "Go for it, my daughter. Be careful of what you do."

Time passed, and her best friend came up to her and asked her out. She was naturally puzzled. She had known this boy for so long, and they had been getting along really well. They knew a lot about each other. She asked herself, could this boy be the prince of her dream? Could he be the lover she had been waiting for? Could she start opening up to the prospect of love again? After some thinking, she went to her father and asked her father's opinion about it. The man looked upon his daughter worriedly, but then he smiled and said "Go for it, my daughter. Be careful of what you do."
The girl had the best days with the boy, she couldn't help but wondering how come they weren't lovers right away. They just understood each other so well. She felt loved and appreciated, and he felt the same. Their love grew strongly with every day, and soon after she didn't know how she had lived her days until now without his love.
On one occasion, she had a talk with her friends about their boyfriends, and they told her how their boyfriends had been very romantic and loving. The boys showered the girls with so much love and attention, and they always tried to help the girls out with their problems.
That made this girl think. She couldn't tell the same thing, because her boyfriend never did it. Her boyfriend tended to forget about her problems, let alone trying to help. Her boyfriend never gave her any gifts. Her boyfriend was always occupied and surrounded by his friends to ever give her full attention. She asked herself, apart from all the kisses and hugs… were they only friends?
So she confronted her boyfriend about it. She wanted to know why her boyfriend wouldn't do what the other boyfriends did for their boyfriends. It wasn't about the stuffs he did but the intention to do it. How far would the boy go for her?
The boy told her he wasn't one to do such things, and that she could not expect from him to show her his love. His love was there, and the girl should simply believe that.
The girl tried to get used to the ideas, but she couldn't. She couldn't continue loving her boyfriend because she kept getting the idea that actually her boyfriend didn't love her more than a friend, which was why he had nothing else to show her, with her being a girlfriend and not a mere friend. Disappointed and crushed, she went into a lot of breakups and re-dates. Then after a while she just didn't know what else to do. Without him, she felt like she wasn't alive. She felt like she couldn't live without him. But with him, she felt unhappy and unfulfilled. They tried to go back being friends and even that seemed so awkward and impossible at that point.

Her father came to her and reminded her that love was not all there was to life. Losing a love surely was a big hit but it wasn't the end of the world. Maybe the girl felt she couldn't live without him, but fact is, she had lived without him before, and therefore, she could live without him later on. Cryingly, the girl told her father she wished he said that earlier, before they ruined their friendship by making a relationship out of it. Sorrowfully her father said, he couldn't say it earlier, although he knew he could have spared his daughter all the pain. Angered and frustrated, the girl demanded explanation.
Her father then explained to her :
He could not tell her that boys could cheat on her in a relationship, because then she would be paranoid all the time and ruined a relationship that might work all by herself.
He could not tell her that boys might go back on their words, because then she would not give them a second chance to be better people, whether or not they could be better people.
He could not tell her that making a friend to a boyfriend wasn't necessarily an upgrade; it could be a downgrade as well.
Furiously, the daughter demanded to know why her father didn't just forbid her to see those guys tyrannically, then she wouldn't feel so bad at all. Her father then told her, "Because the more I forbid you to do things, the more you will want to do those things."

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Author's note :
Moral of the story – There are many times when we condemn God of just watching, and not actually doing something to prevent bad stuffs from happening to us. But the truth is that sometimes God's sitting and watching things happen is the best way for us to get through some situations. We don't know we can fall till we fall by ourselves. And we don't know falling hurts till we actually fall. Furthermore, we won't avoid falling till we know what hurt is. Shortly, believe in God. He has the best for us in store; all we need to do is to live our life in His way.