Are your own thoughts holding you back? Do you find yourself spiraling into a deep abyss of negative feelings? Fancia Rarinca understands what it’s like to fall victim to toxic thoughts and feelings due to other’s actions. As a former educator, Rarinca found herself loaning money to a colleague. This simple gesture would soon open up a trail of hurt and despair and ultimately unlock a new emotional and mental healing process she is now sharing with readers worldwide.
As she discovered in her own life, transforming her way of living with special techniques and guidance, she became inspired to draw from her own life personal experiences to develop this Christian-inspired self-help book.
In Forgiveness: Fast-Track Your Emotional, Mental, and Physical Healing Journey and Start Living a Beautiful Life, Fanica Rarinca teaches readers how to equip themselves with the tools necessary to free themselves and learn to forgive.
FOREWORD
In a Christian family, two brothers quarrel and remain angry all day. Big brother, he is the grumpiest. In the evening, before going to bed, the parents come to their room and try to make them reconcile. Addressing her eldest son, his mother tells him:
“Come on! You must forgive your brother for everything wrong he did to you. We need to pray, and you know what it is like. If we do not forgive, God does not forgive us either. What if you die tonight? You get straight to Hell.”
The elder brother says half-heartedly, “I forgive you.” The children pray, and the parents leave their room.
Left alone in the dark, the older brother says:
“Okay, I forgave you! But if I do not die tonight, you will see what I will do to you tomorrow!”
INTRODUCTION
In 2011, a few months after I signed up to develop a network business, I approached a former colleague who agreed to order some products from me. She placed an order for almost 50 euros.
When I brought her the products, she asked me if she could pay me at the next salary because she was with no money, but she needed the products. I believed her, although my up-line kept telling me those who buy goods from me must pay when they receive them or to give a deposit with the order.
I left her products, and we agreed to see each other the day after the salary day. When I came back with a call, she had no money again. She was divorcing her husband and cried about everything he had done to her, and how he had left her.
I spoke with the up-line, and they told me to give her more time. But she did not pay me anything in the second month either. The products had been in use for a month and a half.
I was angry. My salary as a teacher was about 350-400 euros per month. It seemed outrageous that someone would order from me and trick me for 50 euros. I signed up for that business to make money, not to give away products for nothing.
The up-line told me to forgive her, to let go this time because that colleague had emotional wounds, and any insistence from my part would have made things worse.
I wanted to listen to my mentor, but I could not.
I felt tricked. I hated that colleague. I was working in vain, and I kept trying to call her to give me the money for the products. About 3-4 months passed, and there was no sign I could receive any money from her. I was boiling.
I could not sleep at night. Many thoughts lingered in my mind. I wanted to make her suffer for the 50 euros she owed me. I imagined how I was going where she lived, and I made known everything she did to me. I wanted to humiliate her, to take revenge.
But I knew I was the first person to suffer. I was thinking about how she will suffer. I also thought about what the consequences of my gesture will be. Any form of revenge crossed my mind, and it had consequences for me.
The up-line told me to forgive that debt and move on. Otherwise, I would lose even more money and more customers.
But wasn’t that simple? I knew the up-line was right. I was not feeling well already. Tiredness after sleepless nights affected my activity, my nervousness had grown to high levels, and I was arguing with other people around me, who were not to blame for the debt that my colleague had. Besides, I was losing customers; I was losing orders.
I had to free myself, to forgive, but I could not.
Then one day, while I was at Sunday service at the church, I heard the Holy Gospel and the sermon of the priest. It was about forgiveness and how the forgiveness we offer to others returns to us.
I closed my eyes and said in my mind: Lord God, help me forgive my colleague who owes me money, and I do not have any chance to get back.
I uttered the words; I forgive you! And from that moment on, I felt light, as if I had lifted a ton of weight from my body.
I felt like a different person. I succeeded, and I forgave her.
From that moment, I could rest, focus on the customers in front of me, and get other orders.
That was an especially important lesson. From that moment on, I did not give products if the person had nothing to pay for them. I was telling them they would get the products when they could pay them. Or, if they did not want them anymore, I would sell them to someone else. But I was not left with unpaid and consumed orders.
After a year, I moved to the neighborhood where she also lived. When I met her on the street, I was the first to greet her, and she greeted me as if there was no unpaid debt between us. But I did not mention it to her. I already forgave her.
Perhaps you wonder, why is this book series titled Unlock Your Superpowers?
What is the connection between forgiveness and the series title? Keep reading and you will find out.
Before you read about forgiveness, please, take a few moments, a pen, a piece of paper, and honestly answer these questions.
- What mistakes do you find unforgivable?
- Is there anyone in your life you can’t forgive? How do you feel about that person?
LEARN TO FORGIVE, AND ACCEPT OTHERS AS THEY ARE
You can choose whether their words, deeds, or behavior are like a little dandelion fuzz that the wind carries and, in passing, touches you on the cheek, or you can perceive them as bullets that break your heart. Depending on how you perceive them, they make you suffer or not.
“It is rare for bad people to be happy. They get poisoned by their wickedness.”
Maurice Chevalier
At a seminar I gave, someone asked me, “How can you forgive someone who hurt you and treated you so badly?”
Here is a quote from Gary Chapman’s book - Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life
“On October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts entered the only classroom of a small school in the Amish community of North Mines, Pennsylvania, and killed five students, after which he shot himself. His gesture shocked an entire country. But the story that impressed most people was that a few hours after the armed attack, members of that community, have shown mercy to the wife of the attacker and his three children. Those in the community wanted to show that they did not hate Roberts, and that they wanted to live in peace with his family. A few days later, members of the Amish community attended Roberts’ funeral service and raised money to help his widow and children. Forgiveness is so deeply ingrained in the personality of the members of this community that they do not doubt that we should treat even a criminal with compassion and justice. For them, love is really a way of life.”
Gary Chapman - Love as a Way of Life: Seven Keys to Transforming Every Aspect of Your Life
I gave this quote because it impressed me when I read the above in Gary Chapman’s book.
Now I will give you a few more arguments on the question - how can you forgive someone who hurt you?
When you love, it is the easiest to forgive
Forgiveness is born and springs from love. Whether you love the person who hurt you or yourself, forgiving helps you the most.
If you forgive because you love the person who hurts you–you forgive him for his sake. If you forgive because you love yourself, then you forgive because YOU deserve a better life, full of love, a life free from any tension and negative energy.
“There is no love without forgiveness and there is no forgiveness without love.”
Brynt H. McGill
If you do not forgive–you turn a mosquito into an elephant or a monster
How much does a glass of water weigh?
The correct answer depends on how much you are holding it. If you hold it for only a few seconds, enough to take the glass to your mouth to drink, then it weighs 100-200 grams. But imagine that you hold the glass in your hand for a long time, without moving your arm. After half an hour, you get the impression that that glass weighs 1 kg. After a few hours, you feel like it is getting even heavier.
The more time you hold it in your hand increases, the more you feel that the weight of the glass is growing, and you feel your hand stiffens, or even your arm crippling.
It is the same with the facts you cannot forgive.
At first, the deeds have the weight of a snowflake, a dandelion fuzz that caresses or touches your cheek.
Or if you want as a speck of dust getting into your eyes. If you rub that eye without knowing what you are doing, your eye becomes redder, and it hurts even more. But if you let the eye, you might realize that the eye can cleanse itself and bring that speck of dust through its lining to the base of the eye.
It is the same with all those events or facts we cannot forgive.
At first, they are small, like a speck of dust, like dandelion fuzz, like a mosquito.
The more we think about what someone has done or said to us, the more we turn the pain and make it much bigger, and that thread of dust becomes a dust storm that takes our entire universe, and we can no longer see the sun.
Free yourself, and forgive, and you will see the sun much better and more easily!
“Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Before we dive into the next chapter, please answer these questions:
- Is there anyone else from your past who’s wronged you like the one you can’t forgive now? What did that person in the past say or do? What about the present one?
- What stops you from giving forgiveness to the one who has wronged you?