Identity Thief Quotes

Footfalls in the hallway, outside the door, alerted Audun to the fact that they had company. The steps were light, a woman’s step, Audun suddenly thought. A moment later the woman entered the room. Her light brown hair was tinged with grey, and the rich black velvet gown she wore spoke to her status. The hazel eyes swept the room. In that instant Audun knew with certainty the identity of his visitor. “Good morning, grandmother. Have you come to offer me my crown?” Robert Reid – The Son

For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you know who you are.

Throughout history, works of art have been stolen under mysterious circumstances...Said by some to be the work of "Phantom" thieves... ...Others dismiss it as mere myth. But in this country, the stories are all too true. The name of this mysterious thief? "Dark." And his true identity? No one knows...

...for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celbrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

Mr. Schock smiled at Peter and raised his hand into the air. Peter instinctively struck it in a perfect high five. Mr. Schock's smile transformed into a puzzeled frown. "Joshua, how did you...?" "Peter used to do it," said Peter swiftly.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Theodore Roosevelt

Way too many people cloaked themselves in the mantle of victimhood, creating a vacuum of identity that they expected the world to rush in and fill with compassion that was undeserved.

Never forget who you are in Christ. If you have thoughts or feelings that make you feel bad about yourself, remember they come from the enemy. Do not believe Satan's lies. You are not who he says you are.

I believe the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil represents the law, or legalistic thinking... But the Tree of Life represents Christ and His grace.

Satan is full of lies and empty threats and will use whatever he can grab hold of to twist our understanding away from God's. But God will always prevail.

We often think God puts us under judgment when we err, but I believe what happens is we pull ourselves out from under His grace.

...love is a weapon of mass destruction against the kingdom of darkness. So are humility, worship, peacemaking and blessing your enemies.

Satan can quote Scripture, but he uses it for his own means. He also hates when we quote it back to him. This is because Satan's version of God's Word is always twisted.

Do not trust what you feel, but rather trust what God says about you. Hold to God's declaration over you.

The enemy is always trying to confuse us, manipulate us and make us think we are not who we really are.

The ring which you are holding, my friend, is identical to that one. I had it cut according to the model of the king's ring, and damascened in Spain. The original is still in the Escorial; it would have been pleasant to steal it, for I easily acquire the instincts of a thief when I am in a museum, and I always find objects which have a history - especially a tragic history - uniquely attractive. I am not an Englishman for nothing - but that which is easily enough accomplished in France is not at all practical in Spain: the museums there are very secure.

And yet, and yet. This place exerts an elemental pull on me. There is no end of fascinations. People talk all the time, calling on a sense of reality that is not identical to mine. They have wonderful solutions to some nasty problems; in this I see a nobility of spirit that is rare in the world. But also, there is much sorrow, not only of the dramatic kind but also in the way that difficult economic circumstances wear people down, eroding them, preying on their weaknesses, until they do things that they themselves find hateful, until they are shadows of their best selves.

Too often, we think of the Church as a fortress, a place to hide from the troubles of the world. Really, it should be more like a war room, where we gain the strength we need to do battle against the enemy.

We’ve given up on rehabilitation, education, and services for the imprisoned because providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate. We've institutionalized policies that reduce people to their worst acts and permanently label them "criminal," "murderer," "rapist," "thief," "drug dealer," "sex offender," "felon," - identities they cannot change regardless of the circumstances of their crimes or any improvements they might make in their lives.

His first plan of attack was to plant the words in as many areas of his homeland as possible. He planted them day and night, and cultivated them. He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany.... it was a nation of farmed thoughts.

His likeness? How can I trace it? I have seen Arsène Lupin a score of times, and each time a different being has stood before me… or rather the same being under twenty distorted images reflected by as many mirrors, each image having its special eyes, its particular facial outline, its own gestures, profile, and character. “I myself,” he once said to me, “have forgotten what I am really like. I no longer recognize myself in a glass.” A paradoxical whim of the imagination, no doubt; and yet true enough as regards those who come into contact with him, and who are unaware of his infinite resources, his patience, his unparalleled skill in make-up, and his prodigious faculty for changing even the proportions of his face and altering the relations of his features one to the other. “Why,” he asked, “should I have a definite, fixed appearance? Why not avoid the dangers attendant upon a personality that is always the same? My actions constitute my identity sufficiently.” And he added, with a touch of pride: “It is all the better if people are never able to say with certainty: ‘There goes Arsène Lupin.’ The great thing is that they should say without fear of being mistaken: ‘That action was performed by Arsène Lupin.

We’ve institutionalized policies that reduce people to their worst acts and permanently label them “criminal,” “murderer,” “rapist,” “thief,” “drug dealer,” “sex offender,” “felon”—identities they cannot change regardless of the circumstances of their crimes or any improvements they might make in their lives.

I realized that the man I thought was stealing books so that others would consider him a cultured gentleman, the man who was building a phony image, a counterfeit identity, was in fact working diligently to become that gentleman. He was studying philosophy, researching authors, reading literature, even writing his own essays and plays. Through these efforts, he was attempting to create his ideal self. Another way of begetting this self, I came to understand, was by telling his story through me.

One theft, however, does not make a thief . . Action which defines a man, describes his character, is action which has been repeated over and over and so has come in time to be a coherent and relatively independent mode of behavior. At first it may have been fumbling and uncertain, may have required attention, effort, will - as when first drives a car, first makes love, first robs a bank, first stands up against injustice. If one perseveres on any such course it comes in time to require less effort, less attention, begins to function smoothly; its small component behaviors become integrated within a larger pattern which has an ongoing dynamism and cohesiveness, carries its own authority. Such a mode then pervades the entire person, permeates other modes, colors other qualities, in some sense is living and operative even when the action is not being performed, or even considered. . . . Such a mode of action tends to maintain itself, to resist change. A thief is one who steals; stealing extends and reinforces the identity of a thief, which generates further thefts, which further strengthen and deepen the identity. So long as one lives, change is possible; but the longer such behavior is continued the more force and authority it acquires, the more it permeates other constant bodes, subordinates other conflicting modes; changing back becomes steadily more difficult; settling down to an honest job, living on one's earnings becomes ever more unlikely. And what is said here of stealing applies equally to courage, cowardice, creativity . . . or any other of the myriad ways of behaving, and hence of being.

[I]n contrast to identity politics, which focuses on how each (ethnic, religious, sexual) group should be able fully to assert its particular identity, the much more difficult and radical task is to enable each group to access full universality. This access to universality does not mean a recognition that one is also part of the universal human genus, or the assertion some ideological values that are considered universal. Rather, it means recognizing one's own universality, the way it is at work in the fractures of one's particular identity, as the 'work of the negative' that undermines every such identity.

...you are not the person Satan says you are. You do not have to listen to that condemning voice in your head or those negative feelings in your emotions. Do not trust them. They are his lies. He would like nothing better than to get you to doubt yourself and the God who created you. Satan likes to hang identities on us that are not who we really are at all. For instance, he likes to call us Sinner Disappointment Failure Weakling Doubter Most of us have been all of these things at one time or another. But they do not define us. They are not who we are. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, God instead sees us as Righteous Achiever Overcomer Strong Faithful

Fafhrd said, “Our motives for being here seem identical.” “Seem? Surely must be!” the Mouser answered curtly, fiercely eyeing this potential new foe, who was taller by a head than the tall thief. “You said?” “I said, ‘Seem? Surely must be!’ ” “How civilized of you!” Fafhrd commented in pleased tones. “Civilized?” the Mouser demanded suspiciously, gripping his dirk tighter. “To care, in the eye of action, exactly what’s said,” Fafhrd explained. Without letting the Mouser out of his vision, he glanced down. His gaze traveled from the belt and pouch of one fallen thief to those of the other. Then he looked up at the Mouser with a broad, ingenuous smile. “Sixty-sixty?” he suggested. The Mouser hesitated, sheathed his dirk, and rapped out, “A deal!” He knelt abruptly, his fingers on the drawstrings of Fissif’s pouch. “Loot you Slivikin,” he directed.

Tell me about your children," he said. "What would you like to know?" "Anything. How did you decide on their names?" "Justin was named after my husband's favorite uncle- a dear old bachelor who always brought him books when he was ill. My younger son, Stephen, was named after a character in an adventure novel Lord Clare and I read when we were children." "What was the title?" "I can't tell you; you'll think it's silly. It is silly. But we both loved it. We read it dozens of times. I had to send Henry my copy, after-" After you stole his. In Henry's view, the worst of West Ravenel's offenses had been stealing his copy of Stephen Armstrong: Treasure Hunter from a box of possessions beneath his bed at school. Although there had never been proof of the thief's identity, Henry had remembered that Ravenel had previously mocked him when he'd seen him reading it. "I know he's the one," Henry had written. "He's probably done something awful with it. Dropped it down the privy. I'd be surprised if the nincompoop can even read." "Someday when we're big," Phoebe had written in response, full of righteous vengeance, "we'll go thrash him together and take it back from him." But now she was sitting next to him at dinner. "-after he lost his copy," she finished awkwardly.

Sentenced to a nineteen-year term of hard labor for the crime of stealing bread, Jean Valjean gradually hardened into a tough convict. No one could beat him in a fistfight. No one could break his will. At last Valjean earned his release. Convicts in those days had to carry identity cards, however, and no innkeeper would let a dangerous felon spend the night. For four days he wandered the village roads, seeking shelter against the weather, until finally a kindly bishop had mercy on him. That night Jean Valjean lay still in an overcomfortable bed until the bishop and his sister drifted off to sleep. He rose from his bed, rummaged through the cupboard for the family silver, and crept off into the darkness. The next morning three policemen knocked on the bishop’s door, with Valjean in tow. They had caught the convict in flight with the purloined silver, and were ready to put the scoundrel in chains for life. The bishop responded in a way that no one, especially Jean Valjean, expected. “So here you are!” he cried to Valjean. “I’m delighted to see you. Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well? They’re silver like the rest, and worth a good 200 francs. Did you forget to take them?” Jean Valjean’s eyes had widened. He was now staring at the old man with an expression no words can convey. Valjean was no thief, the bishop assured the gendarmes. “This silver was my gift to him.

Thus began more than a decade of friendly warfare between Ford and Brinsmead. The former illustrated his own position in summary and in contrast to Robert's belief by saying that on the Cross, Christ had sin on Him, but not in Him, whereas the penitent thief had sin in him, but not on him (like all believers until the Second Coming), while the impenitent member of the Calvary trio had sin both on him and in him. Ford rejected both the sinful nature of Christ teaching and also perfectionism of all types. This was in harmony with the well-known teachings of Dr. Edward Heppenstall at Andrews University over many years. In

Twenty years, and she had never called China hers. How could she when she had never been? She did not know its songs, its roads, its rivers. She did not know the terms of address for kin, the names of provinces, anything that she ought. All she knew was that her parents had left, and that they did not speak of what they had left behind. [...] Twenty years, and she was used to being asked where she was from, to giving an answer that felt like a lie. She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.

Nevertheless, the Icelandic language remains a source of pride and identity. Famously, rather than adopt foreign terms for new technologies and concepts, various committees establish new Icelandic words to enter the lexicon: tölva (a mixture of “number” and “prophetess”) for computer, friðþjófur (“thief of peace”) for a pager, and skriðdreki (“crawling dragon”) for an armored tank.

Losing your mind doesn’t have to look like the common room in a psych ward. It’s not usually babbling, rocking, wide-eyed lunacy. Sometimes, losing your mind is just that—losing it. Memories are slowly lost to fog. The foundations of your identity

When God looks at us, He does not see our broken, rejected, useless state. He sees what He intended us to be. He sees what the Lamb sacrificed to reinstate us. We gave our identity away, so the Lamb, Jesus, came to restore that which was lost. He sacrificed to give us His identity. He clothed us in His right standing and covered us in His precious blood. His DNA was given to restore ours.

There is only one thing we need to do to appropriate the power that God has made available to us, and that is to live close to Jesus Christ and be available for God to use us whenever we see an opportunity.

Self-preservation is the death of faith for the Church.

As long as you are still alive, it is never too late to reclaim your Christ-restored identity.

We live as victors, not victims, in this world, even though we have been victimized. After the battle, after we pursue the healing God provides and step back into who we really are, we work to pull others from the debris of their own battles. That is how God does things. He rescues the broken and turns them into rescuers. That is God's revenge against the Identity Thief, and we join Him in it from the place of our true identity.

Adam and Eve were given rule over all things 'that scurry along the ground' (Genesis 1:26 NLT). They should have ruled over that serpent--after all, snakes move along the ground--but instead they let him rule over them. In an instant, they went from rulers to slaves.

Humanity's unbelief empowers Satan. Our unbelief is what keeps him in power today. When we listen to his lies and act on what he says rather than on what God says, we keep his rule over us and the earth.

Faith...is spelled R-I-S-K.

We are meant to be bold, courageous and strong as we do the works of Jesus. We are not supposed to blend in. We are supposed to stand out.

God expects us to use the talents and gifts He has given us. The Identity Thief, on the other hand, wants us to bury our talents in the dirt and act like 'normal' people.

...going through rough times does not mean God has turned His back on you. Rather, He is redemptive, which means He is taking those painful, hard things and turning them back on the enemy by molding and perfecting you into the image of His Son.

Clay that has not gone through the fire of the kiln is useless. Fire solidifies clay. It makes clay strong and helps it retain its shape. This is how it works with clay, and this is how it works with people, too.

If you want to grow as a Christ-follower and become all you are capable of being, then you need to be in a place where you are getting spiritually nurtured.

Satan cannot read your mind, but he can put thoughts and feelings on you.

...he knows where each one of us is vulnerable to spiritual attack. He knows how to make us Christians feel small and miserable when, in fact, we are heirs of our Father God. He gets us to give up on God and ourselves by convincing us we are disqualified. He steals hope and leaves despair. He destroys faith with unbelief and levels hope with fear.

If you belong to Jesus, then you are a child of God. You have the right to walk in power and victory and to expect miraculous answers to your prayers.

Hollywood Boulevard had been victimized by a burglar three times in two years. The criminal methods of each break-in were similar and so it was suspected by the Los Angeles Police Department that the same thief was responsible each time. But the thief was careful never to leave a fingerprint or any other clue to his identity. No arrests were

His gait is feline, or viverrine, not quite human. He walks with bent knees, on the balls of his feet; his small deep-set eyes scour the room with raw contempt. Crivano recalls a torch-bearing dervish in Tiflis who made a run at their powder store; the janissary archers shot him so full of arrows that when he finally died their shafts kept his limp corpse off the dirt. The dervish’s face as he charged bore an expression identical to the one the Nolan wears now. The world, Crivano thinks, is a poor container for such men.

looking impressed. She turned and beckoned to a young man of seventeen or eighteen, who had been lurking in the background. He bore such a marked resemblance to his small, wiry, dark-haired father that his identity could scarcely be in doubt. “Manfred,” his mother announced proudly. “Mein laddie.” Jamie inclined his head in grave acknowledgment. “Mr. McGillivray.” “Ah … your s-servant, sir?” The boy sounded rather dubious about it, but put out his hand to be shaken. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir,” Jamie assured him, shaking it. The courtesies duly observed, he looked briefly round at the quiet surroundings, raising one eyebrow. “I had heard that you were suffering some inconvenience wi’ regard to a thief-taker. Do I

heated the water in the winter, storing the water in a tank, and in the summer you switched over to a gas-fired heater. Very sensible and it may well have worked four years ago when it was last used but it didn’t appear to want to work for us. We tried the gas heater first, we connected up our new bottle of Butagaz, turned on the tap and… Nothing. Was our system set to summer or winter? We went in search of the switch. Unfortunately it wasn’t obvious. We were told it lived in the cupboard behind the range but so did about eight others

She’s vibrating from the energy as I slowly approach, but my little thief stands her ground, only tipping her chin up as I near. When I’m within a foot of her, I drop to my knees, my blood heating when her lips part, an almost inaudible gasp slipping free. “I’m sorry, bella,” I start, keeping my voice low and serious while I look up at her, ensnaring her gaze within my own. She stands tall before me, her spine straight and shoulders back. “I’ve been punishing you for something you didn’t do—something beyond stealing an identity. I’ve been making you hurt because I’m hurt, but you’re not the one who broke me. And it was never my right to break you.” “You’re not the one who broke me, either,” she whispers. “No, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

When you choose a thief and make them your leader. Their lives are improving to be better and better. They get rich and richer while you get poor and poorer. The city, town, province, country will decays and everything will fall apart. People lives getting much worse. While your leader will be flexing and living the dream. They will be robbing you your future, dreams, goals, hopes, pride, health, education, jobs Identity, culture, money, investments, happiness , achievements and your life.

Ifness pursed his lips judiciously. “All folk, mercantilists as well as tavern-keepers and musicians, try to relate their work to abstract universals. We mercantilists are highly sensitive to theft, which stabs at our very essence. To steal is to acquire goods by a simple, informal and inexpensive process. To buy identical goods is tedious, irksome and costly. Is it any wonder that larceny is popular? Nonetheless it voids the mercantilist’s reasons for being alive; we regard thieves with the same abhorrence that musicians might feel for a fanatic gang which beat bells and gongs whenever musicians played.” Frolitz stifled an ejaculation. Ifness tasted the mug of green cider which Loy had set before him. “To repeat: when a thief steals property he steals life. For a mercantilist I am tolerant of human weakness, and I would not react vigorously to the theft of a day. I would resent the theft of a week; I would kill the thief who stole a year of my life.” Jack Vance. The Anome (Durdane Book 1)

God has a specific job and destiny for your life. No one can do it as well as you. God does not make junk. You are His workmanship. But the Identity Thief has robbed tampered with your true identity.

...there is an Identity Thief who steals much more than material things... this Thief...convinces you that you are someone other than who you really are.

An identity thief stole the identity of a surgeon and while aboard a Navy destroyer was tasked with performing several lifesaving surgeries. He proceeded to memorize a medical textbook just before hand and successfully performed the surgery with all patients surviving.

Losing your mind doesn’t have to look like the common room in a psych ward. It’s not usually babbling, rocking, wide-eyed lunacy. Sometimes, losing your mind is just that—losing it. Memories are slowly lost to fog. The foundations of your identity—the people and places—fade away, associations lost, history forgotten.

I knew exactly what was going on, but I unfortunately didn't have a firearm. (Adam have most likely offered someone 6000 Euros, to end this all, then and there. Tomas. 10%) Only a mini baseball bat. A Louisville Slugger. And Martina’s weapon of choice: a broom. The witches’ vehicle. Before I could tell him to go to Hell, a neighbor exited the building and let the stranger claiming to be from the gas company inside. Now the stranger dressed in black was running up the 94 stairs. I could hear his footsteps approaching. I didn't have time to react, grab the biggest knife from the kitchen, and stand by my entrance door. He was already upstairs, right outside my apartment door. He began knocking loudly and aggressively, whether with his metal ring or a lighter. I looked through the peephole, but he had covered it with a black folder, which I soon realized was an iPad. Covering his face. Covering my eyes. The same speech repeated played through the iPad, ensuring that I wouldn't recognize his voice and open the door. „I am from the gas company, looking for Tomas Adam Nyapi.” He kept playing in a prerecorded voice on the iPad outside my door, "Open up", "It's the gas company", and "We are looking for Tomas Adam Nyapi." I was trying to pay attention and make sense of it all, trying to figure out who it could be. But the Catalan girl couldn't keep quiet and yelled at the person in Spanish with her strong Catalan accent, after a minute or two: "Who are you and what do you want? Go away before I call the police!" Suddenly, the stranger began sprinting down the 94 stairs upon realizing that I wasn't alone. In case the reason for his visit wasn't clear enough. He was running so fast that he nearly stumbled, clearly determined to prevent me from catching up with him. I swung open my door and peered down the stairwell, straining my eyes to discern his identity, but the darkness obscured any details in the vertical tunnel below. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, I hurried to my loggia to catch a glimpse of him. He was tall and thin, with long legs, and his strides were hurried and distinct, unlike anyone else. Deep inside, I knew it was Mario Larese. Mister Twister. I recognized his movements, but it wasn't until 2023 that I had concrete confirmation. An evidence orgy. Mario had been sent to either spy on me or seek revenge for my closure of the club, with him being responsible for triggering the landslide, the avalanche. The mafia had dispatched Mario to finish what he/they had started. With Adam and the rest of them. Mario. Adam. Nico. Ferran. „The Beatles.” „Plus Yoko.” The Nazi junkies had sent him to deliver the final blow, the fatal shot, the kill. It was Mario who was accountable - the thief, the liar, the "Romanian gypsy." To deliver „The Final Solution”, to sever ties. And keep that 60,000 as well of course. Shortly after the stranger (Mario) had left our address Martina called me on the phone.

Because the Identity Thief is jealous of us for bearing the image of God, he will seek to derail us, too. He will always seek to distract us from our greater purpose by appealing to our desires in the moment.

The Lord will use you if you live as if each day is in His hands.

From time to time, I have people tell me they will never set foot in a church because they have known Christians who were hypocrites. Whenever I hear that, I think, But there are probably a lot of hypocrites at your favorite restaurant. Does that keep you from going there to get a tasty meal? Neither should it keep us from going to church to understand and encounter our true selves. Besides, I have a feeling a lot of people we might think are hypocrites really are not. These are people who truly feel a calling to live for Jesus. That is what they want to do. But they have fallen victim to the Identity Thief. This does not make they hypocritical when they sit in church, praising God, because that is their true identity. That is who they really are. When they engage in behavior of the sin nature, that is when they wear a mask. That is when they are hypocritical. Satan is the one who is all about the masks. He keeps us from our true identity. He keeps us living inside lies.

In the fire, Christ is revealed. If you are going through a difficult, challenging time, look for Jesus. He may not be the source of the struggle, but in its midst He is redemptive and can show Himself powerfully. He can use what you are going through.

God has never been about hierarchy. He is about yielded hearts and people who are willing to step out in faith because they discover who they are in Christ.

If you belong to Jesus Christ, access to the ministry of the Holy Spirit is part of your spiritual DNA.

Know that it is never God's objective for you to fail. He wants you to prosper and reign with Him. And if God is with you, who can possibly be against you? Nobody!

Jesus calls us to be salt and light in our communities. We can only do that if we know who we are--if we have resisted the Identity Thief and are standing strong as children of God, I believe we are also called to be God's light in our local congregations and our denominations. When we stand strong in our true identity, we can help our fellow believers and our churches do the same.

The secret of identity politics is that, in it, a white/male/hetero position remains a universal standard, everyone understands it and knows what it means, which is why it is the blind spot of identity politics, the one identity that is prohibited to assert.

Lucy started to disagree and then thought better of it. At least he seemed to be in accord with her about the identity of the thief. "So what should I do now?" "You will do nothing. I will speak to your father, and we will decide how to proceed." "No, you will not!" "I beg your pardon?" "You will not brush me aside when I am the one who has discovered everything!" "Miss Harrington---" She scrambled off the bed and pointed her finger at him. "You told me how much you hated being treated like a child. Now, do not do it to me!" He stared at her for a long moment and then nodded. "All right. Would you prefer it if we confronted him here together, and then made sure he confessed the whole to your father?" She regarded him suspiciously. "Are you being serious?" "I am. You made a good point. I am trying to be conciliatory for a change." "Thank you.

I’d become a thief and an assassin, programmed against my knowledge and will. Someone had stolen the most important things about me—my identity, my reputation. My free will. Now I’d become a slave. A slave to a terrible agenda. And powerless to break free.

A child needs to know his parents, Mrs. Ogg,” she said. “Now more than ever. He needs to know who he really is. It’s going to be hard for him, and I want to help him.” “Why?” “Because I wish someone had helped me,” said Susan.

For two decades, our escape defined me. It dominated my personality and compelled my every decision. By college, half my life had led up to our escape and the other half was spent reliving it, in churches and retreats where my mother made it a hagiograpihc journey, on college applications where it was a plea, at sleepovers where it was entertainment, and in discussion groups after public viewings of xenophobic melodrama like China Cry and Not Without my Daughter, films about Christian women facing death and escaping to America. Our story was a sacred thread woven into my identity. Sometimes people asked, But don't a lot of Christians live there? or Couldn't your mother just say she was Muslim? It would take me a long time to get over those kinds of questions. They felt like a bad grade, like a criticism of my face and body...Once in an Oklahoma church, a woman said, "Well, I sure do get it. You came for a better life." I thought I'd pass out -- a better life? In Isfahan, we had yellow spray roses, a pool. A glass enclosure shot up through our living room, and inside that was a tree. I had a tree inside my house; I had the papery hand of Morvarid, my friend nanny, a ninety-year-old village woman; I had my grandmother's fruit leather and Hotel Koorosh schnitzels and sour cherries and orchards and a farm - life in Iran was a fairytale. In Oklahoma, we lived in an apartment complex for the destitute and disenfranchised. Life was a big gray parking lot with cigarette butts baking in oil puddles, slick children idling in the beating sun, teachers who couldn't do math. I dedicated my youth and every ounce of my magic to get out of there. A better life? The words lodged in my ear like grit. Gradually, all those retellings felt like pandering. The skeptics drew their conclusions based on details that I had provided them: my childhood dreams of Kit Kats and flawless bananas. My academic ambitions. I thought of how my first retelling was in an asylum office in Italy: how merciless that with the sweat and dust of escape still on our brows, we had to turn our ordeal into a good, persuasive story or risk being sent back. Then, after asylum was secured, we had to relive that story again and again, to earn our place, to calm casual skeptics. Every day of her new life, the refugee is asked to differentiate herself from the opportunist, the economic migrant... Why do the native-born perpetuate this distinction? Why harm the vulnerable with the threat of this stigma? ...To draw a line around a birthright, a privilege. Unlike economic migrants, refugees have no agency; they are no threat. Often, they are so broken, they beg to be remade into the image of the native. As recipients of magnanimity, they can be pitied. But if you are born in the Third World, and you dare to make a move before you are shattered, your dreams are suspicious. You are a carpetbagger, an opportunist, a thief. You are reaching above your station.

prayer is not powerful because of the one doing the praying. Prayer is powerful because of the One who is in us and the authority He has given us.