As a preamble to the book ‘Protecting Against Eternal Identity Theft co-author Barbara D. Lockhart shared (quoting first from Doctrine and Covenants 18:10-13): “Remember, the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For behold, the Lord you Redeemer has suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him, on conditions of repentance. And now how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!”
Barbara experienced how coming to this knowledge of her divine nature changed everything. She had succumbed for many years to eternal identity theft and eventually was rescued from it by Heavenly Father. She describes it this way: “For no apparent reason, as a young teenager, I began to greatly dislike myself. For nearly fifteen years, I victimized myself with terribly negative self-talk. In the process I doubted that my life had any real purpose or value. Thinking that maybe achieving success in school, music, and sports would allow me to have good self-esteem, I was driven to succeed. Succeed I did, but no change occurred in my negative feelings about myself. It wasn’t until my early thirties when I soulfully plead with my Heavenly Father that the negative self-talked ceased. Heavenly Father blessed me to know that He loves me and that my life has purpose and value. He changed me so that I could feel deep in my heart that I am precious to Him and could feel grateful for who I am. This change came through the Spirit rather than anything I could do on my own. My desire is to share this testimony because of the enormous joy, peace, and purpose it has given me. It truly has changed everything for the good.”
Barbara and the co-authors, Wendy and Brent Top continue: In this book we hope to show how, each one of us, like the prodigal son, must “come to ourselves” and remember our divine identity, strengthen our faith in Christ, and seek protection and cover from the unrelenting influence of Satan that may blind us to our power and destiny. Let us emphasize again that this is a challenging process that takes sincere faith in the Savior. We need to be gentle with ourselves and realize what we are up against. Although it may be tempting, there is no point in being frustrated or discouraged with the process to either help ourselves or others. Frustration and discouragement are part of Satan’s arsenal, not the Lord’s. It is worth all of our best efforts to find the precious pearl that is our true identity and prepare ourselves to receive again the royal robes that we left behind in our heavenly home. ~Barbara D. Lockhart, Wendy C.Top & Brent L. Top (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2013) 9
