Old Wooden Wagon One of the guiding principles that I grew up with was the concept of trust. Trust was manifested with our parents, family, friends, personal business associates, companies we purchased products from, and most importantly through our strong faith community, which is the very center of our approach to life. One’s reputation was based on a personal commitment to providing help, services, and support to other people. We were trusted to do what was right. The result was an atmosphere of security and peace. Minimal risk management was needed. The future usually meant greener pastures.

Over the years “trust” has taken a beating. Where I work in the Identity Theft education and protection world there is becoming less trust of people, businesses and institutions because there are “other people” in the world that intend to do harm by actions directed at stealing your assets and even your identity. An amazing statistic in Identity Theft is that about 32% of the identities that are stolen and assets affected occur by people we know. There are stories of parents taking out credit cards in their children’s names because they have an extremely poor credit record. Previously “trusted” house servants remove non-public information that is used to create fraudulent documents affecting their employer. Actions by college roommates, partners in short term romances, and passing friendships have been known to compromise a person’s identity that takes months to years to resolve.

Because of this, one of the things that I strive to teach that we need to be more mindful and vigilant of what information we volunteer and to begin questioning why it is needed. Our security like our faith must become our own personal mission because it cannot always be left with others. That is sad, but true, and affects us in all areas of our lives.

The breaking of the trust bonds has an unsettling impact on our belief in mankind in general, and in our faith in our friends, bosses, co-workers, and fellow church members. This shapes our faith communities and our relationships in many different ways. The sense of instability that is created impacts all of our decisions as well as a readiness to distrust, which does not help our sense of self-giving to God and to those we love. It makes the task of faith even more difficult.

We now live in a time where we have to lock our doors and are not free to trust our valuable information with “just anyone.” This summer, let us remember to share our security concerns with family, friends, co-workers, and faith family so that they will learn to seek new ways to protect themselves as well as those within the community of faith, from becoming victims of those who should not be trusted.

Editor’s Note: When Jim first asked to write this article, our conversation led him to this theme since we talked about loss of identity/money/property (GREEN)...but within four days of our meeting, my husband was out biking and his car was broken into and everything in it was stolen, including important financial papers. This was our firsthand and immediate experience the very real fear of ID theft.

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