Sunday, July 19, 2026

Called By Name

When a shocking discovery about a hospital error shakes two families' sense of identity, we are reminded that our truest identity is found in being known and named by God.

But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine.

Isaiah 43:1

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.

Psalm 34:18

My dear friends, it is hard to imagine the kind of shock that Kyle Bylin and Jeremy Morrison, along with their families, must be feeling. To live for nearly four decades, building a life, a history, and a sense of self, only to have a DNA test reveal that the very foundation of your story is not what you thought it was. One of the mothers, Evelyn Newton, puts words to the heartache so simply: “I feel robbed of the life I should have had with my biological son. You can’t go back and replace 35 years.”

Her words capture a profound grief, a sense of a life unlived, of memories that belong to someone else. In a moment, these families have been plunged into a disorienting reality. Who am I? Where do I belong? These are the deepest questions of the human heart, and for these families, they have become painfully real and immediate. When the ground beneath our feet gives way, when the names and faces we thought defined us are suddenly rearranged, where can we find a truth that holds firm?

In these moments of profound disorientation, Holy Scripture offers us not an easy answer, but a gentle and steadying hand. The prophet Isaiah speaks the words of the Lord directly to a people who felt lost and forgotten: “But now, thus says the LORD, who created you... and formed you... Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine.”

Before you were named by your parents, before any hospital bracelet was fastened to your wrist, you were named by God. He knew you. He formed you. He calls you His own. This is the bedrock of our identity. While our earthly stories can be subject to human error and tragic mistakes, our identity as a beloved child of God is absolute and unchangeable. No accident, no passage of time, no shocking discovery can ever take that away from us. God does not get our names wrong. He has written them on the palm of His hand.

This story also reveals a beautiful, second truth about family. Evelyn Newton says of the son she raised, “Kyle is still my son – that is never going to change.” Here we see the profound reality of love. The family we are born into is a gift, but the family that loves us, nurtures us, and raises us is also a sacred reality. The thirty-five years of shared life, of first steps and graduations, are not erased. That love is real. It is a powerful testament to the bonds that are forged not just by blood, but by daily acts of care, sacrifice, and presence. In a way, it mirrors the love of St. Joseph for Jesus, a love that was not biological but was as real and true as any father’s love could ever be. It is the love that makes a family.

The article notes that the reunions have been “welcoming but awkward.” This is so honest. Grace does not always arrive in a neat package. Often, it shows up in the messy, fumbling attempts to connect with one another across a divide of pain and confusion. God is present there, in the awkwardness, in the desire to form a new, larger, more complicated family. The Lord is, as the psalmist tells us, “close to the brokenhearted.” He does not stand far off, but enters into our confusion and sits with us in our grief, gently helping us to piece together a new way forward, held fast by the one truth that never changes: we are His.