Sunday, July 19, 2026

The Name He Gave You

In the face of a life-altering mistake, we find our truest identity not in a hospital bracelet, but in the unchanging love of God who calls each of us by name.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are Mine.

Isaiah 43:1

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Galatians 3:27

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

My dear ones, let us sit for a moment in the quiet of the evening and consider a story from the world that is full of a strange and deep sorrow. In North Dakota, two men have learned, after nearly forty years, that they were sent home from the hospital with the wrong parents. A simple DNA test, a gift at Christmas, unraveled the life they knew. One man still has the tiny hospital bracelet, a fragile piece of plastic bearing a name that was never his. The mother who raised him speaks of feeling 'robbed' of the life she should have had with her biological son, of all the lost first steps and milestones. The reunions have been, in their own words, 'welcoming but awkward.'

How our hearts ache for these families, caught in a story not of their choosing. It is a profound confusion of identity, of belonging. Who am I, if not the son of my father? Who am I, if my name is a mistake? This pain is real, and we should not turn away from it. But as the evening stillness settles around us, let us listen for a deeper truth, a whisper from the heart of God that stills our own confusion.

The Prophet Isaiah speaks this whisper for us: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are Mine.' Before any hospital bracelet was fastened, before any human error could unfold, the Lord God, who formed us in our mother’s womb, knew us. He called us. He named us. We belong, first and finally, to Him. This belonging is not a matter of bloodline or of a name written on a form; it is a matter of being breathed into existence by Love itself. No accident, no mistake, can ever erase the name He has inscribed on His heart.

In the Holy Mystery of Baptism, this truth is sealed upon us. As the Apostle Paul tells us, 'For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.' We are clothed in a new identity that transcends all others. We become children of God, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus. This is our true genealogy, our unswitched and unmistakable identity. It is a homecoming to a family that has always been ours, even when we have lived as strangers. Like the 'welcoming but awkward' reunions of these families, our own return to the Father through repentance can feel clumsy. We are re-learning His face, His voice. But He, like the father of the prodigal, runs to meet us, His welcome erasing all our awkwardness in the flood of His mercy.

To the mother who feels robbed, what can we say? The pain is a wilderness. Yet, our faith does not offer easy answers, but a quiet, abiding Presence. 'And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.' This is not a promise that God causes such pain, or that the grief is not real. It is the deeper, more mysterious promise that even from the wreckage of our broken world, our good God can weave a tapestry of redemption. He can take the shattered pieces of these lives and, in His love, create something new—a larger family, a deeper understanding, a grace found only in the midst of sorrow. He does not restore the lost years, but He promises an eternity where every tear is wiped away and all that was lost is found in Him.

Let us take heart. Our world is full of mistaken identities and confused hearts. But our true name is safe with God. He knows His own, and He will not lose a single one.