Mark Schultz

When Mark Schultz wrote the song "Everything to Me," the story of a young mother choosing to place her newborn baby into the care of an adoptive family, he had more than just a pro-life sentiment in mind.

He had his life in mind. Because that young mother was his mom.

The song, which appears on Schultz's new album, Broken & Beautiful, has opened the door for the singer/songwriter to tell his own adoption story for the first time. Only within recent months has Schultz revealed the news that he was adopted.

Schultz, only two weeks old when he was adopted, didn't fully understand it till he was in the third grade when he and his sister were looking at their baby books, and Mark noticed that hers had more information than his.

"I asked my mom about it," Schultz remembers. "She said, 'It's because we didn't get to choose your brother and your sister. They just came along, and that is who we got. With you, we went to the hospital and decided who we wanted. We chose you because we loved you the most and thought you were the most special child there.'

"That tells a kid right there that he's got it going on! I felt great about being adopted. When my sister and I would get into a fight, instead of her saying, 'You're adopted' as a way to make me feel bad, I'd say, 'Mom didn't have a choice when she got you, but she chose me!'"

Schultz's adoptive parents cheered him on as he played football, basketball, baseball, ran track, sang and did theater in high school. "I'd score a touchdown or whatever, and my father would yell, 'That's my son!' He loved us all the same. It was a neat, positive experience. I got the best parents in the world."

Schultz feels that being adopted causes him to appreciate life more. "I don't take anything for granted. I wake up in the morning and thank God that I'm alive. Adoption is such a gift."

Remembering his birthmother
That reality especially hit home when Schultz was doing a benefit concert for Bethany Christian Services. When an adoption worker asked about his birthmother, he replied that it didn't seem like his birthmother wanted him.

"The woman said that if my birthmother had chosen abortion, I wouldn't even be having this conversation," Schultz says. "She reminded me that my birthmother carried me for nine months and made the hardest decision in her life, giving me to a family who could love me and give me the opportunities she couldn't. She said my birthmother thought about me and not herself."

That prodded Schultz to write "Everything to Me," since he realized he was finally ready to approach the subject in song.

"Until then, I hadn't thought it through all the way, and I wasn't mature enough," he says. "I also wasn't sure how my parents would take it. I didn't want them to think that I don't consider them my real parents, because they are my real parents. I think the song not only thanks my birthmother, but it also thanks my parents. They are such a godly influence and such great people.

"I played the song for my [adoptive] mom after I wrote it, and as we were listening to it, she grabbed my hand. Her face turned red and she was trying to keep the tears from running down her face. When we got out of the car, she gave me a big hug and wouldn't let me go. It was really special."

The lyrics read in part:

You gave life to me
A chance to find my dreams
And a chance to fall in love
You should have seen her shining face
On our wedding day
Oh is this the dream you had in mind
When you gave me up
You gave everything to me

Schultz says that although the time was right to write the song, the time is still not right to meet his birthmother. "I don't have a strong desire to meet her. I love my parents too much to hurt them. As I say in the song, it may be in heaven when I meet her, and it will be a great moment when she can look back and see my whole life. I think maybe that's how it's supposed to be for me."

Still, he hopes she would be pleased with him if a meeting ever came about. "Sometimes, I think about my birthmother and wonder if she would be proud of me. I'd never want the experience of someday meeting her and having her think, 'Gosh, I hoped he'd be so much more.' That drives me to do better.

"I sometimes think she might be at one of my concerts and not know who I am, but she might think, 'Hey, I have a son about his age who was adopted. I sure hope he turns out to be like this guy because he loves life.' That would be a great gift to me."

Inspired by marriage
Another great gift to Schultz, 35, is his wife of one year, Kate, 28. They met when he was a youth director and she was a volunteer youth group worker. They recently moved to North Carolina, where they will live while Kate, a physician, does her residency in obstetrics. Schultz's enthusiasm bubbled over just thinking about her.

"She is a tremendously godly, selfless woman," he says. "She wants to dedicate her life to doing medical missions work, helping orphans and opening birthing centers in Africa so fewer children will die. My wife inspires me so much and I've learned a lot from her.

"She also can sing, write and is an athlete. When I was writing this record, I'd be stuck on a lyric and she'd give me the lyric. Three years ago, she rode her bike from California to Maine in one summer. She's amazing. She's everything great wrapped up in one woman. Had I known how much fun marriage would be, I'd have done it sooner."

At one point, Schultz had thought he might be a bachelor forever. Watching his band members leaving their families to tour made him wonder if staying single was best. "I didn't want to get to a place where being on the road hurt."

He found that he and his wife are each other's biggest fans. "I cheer her on and she cheers me on. I don't feel pulled. I've done concerts in Africa and they've gone really well. I would enjoy doing ministry together, with her singing backup for me and me helping her at a clinic after the concert."

Schultz is already involved in mission work with the James Fund, a project of Family Christian Bookstores that sponsors mission trips to build orphanages in Mexico. "My wife and I went to Mexico and hung out with some orphans. I realized I could have been one of those kids. We wanted to bring them home. I want to help those kids lead the kind of life I've gotten to lead."

Heart-tugging songs
Despite Schultz's busy schedule, he found time to record Broken & Beautiful, working with producers Mark Bright (Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts) and Shaun Shankel (who wrote Kimberley Locke's hit, "Eighth World Wonder").

It's an album full of songs that, as is typical for Schultz, tug at the heartstrings.

When asked if he tries to get into people's heads to write these story songs, Schultz laughs.

"My wife says I'm the biggest dork and cut-up, the funniest guy she knows," he says. "That's my everyday personality. But there's also that side where I get by myself and write. At those times, these songs spring up out of me with such emotion and feeling. I don't get it. Maybe it comes from being adopted, from getting an extra chance at life and being sensitive to certain things, but those kinds of songs move me, and I love them.

"At the end of my life, I hope those songs will still mean things to people and I'll leave something that can continue to encourage people along the way."

Schultz's songs have always had an impact on others, but that always surprises him.

"When I'm writing songs," he says, "they come from a personal, honest place and I don't think about how they will affect people. After recording them, people come up to me and tell me how a song like 'When You Come Home' let them cry and cry because it summed up what they were trying to say, but didn't know how.

"I wondered if I should even put such a personal song as 'He's My Son' on my first record, because I figured nobody else would identify with it. When radio played that song and Jerry Lewis used it for muscular dystrophy fundraising, I couldn't believe it. God writes those songs and gives them to me, because I have no idea how it feels when a mom loses her son to cancer or when a son leaves home."

And now "Everything to Me" is already affecting others. After playing it at a Bethany Christian Services fundraiser, Schultz learned that a girl in the audience had been considering abortion, but chose adoption for her child after the song.

"I thought it was so cool that I could write a song that could encourage someone to give a baby a chance at life," he says. "It's like a domino effect, that a child will have life because my birthmother gave me life."

Schultz says he hopes the song will "comfort scared, unmarried expectant mothers. I hope it will be a reminder that they are carrying a real, little person who will grow up and have feelings. I also hope the song will encourage adopted children to look at their own lives and see that they are special, that their birthmothers gave them the opportunity to have life, that their birthmothers went out of their way to put them first."

Another song on the new album, "She Was Watching," reminds Schultz of how his own adoptive parents have loved him all along.

"It's a story about a dad doing it right and having a daughter who looks up to him," he says. "That's how it was with my parents. When I got to Nashville, I found a job as a waiter, but nothing was going right for me musically. My dad said, 'You've got a job and you're doing well. That's my boy. He's making it in Nashville.' When you get affirmation from your parents, it is so great. It helped me grow so much and makes me cry thinking about it now."

Schultz may not be done writing songs about adoption—and he can thank his wife for that.

"Marriage has opened me up to other possibilities and other ways of looking at things," he says. "Kate said she'd like to adopt, because I was adopted. She said she wants to adopt the children who aren't expected to have a long life due to disability. She wants to show them some birthdays and Christmases and let them know that someone really loved them during their time on earth. To marry someone with that kind of outlook—not someone who wants a perfect life, but someone who wants to love perfectly—is amazing."

Visit our artist page for Mark Schultz to learn about him and his music. Click here to read our review of his latest album, Broken & Beautiful. Visit Christianbook.com to listen to sound clips and purchase his music.

© Maryann B. Hunsberger, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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