In recent months recording artist Mark Schultz disclosed that he is adopted. After a concert for adoption agency Bethany Christian Services , Mark had an encounter with an adoption counselor who helped Mark understand what a priceless gift he was given by his birth mother. In his adoption testimony Mark recalls what she told him:
"Your birth Mom was very special...a birth mom has three options. She can have an abortion, and you wouldn't be here right now. She could have given birth to you and said, 'you know what, I don't have a great life, and I don't have a lot of money, and I'm not in a great situation but this is my kid and I'm going to keep it whether it has a great life or not, it's still my kid and I'm not going to let him go.' But she did the
most unselfish thing because she carried it for nine months through the pain and the struggles with that and then gave birth to you and then held you and looked you in the eyes and said 'I love you so much that I can't keep you myself because I can't give you the best life' and she handed you off to a family who loved you and cared for you and gave you the best life."
Continues Mark:
And I went, you are so right. So I said I think I'd like to write a song, and I started to think about it, what would I say to my birth Mom if I ever saw her...and I thought about going to her front door (just in my mind I was walking through) I imagined myself knocking on the door, and as she opened up the door, I think I would just get tears in my eyes and say thank you so much...because I've had a great life.
So we started writing this song...
It hit home, the circle of life, how it just doesn't affect one person when there is a adoption, and I sang half the song at a Bethany Christian Services benefit one night just as an idea and I got halfway thorugh it and I stopped and I said that's really all I have right now. A lady came up afterwards and said you don't know this, but there's a lady, a girl here in the audience that's pregnant, and she's been dead set on having an abortion but she said she heard your song and decided tonight she's going to put it for adoption because she can't fathom not giving this little person life. And it started to hit me: this isn't just a song, this is something more special than that and I can't wait someday to in heaven meet people who were born because their birth parents heard this song and said I want to give them more life, and I can't wait for my birth Mom to meet those people so she can realize she didn't make a mistake. And I want my parents, I want them all to be there for that. It's just really special, so it goes beyond just being a song.
His new CD, Broken & Beautiful, contains a track called "Everything To Me" (Video Introduction), a song inspired by his gratitude for the decision his adoptive mother made. Mark writes in the song:
| 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 |
Graham, adopted son of Worship.com editors |
Christianity Today also recently talked to Mark about his new CD, which will be available in late September. The article opens:
Mark Schultz knows he's lucky to be alive today, because his birthmother chose to give him up for adoption rather than abort. He tells the story in a new song … and here.
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."
Continue reading at Christianity Today.
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I went to a Mark Schultz concert a few months back. I heard the song "Everything to Me." It made me cry. I was adopted as a child, and never saw my birthmother. I remember feeling the way Mark did, first angry, then thankful, because my biological mom chose to give me up for adoption.
Posted by: Lindsey | June 12, 2007 at 10:44 PM