“My mom pulled it out of her purse, this Bible. It was in the original box it came in. [She] just kind of set it on the table, and my parents just started talking about life and my birth mother. They said, ‘Your mother was a Christian and she truly, deeply loved you, and this was the last thing she gave us before we adopted you.’ Inside is just a little note that she wrote that she loves me and that God will protect me and be with me throughout life.”

Although Nate Huss’ birth mother put him up for adoption when he was only 3 weeks old, God placed him in a very unique home.

“I am the youngest of eight," he says. "We are all adopted, and if you could picture the UN, that is exactly what my family looked like: From the oldest to the youngest, Dan is from Washington, Mike is from Washington, Becky is from Korea, Ruth and Rachel are twins from Guatemala, Joel is Mexican (actually born in Texas), Gabe is from Haiti, I was born in Phoenix.”

But even in the warmth of a large, Christian family, Nate was secretly dealing with the dark issues brewing inside of him.

“I think one of the things being attributed to being adopted, I felt a sense of abandonment. I felt like my mother – wow – she must not have loved me if she gave me up. As the story goes, my mother was a successful, middle-age woman in her 30s who was perfectly capable of taking care of me. I think that was one of the big things that really hit me, especially coming through the end of elementary school and going into junior high not feeling like I fit into any particular place and not really knowing where I belonged. And so that was kind of hard for me,” he says.

And though Nate accepted Christ at a young age, for years he struggled to claim the gift of God’s unconditional love.

“My parents are unbelievably, amazing Christian, so I had the opportunity to be raised in a strong Christian home, but like any kid, you aren’t born a Christian; you have to choose for yourself. There comes a point where you choose to live your life on your own or live it God’s way.

“Growing up, this is how I saw the church. Church is for the healthy, so you act like you’ve got it all together and you act like you know what is going on, or else I would be judged or let down or shut out or pushed away. That is the last thing I needed was for someone to push me away or shut the door.

“I had to put on the good face because I didn’t want people to know I was weak. I think a lot of insecurities kept snowballing and building up and building up. And, inevitably, I ended up completely depressed and often times suicidal. I was really good at hiding it, because I had to be strong for people and I had to put on a good face. I didn’t want people to know that I was weak.”

But at a spiritual retreat during Nate’s freshman year in college, God’s love managed to break through walls—walls that Nate had been building for years.

“That night was a huge revival for me, a big turning point," says Nate, "and after that, that was kind of my moment where I was like, ‘All right, Lord, take me. Take me as I am, and make me who You want me to be, because obviously I can’t do it on my own.’”

That same night, Nate re-dedicated his life to Christ.

“[I] just allowed myself to soak it up. I started to allow myself to get into the Word. I allowed myself to be more receptive to things that Christ was trying to do in my life, being able to break down those walls and allow God to just come in. ‘Take me, hold me, be with me, and love me how You want to love me, and that’s all good enough for me.' That was hard, but that was definitely the breaking point in my life. And then when I moved to Nashville, the walls really came crumbling down."

Throughout his life, Nate found freedom and release through his musical gifts. Nate began singing and playing guitar at an early age, and shortly after his re-dedication, Nate won a contest that brought him to Nashville to produce his debut album, Here With Me.

While working on the lyrics for his first album, Nate says God used the writing process to heal his deeply rooted insecurities.

Says Nate, “It was kind of funny because when I first started doing it, I was like, man, I just want to do music. I just want to get up and play and interact. And slowly it has changed directions a bit.

“Here with Me is an album that really touches on the heart of insecurity, just a kind of back story of the things I have gone through, the things I am still struggling with: doubt and fear and knowing that we serve a God so big that He doesn’t arbitrarily send us through hard times or circumstances that we feel we are going to fall or fail in. He stands, never put us in a circumstances that we can’t handle.

“I just want people to recognize that God loves them. He is holding them. He is going to grab you, take hold of you, and find out who you are, and just finding the source of your insecurities—whether it is one insecurity or a billion."

In addition to pursuing his career in Christian music, Nate is directing his focus to adoption and women’s ministries. He has become a spokesperson for internationally known Mercy Ministries.

“The opportunity to work with women who struggle with self-harm, eating disorders, and even young women with early teen pregnancy, it is just one of those things I have an opportunity to do to give back and allow people to see that they are beautiful with who they are,” he says.

And through his album, Nate also found forgiveness and gratitude for a woman he’s never met.

“I ended up co-writing a song with my brother Dan called “Your Own,” and it’s just a song thanking for the opportunity of life.

“It is so easy today for women to fall victim of circumstance. I am so privileged to be alive and breathe, and if it wasn’t for her selflessness and love, I wouldn’t be here today. I can’t imagine the difficulty that comes with the decision of placing your baby into the arms of another woman to raise your baby, but knowing that the love that comes from that act is so much bigger, it is just a thank you to her,” he says.