Adie Camp knows the trials and tribulations of a stay-at-home mom of two small children. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. The 28-year-old is learning the art of becoming unselfish. “As a mom you don’t get much of a break,” she says. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s a whole other life you’re pouring into. In that I’ve learned more about the Lord’s heart for us. Nothing bad can come from learning how to be unselfish. It’s like all of a sudden what God wants for us becomes a whole lot more clearer.”
Adie peppers everyday problems with an eternal perspective. It’s a worldview she’s developed from a daily walk with the Lord. As a singer, worship leader, wife of recording artist Jeremy Camp and mother, Adie’s plate is full each day, so she doesn’t dare start it without time carved out with God. “I feel like in our society we’re just getting busier and busier and it’s grabbing our focus and attention away from the Lord,” she says. “Ultimately at the end of the day it’s our relationship with the Lord and our heart toward Him that really is the most important thing.”
This is the driving theme behind her sophomore solo album, Just You and Me. The title is inspired by the last track on the album called “Only You,” which was Adie’s favorite song to lead in worship in her near two-year stint as the worship leader at her church in Nashville. “It was just one of those things where I felt every time we played it I felt like it was just me and the Lord in that moment. It was just such a unique experience to have when you’re leading worship. If anything just a reoccurring theme that I feel the Lord is teaching me in my life is it’s just me and Him, even with being married and having kids and all these things going on.”
Adie home schools her two children, Isabella, 5, and Arianne, 3 1/2. This gives the family the flexibility they need to travel and to spend time with Jeremy. “We’re dealing with life just like everybody else,” Adie says. “We all have our struggles. We all have our bad days. As a mom sometimes you feel like you’re going crazy. In that, I hope I can encourage people to just go to the Lord. For me as a mom there’s no way I could do it unless I work on my relationship with the Lord on a day-to-day basis. It’s like plugging into your power supply. It’s like I’ve got to charge all the way up before I can handle the day and do ministry alongside Jeremy.”
That relationship with the Lord sustained her during one of the darkest times she’s ever experienced. In the middle of the recording process, Adie miscarried a baby in the second trimester. After taking a two-week break, she returned to the studio and recorded the song, “Shelter.” “The words are Oh God I need you/ I need you here with me/I know you hear me/ You’re my shelter in the storm. That song was exactly what I felt in that moment. Even now, every time I hear it I just tear up. It speaks about God being the shelter of my heart and the protector of my soul. It’s amazing how in those hard, devastating moments I felt such a closeness with the Lord. I didn’t feel for a moment that God had forgotten about us or that it wasn’t in His hands. That was very special for me.”
For now, Adie is focusing on her family at hand. She has stepped away from leading worship at her church and is helping her family live as intentionally as possible. Through Jeremy’s ministry, Speaking Louder Ministries, she and Jeremy are exposing her girls to the needs of the world – whether on the road or at home – and how they can help make it a better place. “It’s all about going out and reaching out to the community,” Adie says.
Adie, who is from South Africa, says her parents were really good at exposing her to the needs of the community at a young age, and she really valued the experience. “It really grew my heart toward people in need,” she says. “As a mom I want to encourage my girls to do that and obviously one of the best ways it to encourage by example.”
With her debut album, Adie opened on Jeremy’s tour and will do so again this Spring. This past fall she was involved with the “Speaking Louder Ministries” by visiting homeless shelters, boys’ homes and children’s hospitals between concerts. “We both feel like God’s given us such a passion for that and we’re excited that we get to do it together and take our girls with us,” she says. “And our girls really have a heart for it as well without us really saying anything. One day I came into the playroom and Bella was making a whole big pile of things she wanted to give to kids who didn’t have anything, and that was totally by herself.”
As a mother, Adie couldn’t be prouder or more content – in spite of the loss she’s experienced. “One of the things that Jeremy and I said to each other after the miscarriage is that, you know, when it comes to eternity it doesn’t matter how many kids we have or if we have a little boy or not. Those are wonderful blessings we get to enjoy here on earth. We are so incredibly blessed to have the healthy family that we do and that we have the ability to go out and minister with each other. That’s really where our hearts are now.”
Just each other … and God. It’s everything and enough for Adie.