All Rise -- Babbie Mason

Once you hear some details of how her life and this song developed, see what you think. Did Babbie Mason know what she was doing when she decided to step away from teaching as she approached 30 years old? Maybe she already had something in mind a few years earlier when she moved to Georgia (she and her family now live in Carroll County, west of Atlanta – see the map), from where she wrote “All Rise”. Babbie must have had thousands of worship services in her experience by the time the mid-1980s arrived, so it’s not really much of a mystery what spiritual thought sparked the poetic words she crafted for this song. They summon images of an episode she probably had heard illustrated numerous times, a time that she and others had already been dreaming about – Eternity. On Easter, especially, it’s good to allow the mental imagery to take over for a few minutes. Join in!

Though a specific downbeat incident motivated Babbie’s poetry in “All Rise”, the end result expressed in the song she wrote was at the opposite end of the spectrum from what her emotions initially told her how she should feel. Babbie had failed in something she cared dearly about – a music ministry that she really wanted to base her life upon. She had just returned from a music competition, one in which she felt she’d failed, coming in just third. In the aftermath, walking soberly through her home a few weeks later, it suddenly dawned on her the key words that spurred “All Rise” – all believers would one day stand before the Judge of all the earth! So, how did a mere competition rank with that thought? Here was a pastor’s daughter, who had played the piano in church services as a youngster and must have heard her dad speak numerous times on the subject of the afterlife. Babbie had begun her adult life as a teacher in her home state of Michigan, and then at age 25 moved to Georgia, where she continued on that path, at least at first. By the middle of the 1980s she decided to pursue music performance professionally, and one can surmise that “All Rise” was among the first efforts she recorded in this new venture. Though she was far from Michigan, one can presume the mental scenery that she’d remembered from all those sermons growing up must have still been present. Imagine arriving in His presence, to receive the reward of being with Him and being made new yourself; this was what stuck with Babbie from Michigan to Georgia. While Babbie envisioned a ‘holy hush’ (v.1) among all the assembled, the throng wouldn’t be silent for long. ‘We were singing alleluias’ (v.2), and moreover, who could sit still while this was happening? ‘All rise’, she hears the Spirit say, again and again. Arise! Was Babbie indeed thinking of us mimicking Jesus rising at His Father’s command? If it was indeed Easter when Babbie wrote her words, that would be appropriate, but  those stirring thoughts she penned in “All Rise” cannot be confined to a single week of the year. It’s too big. (And, by the way, Babbie returned to that music competition the following year, and was the winner. How appropriate, she won when she focused on the big win in heaven, after experiencing a loss here on earth.)

Babbie might have had the words of any of several scriptures to stimulate her musical composition about people rising. Just think of what the ancient apostle said to a group from Thessalonica (1 Thess. 4:16). Or, how about what this same writer said to those in Ephesus (5:14)? He said much the same in the presence of the highest authority of his time (Acts 26:23). Could we say that he too was inspired, years later, by a rising among his own generation, when the Son had said that a guy named Lazarus would emerge from a grave (John 11:23-24)?  What about what an ancient prophet said to stir the people of his time (Isaiah 60:1)? There’s many, many more. God must want us to know something, beyond a shadowy doubt. This rising isn’t to be missed. Babbie is just underscoring it for all of us one more time. If you feel defeated like Babbie did that day in Atlanta, think how that earthly episode ranks –or really doesn’t – with what awaits you and me on the great gettin’ up morning! Now, get up!

The source for the song story is the book “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008.

Watch this recording of the author-composer singing the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7EFZgKLrtQ

Read her biography here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbie_Mason

See also this link: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/babbie-mason-b-1955

Here’s the author-composer’s official site: http://www.babbie.com/index.php?id=3

You’re the One – Babbie Mason

The story of a song sometimes doesn’t really need an explanation. The words seem to line up with what one knows about the writer. Babbie Mason felt the need to express what was obvious in her life in 1991, when she wrote “You’re the One” in 1991, perhaps with the same sort of inspiration that compels a mate to vocalize feelings with three little words. ‘I love you’ someone often says, doesn’t really need to be said, yet we do anyway. In the same way, I need to tell Him that He’s my axis. Everything revolves around Him. Meet Babbie Mason, and see how she makes that statement in her life.




Babbie Mason is multi-talented, but single-minded. She composes and sings (obviously), speaks at conferences, has a television talk show, writes books, and generally lifts those whom she contacts with the Spirit. Yes, she’s known through things called ‘Embrace’, a ministry directed at women in this culture who struggle with so many challenges, especially in their marriages. She is a regular at women’s conferences headed by Beth Moore, Ann Graham Lotz, and Kay Arthur, no doubt in large part because of the wealth of musical talent that has earned her two Dove awards. Her television show ‘Babbie’s House’ is beamed not only to houses in the U.S.A., but also in Europe, northern Africa, and Asia. Could she have imagined all this back in the early 1980s, when she was a schoolteacher? She’d taught school in Michigan and then in her native Georgia, before deciding in 1984 that her life should be directed musically toward God. It probably was not an impulsive decision, as she had had many generations of believers in her family and had been an integral part of the musical ministry in the church in which her father was a pastor. ‘You’re the One’ were no doubt already familiar words in her life, even if she hadn’t yet put them in a song. He was and is her focus, a choice she has made and a truth-experience that is deeply embedded in her, as you can read in an interview she gave (see it here: http://www.faithtalks.com/posts/babbie-mason/ ).



What would make someone choose another? Babbie Mason doesn’t really try to answer that question, including what motivated her as a 36-year old woman to say what was already apparent in 1991. Her only hint at the impetus is in the song’s third verse, in which she tells Him that His providence uniquely provides freedom. He is the one. The rest of her verses describe how that realization plays out among us believers. Perhaps Babbie had an epiphany, discovering the extent of this freedom He provides. Knowing her biography also tells us that she had already appreciated this liberty for some time, so maybe the song and her life tell us something important about Him and our relationship with Him. He offers us this gift that we can accept in an instant, but it doesn’t stop there. It grows, or maybe ‘mushrooms’ would be a better verb. Its layers fold over us as life extends, like pages that we can look back upon and remember and appreciate. The crescendo becomes more clear as we age, recalling how He has provided, and what reward awaits us. Try on this freedom, feel it grow!



Check out the following links to read about the composer:



http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3181&hl=y



http://www.babbie.com/index.php?id=7