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