1992 - This is the second of the only two songs I wrote in the year 1992. I didn’t write anything in 1993, and only had two in 1994 as well. 1995 was a bit more prolific with four songs penned. Then comes a very long dry spell until 2002. This one I worked on again in my little studio in Lemon Grove. I was experimenting with layering vocals and ended up with six or seven vocal tracks. I doubled the melody voice and then did four tracks of the harmony. For the chorus, the harmony vocals consisted of a syncopated drone note. I thought it sounded cool and pretty unique; others didn’t share in my enthusiasm. I was playing electric guitar along with Steve & Diane Dahlen, Tim Cook on acoustic, Hank on bass and Tammy Cook and Renee Garner on vocals. Renee liked it and said she could hear trumpets in the background, but Steve didn’t want to play it, so it got shelved. Since Kaleb was born this year, I thought it would be a good place to include a condensed version of the story of his birth.
Garrett was our fourth child and our only son. Since the pregnancies had become increasingly difficult, we decided to permanently disable my ability to procreate. So when my wife came up pregnant a fifth time, we both became perplexed as to how this could be and what God had planned for this “miracle” child. In the seventh month of this pregnancy, my wife was feeling overwhelmed and asked God to tell her the sex of the baby and what to name it. It took quite a while, but one evening during home fellowship, God spoke to her very clearly. The baby jumped in her womb like no other baby had before and she instantly knew it was a boy. Then she saw his name in what appeared to be green neon letters- K A L E B. She kept quiet that night, and told me after the meeting and I agreed to name the baby Caleb if it was a boy (I was quite skeptical at that time). I didn’t like the trend of making up alternate spellings of names, so I insisted we spell it with a “C” and not “K” as she had envisioned.
When he was born, he had very light hair and over time a dark patch started to grow in the middle of his head. It was quite black and stood out in stark contrast to most of his blondish hair color. The dark patch was unmistakably in the shape of a “K”. So at this point, we decided to start spelling his name “Kaleb”. Because of all this, we have always felt that God had some special purpose for Kaleb, although I’m quite sure he has that for all of us. Or maybe He was just teaching us how to hear from Him and to trust and obey when He spoke. Either way, it’s a pretty cool story! Now for the song….
INTO THE HEAVENLIES
© 1992 Words & Music by Reginald M. Michaud(ref Revelation 5:12)
Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb that was slain
Heaven and the earth are filled up with His glorious Name
So lift us from this barren land my Lord Into the heavenlies
Make us citizens of Your abode Up in the heavenlies
Guide our paths in truth and light my Lord Into the heavenlies
Enter in the Holy Spirit’s joy Up in the heavenlies
Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain
Glory, honor, wisdom to all who call on His Name
So lift us from this barren land my Lord Into the heavenlies
Make us citizens of Your abode Up in the heavenlies
Guide our paths in truth and light my Lord Into the heavenlies
Enter in the Holy Spirit’s joy Up in the heavenlies