Behind locked doors... My life on Elizabeth Hall: What a day in the life at the Carrier Clinic was like for me..

Twenty years ago today I would step into the out patient program that the Carrier Clinic offered.  It was on the heals of having been an in residence patient for twenty-eight days.  The Carrier Clinic, in their own words, is "One of the largest private, not-for-profit behavioral healthcare facilities in New Jersey."


There could be much written about the days and seasons that preceded the moments I stood on Elizabeth hall and heard the doors shut and lock behind me.  In all honesty it felt like the safest moment of my life.  I did not feel locked in.  I felt like the world was locked out.  It was no longer up to me to keep myself safe, a burden I had carried for far too long.


Twenty years ago I would leave their inpatient program, but the twenty-eight days that I lived within the confines of that hallway gave me back my life.


Having felt like I lost my faith, that I had gone too far, committed sins that were unforgivable, had lived a life beyond repair... I needed truth to be spoken, I needed safety to be established and I needed to meet God all over again.


What I remember most about Elizabeth Hall was the inscription an elderly lady wrote me in my journal the day before I was going to leave...  "You taught me to love God again."  Twenty-eight days....  Had I met God?  In quiet and still ways I began to find my legs again, nothing grand or spectacular... but moments full of grace...


I couldn't pray... I could barely breath...


But there was a chapel right off of Elizabeth Hall that I was allowed to go to... I would sit in that chapel day in and day out for hours,  not in prayer but with song.  I would sit and sit and sit in that chapel, looking at the cross... looking at the windows... I would open my heart up and sing all the songs I had learned in the almost two years that I had known Him.  I would sing.  I couldn't think.  I didn't want to think.  But singing was different.


I would sit there and unbeknown to me a crowd would gather outside the door.  It would be a couple weeks before I realized there was an audience but to me it didn't matter... There was only one I needed to hear my song... So I sang and sang and sang...


The one song that would pour forth from my lips over and over again  would declare that He was the Lord of the Dance, that He was the Lord of my life..  within the lyrics of the song I would find my plea  to be lead forward wherever I would be found..  I needed Him to lead me forward back into life...

I danced in the morning

I danced in the morning 

when the world was begun, 

and I danced in the moon 

and the stars and the sun, 

and I came down from heaven 

and I danced on the earth, 

at Bethlehem 

I had my birth. 

Refrain: 

Dance, then, wherever you may be, 

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, 

and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, 

and I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. 

I danced for the scribe 

and the pharisee, 

but they would not dance 

and they wouldn't follow me. 

I danced for the fishermen, 

for James and John - 

they came with me 

and the dance went on. 

Refrain: 

Dance, then, wherever you may be, 

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, 

and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, 

and I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. 

I danced on the Sabbath 

and I cured the lame; 

the holy people 

said it was a shame. 

they whipped and they stripped 

and they hung me on high, 

and they left me there 

on a Cross to die. 

Refrain: 

Dance, then, wherever you may be, 

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, 

and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, 

and I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. 

I danced on a Friday 

when the sky turned black; 

it's hard to dance 

with the devil on your back. 

They buried my body 

and they thought I'd gone, 

but I am the Dance, 

and I still go on. 

Refrain: 

Dance, then, wherever you may be, 

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, 

and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, 

and I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. 

They cut me down 

and I leapt up high; 

I am the life 

that'll never, never die; 

I'll live in you 

if you'll live in me - 

I am the Lord 

of the Dance, said he. 

Refrain: 

Dance, then, wherever you may be, 

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, 

and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, 

and I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he.