Here are the stats: Montgomery, Alabama is where I was born and raised. Birmingham, Alabama is where I received ten years of higher education. New York, New York is where I worked and met my husband.

Here is the story: Montgomery is where I first heard about God. Birmingham is where he allowed me to become utterly broken. And New York is where he put me back together.

I often refer to the Worst Two Years of My Life because I have a flair for the melodramatic and because, well, they were. And they occurred at the end of my time in Birmingham, when I was in a residency to learn how to repair kids’ broken teeth. Meanwhile, my world was crumbling. My friends and little sister were all getting married and having babies and settling down into their grown-up, stable happy endings as I pretended to be a contestant on my own reality show, Let’s See Who Can Make the Worst Decisions. School was a nightmare–the formerly perfect student seemed to be capable of nothing but screwing up. I was seeing a counselor and occasionally, God, but every day I was more overwhelmed with the desire to escape my own life. I considered quitting school, working at Banana Republic for the discount, becoming a carny–anything but what I was doing. I would often drive to a nearby neighborhood, where a church parking lot sat on a cliff overlooking the city, and sit in my car and sob. I don’t remember what my actual prayer was during those tortured moments, but hindsight and honesty tell me now that I was mourning the shattering of my own plan for my life and taking God to task for not saving me from this mess.

I was completely, utterly defeated. And had I not been, New York never would have happened.

When I told people I was moving to Manhattan, they called me brave. But I knew the truth: I was the opposite of brave; I was running. And within months of getting there, I was broke. But I had a date every Sunday night at Hunter College with the Truth, and it had indeed set me free. I was learning that the God of my youth–the Jesus Loves Me (If I Do Everything Right) God–had been misrepresented. I was learning that his love didn’t always look like success (suck it, Joel Osteen. No really–SUCK IT) and smooth sailing; that we had not in fact struck a deal way back when that exchanged my good behavior for his favors. I was learning how much bigger, more terrifying, and better it was to be a part of the narrative of grace and held by scarred hands that I couldn’t control.

Sometimes it looked like standing on the edge of a cliff and walking forward.

Last weekend, The Husband and I drove to Birmingham for a friend’s wedding. We dropped by J and H’s and caught up with them as their son told stories in his new, non-Southern accent and their daughter sucked down yogurt like she was preparing for a competition with Joey Chestnut on Coney Island. Then we checked into our hotel and as I threatened my hair with the curling iron, I heard TH mutter, “You have got to be kidding me.” Turned out he had brought his suit but no dress shirt. A quick call to the front desk sent him on a walk around the corner to a men’s clothing store specializing in overpriced garb. He came home empty-handed and we considered our options: drive to the mall and miss the ceremony, or improvise.

Minutes later, we were headed to the church: I in my purple dress; he in his suit jacket, suit pants, and golf shirt with a tie around the neck.

It was the right choice for a couple of reasons: one, we laughed about it all night and let others in on the joke (the virtue of not taking yourself and your wardrobe too seriously, especially at a Southern wedding, is not to be underestimated); and two, it got us to the ceremony–the first one we’ve witnessed since our own. And as the words were spoken and vows taken, I remembered why we need to hear our own stories over and over. Stories of searching and finding, of building upon rocks and choosing love when other options would be more convenient. We live in a world where lies are easier to believe than the truth, lies like one bite won’t hurt and the grass is always greener and you’re not being taken care of and this is all there is. Lies of faithlessness and ingratitude and arrogance dressed up as ambition and wisdom and self-reliance.

Sometimes, all it takes to reveal the deceit is a story.

Later, at the after-after party, one of my BFs told me that she gets it now, the enmeshment of TH’s and my lives when we got together and gave each other our time even when it meant forsaking all others. She gets it because she has reached that part of her own story, and I love it when my happy ending  is joined by a friend’s and there are new beginnings and the stories continue (and maybe, just a little, when validation occurs). I love it that I took TH to my former cliff and in a place where so much misery was poured out, I was able to look up, dry-eyed and joyful, and acknowledge the one who wrote the story, who carried me on waves of grace that refused to let up until they led me home.