LIFE AS IT IS

Chapter 1

Dedicated to my sisters.

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"Gentlemen, please excuse me! " The woman rose from where she was seated to leave. Clay put his hands in the air and blurted out with frustration, "Hey, hey! You can't just walk that door. We are in the middle of a million dollars contract."

She looked up at him with those big brown eyes and inquired, "Well, didn't my assistant inform you that I'll be needing a prayer break?" With a bit of confusion Clay thought to himself, A prayer break? Are you kidding me?

"How about you delay it a little more until we come to an agreement because I have a very busy schedule and my other clients are waiting for me right outside this door." He said convincingly without taking a breathe. The woman innocently blinked those long eyelashes of hers in amusement and replied, "So is God!"

As Clay tried to recover from this gut shot delivered by a woman he barely knew, he attempted to make sense of what she had just said. Yes, his parents and others had tried to talk to him about the number of hours he was working, but he wasn't buying what they were selling.

There in the conference room, surrounded by walls covered with his success stories, looking into her puzzled eyes, Clay could see she was beginning to wonder just who he was and what he was all about.

At that moment, he was wondering the same thing. How did he let work become the most important thing in his life? When did he stop praying? Why was he an absent son? Why was he choosing work over his family?

Sometimes, choosing the right thing is difficult. Sometimes, it seems impossible. And sometimes, the right thing has significant consequences. The road we are about to enter is a long one. We cannot promise its ease. We cannot guarantee a certain conclusion. All we can say with certainty is this - it is right and it is obedient to the commands of God.

Who is this woman? Clay wondered as she walked out his building.

The meeting certainly went smoothly. She joined as the Vice President and director of mergers and acquisitions for his company. Before leaving that evening, Clay instructed his assistant to pull out every possible information about Ashley Shore. Never had any other woman spoke to him like this before.

Over the years that followed Clay had developed a mildly delusional obsession over her. He wanted nothing else in his life but her. She had become his drug. He would eat Ashley, sleep Ashley and breathe Ashley. He was head over heels in love with her. From the food she ate to the shoes she wore, he simply knew it all.