When people called them a power couple Michael knew it was because of Sarah. She was the strongest and most positive woman he had ever known and the glue that kept their family together. They met on a sales call years before and, for him, it was love at first sight. For her, it took a few years. When she finally let her guard down and opened her heart to him, Michael, being the salesman he was, made her an offer that turned out to be the best sale of his life. Over the years Sarah’s strength and resolve never wavered as they built a house, a marriage, a family, and now a business together. But for the first time she seemed fearful. Building a house didn’t scare her. Giving birth without drugs, twice, didn’t scare her. Even putting everything they owned into their new business didn’t scare her. But ever since that day in the hospital, she was fearful of losing Michael, and when she walked in the door from work that night, she looked like someone had died.

She didn’t want to tell him. In fact, she tried not to but couldn’t hide her despair. Michael made her talk and she shared that they had lost their biggest client. The contract would run for two more months, but then they were done.

“I knew I shouldn’t have taken time off,” Michael yelled.

“It wasn’t because you took time off,” she said, trying to calm him down. “It was because of our service. We didn’t serve the account well enough. We grew too fast beyond our ability to serve the client. You know it was something we talked a lot about. We feared this would happen and it did.”

“I need to come back tomorrow,” he said.

“No, you aren’t!” she yelled as the kids walked out from the rooms where they were doing homework.

“What’s the matter?” their daughter asked as their son started to cry.

“I have to go think,” Michael said as he walked to his office and shut the door before falling to the floor and lying down on his back. The first image he saw was a CLOSED sign on their office door and a FORECLOSED sign on their front lawn. This was their biggest client. How could they survive without them? He didn’t have an answer. For the first time in his life he didn’t have a solution. For the first time in years, he started to cry. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to get through this on his own. He would need to find a different source of strength to overcome this. “What do I do now?” he shouted as he looked up to the ceiling. “Help me. Please give me strength!”

In that moment a feeling of peace came over him and ideas started to flood his mind. He was filled with the belief that everything happens for a reason and good things would come from this. He began talking to himself, remembering the encouraging words his older brother George used to say to him. George had met a bus driver who changed his life, and ever since he would call Michael once in a while to talk and share a positive message with him. Michael looked at the positive pledge on his desk and gathered himself. About 10 minutes later he walked outside to where Sarah was sitting at the table. She was shocked when he said, “Our purpose is greater than our challenges. This happened for a reason. It’s going to make us better and stronger in the future. We’ve been relying on this one big client for too long and it just means we have to find more clients to spread out our business and our risk. We’ll begin tomorrow when I come back to the office.”

“I agree with you about everything except the part where you are coming back tomorrow,” Sarah said with such resolve that Michael knew it would be hard to argue with her. “I’d rather lose the business than you. You can come back in a week. One more week to rest and recharge and then you can come back. We still have two more months before the contract ends. I can work to improve customer service immediately and talk to our sales team, and when you come back you can focus on getting a few clients to keep us above water. You’ll have plenty of time.”

“Fine,” said Michael sheepishly. He didn’t agree with her but figured even he could do a week. Besides he was thrilled she said only a week. He thought she was going to make him stay away for a month.

“There’s just one caveat,” Sarah said. “You have to see the doctor first and get some tests done before you come back. Deal?”

“Deal,” Michael said, knowing he was being outsold by a techie. “I’ll even go see the dentist and get a root canal if it means I can start selling again.” Nothing was going to stop him from coming back to work. In the meantime he was going to research potential clients he could sell and close quickly. His family, his business, and his future depended on it.