My 11-year-old son, Josh, is in Little League and his baseball season just started. In his two games so far he has been eager to hit a home run, too eager. In fact, he has three strike outs in four at-bats and his coach had to pull me aside to tell me "Your son won't be hitting any home runs this year and the sooner he gets that in his head, the sooner he'll start getting hits." So, yesterday I took Josh and his little sister to a nearby field to do some hitting. My goal was to get Josh to swing for base hits, not home runs. So I made it a contest. I showed him two $5 bills and told him that he could have both if he could hit two home runs. I then threw him ~50 pitches, most of which he hit. But only one of his hits came within even thirty feet of being a home run. Then I changed the rules. I pointed out where he had been hitting the balls and I gave him a new challenge: Get five consecutive good hits and you'll earn one of the $5 bills. Twenty pitches later, he had earned the money.

When I was very young, I found a pair of very special glasses. Little did I know, at least at first, that they were magical glasses. When I wore them, I saw things... differently.

My first hint that there was something special about these glasses came when I was seven years old. I was wearing the glasses while playing baseball with my friends. Our team was losing but only needed two runs to win. With one runner on base and two outs I came up to bat. I hit a ball very deep to the outfield. I watched as the ball went over the line for a game-winning home run. No one else seemed to see it that way though. The other team insisted that their outfielder had caught the ball and that I was out. I saw a win for my team. They saw a win for their team. My teammates wanted to see it my way and so we could not agree on who won the game.

Years later, while wearing the glasses, I saw myself getting all kinds of good grades. I aced tests, turned in all my homework, and paid full attention in class. One day, my teacher took my glasses off and accused me of stealing other people's homework and cheating. The evidence was pretty clear that I did, but I didn't want to see it that way, so I put the glasses back on.

Ever kept a secret you shouldn't have? Perhaps it was a secret about something you did or wanted to do that you didn't want others to know about. Perhaps it was something someone else did that you knew was wrong. Often times we are tempted to keep these things hidden deep inside, especially after we have lied about them! Once we lie about something, the truth is locked away like an encrypted launch code for a nuclear rocket. A lot of internal red tape is required to decrypt it. Even when you want to tell the truth, your pride may forbid you from doing so, causing an inner battle.

I spent a lot of time in swimming pools while growing up, and there seemed to always be other kids my age to play with. During various periods in my life, I made acquaintances with boys who had an affinity for drowning games. It was "fun" to hold the other under water for as long as we could. It wasn't a matter of simply putting weight on the other. No, we actively resisted allowing the other to come to the surface for air. Sometimes the one under the water would struggle hard enough to break free to the surface on his own. Other times, the one above the surface had to forfeit the fight lest the other fill his lungs with water and ultimately die. I don't remember why we played these games or what we thought was fun about them, but I do recall several of the times that I was the one under the water battling for passage to the surface. Air is a precious thing that is so common that we completely take it for granted in our day-to-day lives. When it is withheld from us, though, our desire to get it back becomes our number one priority making all other desires inconsequential. I remember moments underwater when I wasn't sure if I'd ever have air again. In fact, I have inhaled water countless times. In those moments, fear and panic overtook me in ways that I have never experienced in any other circumstances. Death was pounding on my door.