775) Teaching middle school kids spelling skills is an enormous challenge. I believe there are many reasons for this but, in class, when we’re going through the weekly spelling list, my students and I have a chant that we usually wind up saying at least once a week. When I spell a specific word out for them and they are checking their first attempts at spelling them, a student will often say, “Ah, I only missed it by one letter–that ought to count” and then, we chant, “It’s either all-right or all-wrong. You either are pregnant or you’re not; there is no almost.” We usually laugh through the whole chant, but the kids get the message.

Barely making it, coming through it, surviving it, is still making it, coming through it and surviving it. It’s either God saved you or He didn’t. David knew this, as we see in Psalm 40:1-3. He tells us that God heard his cry and lifted him out of the pit and mire. God set his feet on a rock and gave him a new song. What we don’t read is if David felt it was “barely.” Perhaps this is because he knew that being saved, even if it was “barely,” is still being saved. Just getting by is still getting by.