According to Wikipedia ….

In the beginning, various groups in India wrote eight more or less in one stroke as a curve that looks like an uppercase H with the bottom half of the left line and the upper half of the right line removed. At one point this glyph came close to looking like our modern five. With the western Ghubar Arabs, the similarity of the glyph to five was banished by connecting the beginning and the end of stroke together, and it was only a matter of the Europeans rounding the glyph that led to our modern eight.

What is 8?

• In physics, the second magic number
• There are eight known B vitamins
• All spiders, and generally all arachnids, have eight legs
• An octopus has eight tentacles
• Timothy Leary identified a hierarchy of eight levels of consciousness
• The atomic number of oxygen
• The Jewish religious rite of brit milah is held on a baby boy’s eighth day of life
• Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday that starts on the 25th day of Kislev
• A note played for one-eighth the duration of a whole note is called an eighth note, or quaver
• Eight ball billiards is played with 15 balls; the black ball numbered 8 being the most important one
• In liquid measurement (U.S. customary units), there are 8 fluid ounces in a cup, 8 pints in a gallon, and 8 tablespoons in a gill
• There are eight vegetables in V8 juice
• …. and the list goes on and on ….!!

Irene drove herself to and from dialysis this morning and has been preparing all afternoon for family visiting us this weekend.  She’s enjoying the longer days of daylight and is looking forward to daylight savings time so she can work outside even more often!  She’s been eating candied “ginger” the last couple of days and it appears to give some degree of nausea relief!  Yay!!!!!!

So, why all of the emphasis today on number 8?  It’s because today is Irene’s 8 month stem cell transplant birthday.  It’s hard to believe that the transfusion took place at UCSF on June 15, 2007.

As humans, we tend to measure just about EVERYTHING because it gives context to all that we’re constantly comparing and contrasting!!!

It’s also a way of gaining understanding and wisdom.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

We don’t know what the future holds, but we know WHO holds the future and we’re grateful that He numbers our days.

Caminando con Fé

Dave