Last night, I experienced something I’m not sure I ever have before. I dreamed I was making ice cream with my grandma and grandpa.

There we were again, just like when I was a kid, turning that old hand-crank machine on the back patio. The four of us (my brother, Dan, too) were taking turns as it got harder with each spin, bare feet on the warm concrete, and the summer sun hot on our skin. Grandma handed me a spoon with the first taste of vanilla… still soft, a little too cold for my teeth, and absolutely perfect. Grandpa laughed like he always did, like we were getting away with something special. This scene was not just a dream, but exactly like it happened when I was a kid. I had a dream of a memory! When I woke up, my heart was full, and my eyes were misty.

It made me wonder: Has anyone else ever dreamed a real memory before? A moment so real, it traveled through time to find you again, maybe to remind you that love doesn’t vanish. That the people who shaped us still walk with us in little ways… in tastes, in laughter, in dreams.

I think God sometimes uses those dreams to bless us with a holy kind of remembering, like He’s saying, “Look what I gave you. Look what shaped you. Look who you carry.” And in that remembering, there’s both joy and ache, gratitude and longing, a spoonful of sweetness, and a quiet tear.

Psalm 143:5 says, “I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.” (Maybe that includes hand-cranked ice cream, too.)

So this morning, I’m thankful… for the dream, for the memory, for the simple joy of homemade vanilla with the people who loved me into who I am. And I’m hopeful that maybe heaven smells a little like cream and sugar, and sounds like my grandparents laughing on the patio.

And if you’ve had a dream like that, one that felt more like a gift than a sleep-time story, I hope you hold it close. It might just be a little whisper from above, saying, “You are still so deeply loved.”