Mingled in a dream that included family at the beach as well as unfamiliar children asking to play on a trampoline, I am recalling “Psalm 90”.

The Spirit of God interspersed just that in a dream that included my mama being a given a healing prognosis, “Now, you’ll have a chance to really live!”

Maybe it was the beautiful and educational sermon on Sunday on heaven.

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭90‬:‭2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Maybe it was the call from “Aunt Boo” my mama’s sister. She talked about crocheting. Maybe I tucked away the visual of her teaching my mama, the memory of their back and to sister chatter.

Who knows? Around 3, I woke and tossed and then recited mentally, over and over, Psalm 23.

Imperfectly still, after all these years of using this chapter to calm me. For some reason, portions and not the entire Psalm linger longer than others and I drift off to sleep.

All my days have been a meandering sort of trail. A pause to consider, I’ve been in the darkness, I’ve lived in the dread, I’ve found myself off course because of conflict or circumstance.

David knew. He did too.

And so, his words aren’t ones of a perfect follower. Instead, a perfect “returner” to the place where he and God dwell together safely.

I used to believe “all the days of my life” meant the actual dwelling place of Jesus…heaven.

Again, instead…David is acknowledging and giving us permission to acknowledge the beauty we can claim as our own here…

As long as my lungs are providing me with breath and my heart is beating…I am dwelling with God, and He with me.

We are together.

I am known. I am seen.

I am invited to keep returning to rest.

Why Psalm 90 mixed in with a captivating dream of life getting another chance for my mama?

Psalm 90 is one penned by Moses.

It opens with this.

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭90‬:‭1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There were other people in the big bright room with my mama, not just my brothers and sister. My children were there too.

Psalm 90 closes with an acknowledgement of what had not and has not been without affliction. Moses offers us his prayer back then as a promise and prayer we can choose today.

“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭90‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Favor” here meaning “beauty”.

Return to beauty today.

Embrace grace. More than you expected, the grace you’ve been shown.

The grace that you know.

Continue and believe.

Dwell in peace.

“Now you can begin to live”, the words promised to my mama in my dream.

And to us all.

Begin.

Begin again.