The year 2020 could have been the most difficult year so far in our lives. But it doesn’t mean that there aren’t good or great things that happened this year.

I have decided to pause from the busyness of holiday preparations so I can write this annual blog post documenting my biggest blessings for the year that was and the biggest lessons that I learned.

I was supposed to write this blog post last night but I realized I still had a lot of blessings to write about so I have decided to write about a different and shorter post yesterday instead.

2020 Biggest Blessings

1. Our family’s biggest blessing this year is that WE ARE ALL STILL ALIVE despite this Covid-19 pandemic! No one in our immediate family or extended family got sick with Covid-19. Thanks be to God for His mercy and protection! Many families have been infected by this virus this year and some of their family members died because of it. This was my biggest fear this year and I am relieved that none of our family members were infected by the virus.
2. Our family’s second-biggest blessing for the year is that my husband, finally, found a new job. He started a few businesses after leaving his previous company around 2 years ago. However, the sales were slow. So, he started applying for a job again last year. Then, in January of this year, a company hired him. Although he had to take a pay cut, we were grateful for it. He was assured of a regular income, at least.
3. Our third-biggest blessing this year is that their company decided that most of their employees will work from home while there is a pandemic. That included my husband. I was so relieved because I didn’t want him to go out of the house out of fear that he might contract the virus. Working from home also enabled him to spend more time with me and the children. Thus, we had more bonding moments with him. He also saved a lot on food and transportation expenses since he eats home-cooked meals and works from his home office. Their company also gave their employees internet subsidy which helped us cover the cost of our internet connection.
4. Our other big blessing, which probably equals #2 and #3, is that there were churches that live-streamed or recorded their Masses. Because of this, I was still able to attend daily Masses and Sunday Masses with my family. I was even able to join adorations of the Blessed Sacrament during the First Fridays of the month for the whole year! We have also completed the Simbang Gabi. We were able to attend Lenten and Advent recollections. I’m so grateful for these blessings of online church services and activities!
5. Another big blessing that I received was the grace to still write, finish, and publish a new book last April. The lockdown has just started and I was unsure if I still had to push through with this goal and dream but God gave me enough grace to fulfill it. You can read more about this blessing here.
6. Next to #5 is the blessing of submitting that book as my entry this year in the Cardinal Sin Catholic Book Awards. I’m happy to share that I did not only qualify as a Finalist but I also bagged the trophy for the E-Books Category again this year, making me win this award for 3 consecutive years! I give back the glory to God who made this miracle possible. I wrote about this miracle here.
7. Our next big blessing is that we still got to enroll our 3 kids with a homeschool provider even though we had financial difficulties this year. I was also grateful that our provider extended us a sibling discount in their tuition fees and that they had an installment plan. This helped us a lot.
8. I’m also grateful that we are homeschooling and not online schooling. Our kids are thriving in our set-up and have improved much. To learn more what’s the difference between real homeschooling and online schooling, I invite you to read my previous blog post on the topic.
9. Another big blessing is that I have found suppliers of almost all of our needs that deliver to our place of residence and that accept online payments. This is such a big stress reliever! This also helped us be protected from the virus because my husband and I need not go out to buy our basic needs. We just contact the suppliers and place our orders and they deliver the products to us. Then, we settle the payment online. It’s so convenient. It also saves us a lot of time.
10. I’m grateful that I can continue to work from home by giving talks, being an online mompreneur, coaching people, and blogging or writing. I had been working from home for a decade at least and I’m really thankful to God that He has put me in this path even before this pandemic happened. I was still able to give talks and workshops but these were done online already this year. One of the good things that this quarantine has brought about is that we got to record my talks and workshops and they are now available for those who missed them. People can just pay for access to learn from these video recordings. This was something that my husband and I had been planning to do in the past but we were quite slow in implementing our plan. The pandemic and quarantine forced us to do more of these online talks and workshops and record them and make them available as digital products in our online shop. So, if you need to learn more about homeschooling, giftedness, parenting, and earning while at home and hands-on with your kids, check out the new video talks in our online shop.
11. Another big blessing is that we still got to celebrate the special occasions in our family like the birthdays of each family member and our wedding anniversary. Our celebrations in the past were relatively simple. Our celebrations this year were much simpler but we are thankful that still got to celebrate our birthdays during this pandemic. Many people didn’t even get to celebrate their birthdays anymore this year.
12. Another big blessing for us is that we can do virtual calls with our extended families. We may not be able to visit them physically like before but, at least, we still get to see them virtually.
13. I’m also grateful that even though my parents’ house in San Mateo was flooded again during Typhoon Ulysses, my parents and younger brother were safe. We also received financial help from generous people after they learned of what happened to my parents’ house.
14. Another blessing is that I got to update my blog regularly this year. there were only 3 months when I published one blog post only. For the rest of the months, I published at least two blog posts. There were even months when I wrote 4 blog posts. That was because I wrote a lot of posts about homeschooling this year to help parents who are new to homeschooling.
15. Last but not the least, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to help fellow parents through the homeschool support groups that I created during this pandemic. If you are new to homeschooling or considering homeschooling, I invite you to join the Homeschooling Parents Support Group PH on Facebook.

There really is so much to be grateful for! These are just some of the blessings our family received this year. All we need is some time to stop and recall the good things that have happened to us this year.

Now, let’s move on to the biggest lessons that I learned or that God reminded me of this year.

2020 Biggest Lessons Learned

These lessons are in no particular order.

1. God is faithful. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
2. God provides. His timing is always perfect. It took a while before my husband found a new job. But he found a new job when we needed it the most. He found a job when most people lost their jobs. That is a miracle! He found a regular job when I lost my HR and Consulting clients because my clients were in the non-essentials business category. Their businesses were closed for many months during the quarantine.
3. God can bring out something good even in the most challenging or seemingly ugly circumstances.
4. Do not give up on your dreams and goals. There are dreams and goals that you can still achieve even during the pandemic.
5. God always makes a way for His people.
6. We need to change with the times. we need to keep on growing and improving ourselves.
7. We need to find new ways of earning and finding new clients.
8. We can still help others no matter how little we have.
9. We can help through our skills and knowledge or wisdom. Help need not be financial all the time.
10. Being home with your family is enough reason to celebrate every day, to be happy and thankful to God.

How about you? What are your biggest blessings and lessons learned this 2020? I hope you make time to do this exercise also. It’s a great way to end the year.