I want my first blog post for the year 2024 to be that of thanksgiving for the past year. 2023 has been one challenging year for me. I believe, though, that my blessings were bigger than my challenges because I have a big God who kept chasing me with blessings and favors despite my many failures, sins and doubts. My God has been faithful to me even though there were times when I had not been faithful to Him. Thus, I offer this blog post as thanksgivign for His faithfulness, unconditional love and surpassing goodness to me.

Just before 2023 ended, I joined an online year-end retreat again led by Bro. Bo Sanchez. During the online retreat (titled Uncluttered), we were invited to list donw our blessings for the past year. Actually, even before Bro. Bo started the Uncluttered Retreat, it has been my practice to list my blessings for the year before the year ends. I used to do this with my closest friends in college. Now that I’m married, I’m glad that my husband has helped me keep this annual tradition of mine alive and we are passing it also to our children. Even our children list their biggest blessings towards the end of the year. then, we gather as a family on New year’s Eve and share our answers with each other. We cap the night by making a joyful noise to the Lord through a family prayer meeting. This is how we usually end the year after we eat our media noche. We had been doing this family tradition for at least 12 year now.

Let me share 23 blessings that I think had the most impact on my life last year.

1. I’m still alive! Yes, life is a precious gift. There were people who no longer lived to experience year 2023. Thus, you (who are reading this blog post) and I are blessed to be given this opportunity to start and finish year 2023.
2. I got to celebrate my birthday last year with my family. This might seem basic or normal. However, if you pause longer and look around you, you will agree with me that this is not every person’s normal. Not everyone has has complete family. And even if all their family members are still alive, not all families are complete during birthday celebrations for many different reasons. So, I’m thankful for this gift from God — the gift of celebrating another birthday, growing a year older, and celebrating this milestone with my immediate family members complete.
3. 2023 started with me busy preparing for the 1st death anniversary of my father. Time flies, indeed. I felt like I have mourned enough his passing. Anyway, I’m still grateful that I was able to reserve a room in the columbary and find a priest celebrant who celebrated Mass for our family. My immediate family together with my mother and brother were all present. My eldest child was our pianist during the Mass and I was the reader. My husband and kids were the choir. It was a bitter sweet event. I still miss Tatay. Yet I choose to focus on the good that he is no longer enduring any physical pain or any pain whatsoever and our remaining family members were able to celebrate his life and passing to the next life together.
4. My next big blessing for 2023 was that we still got to have another successful homeschool year despite all the challenges in our family (like experiencing and mourning the death of a loved one) and many other challenges. Despite my busyness with work, chores and many other personal concerns, God enabled me to finish homeschooling the kids and comply with the school requirements that we needed to submit to our homeschool provider. We even ended the school year with a Recognition Day for our homeschool.
5. During our school break, we were able to go to the beach. It was the first time for us to go to the beach again since the pandemic happened.
6. Our next big blessing is that we got enroll again with our previous homeschool provider, Frames of Mind School (FMS). This is our second year with them. I’m so grateful for this provider because the tuition fee is very affordable for us. Aside from that, we are still on open curriculum. That means A LOT OF FREEDOM for us as we homeschool. It’s like being independent, but with school records and our kids do not need to take the PEPT or ALS for accreditation since our homeschool provider is DepEd accredited. Having this kind of homeschool set-up gives me peace of mind and less work or worries. If you want to find out more about FMS, read one of my previous blog posts about them here.
7. In line with the previous blessing I listed, I’m also grateful that I’m healthy enough to keep on homeschooling our kids. I’m thankful that in spite of my hectic schedule, especially during the BER months last year, we were still able to continue homeschooling.
8. Why was I extra busy during the BER months? It’s because I published a new children’s book titled Pasko Pa Rin. I wrote this during the pandemic and it was only last year that it was finished. Aside from having it finally printed, we got to launch it as the prestigious Manila International Book Fair. It was my second time to launch a book at the MIBF. The first time I launched a book there, it was also a children’s book. Read in one of my previous blog posts why wrote this Christmas children’s story. It also meant a lot to me that all my immediate family members were present during my book launch last year and that my mother and brother were also there. My mother and brother both inspired the 2 characters in my story. Read more details about my book launch here.
9. On top of launching a new book, I also launched a new outreach, a Christmas outreach. I launched the Buy a Book, Donate a Book Program wherein donors donate money that can be used to buy copies of my latest book Pasko Pa Rin to be donated to poor children around the Philippines. Aside from making book donations, I also conducted storytelling sessions with catechism to the children. By the grace of God and through the generosity of many people, we were able to donate to ALMOST 350 CHILDREN! We were able to donate books to Aeta children in Pampanga, Mangyan children in Mindoro, poor children in Surigao, Catanduanes, Quezon City, Paranaque and Pasay. Another big blessing was that in all these outreaches, my children were with me. You may read about our first Christmas outreach here.
10. Our Parish Priest, Monsignor Melchor David allowed me to launch, promote and sell by latest book in our parish. You may read about this in detail here. We had two outreaches in our parish and we got to donate to around 80 children from developing communities.
11. I got to have a parish book tour in the Diocese of Paranaque and in some branches of The Feast. I was able to promote and sell through a book table at Padre Pio Parish, San Antonio de Padua Parish and Holy Infant Jesus Parish. I also got to launch and sell my book at Feast Sta. Lucia, Feast Bellevue and Feast Bay Area in Aliw Theater.
12. One thing that I also consider a big blessing is that my PC/desktop is still working. There were many times when my computer was not working. It was like telling me that we need to buy a replacement soon. I’m highly-dependent on my computer for the work that I do as an author, blogger, online speaker and coach and WFH HR Consultant. I also use it a lot in our homeschool. I fervently prayed that God would extend the life of my PC and He heard my prayer. We got to save a lot of money! This is still my prayer this year.
13. Our family attended the Feast Conference (formerly Kerygma Conference) again and this time, all our children were with us and they even attended their own classes.
14. We got to attend The Feast onsite again. It was only last year that we went back to attending the Feast onsite since the pandemic.
15. We had a number of field trips again in our homeschool.
16. Our kids got to join onsite chess tournaments again.
17. Our two younger children won medals and a trophy in one of the chess competitions they joined.
18. I had one-to-one dates with my children throughout the year, at least once each month.
19. We had family vacations to celebrate birthdays of our family members.
20. All our children were able to serve actively in the choir again. Since the pandemic has already ended and things were almost back to how they were before, there’s a children’s choir again in our parish and our 2 younger boys were able to sing again in the choir.
21. We were able to attend and complete the Simbang Gabi and Holy Week services/Masses. My eldest child was even the main pianist during Lent and Holy Week last year in our parish. He also served as pianist and singer in a number of Christmas Novena Masses. We were able to attend Masses in church more often and retreats/recollections both onsite and online.
22. We were able to visit my mother and brother regularly in San Mateo, Rizal and celebrate Christmas and birthdays with them. We also got to visit Tatay in the columbary regularly. If there’s one thing that the pandemic has made me so aware and mindful of is that time with our loved ones is not guaranteed. We are all not guaranteed another day with them. So, we need to seize every opportunity to spend time with them.
23. I was able to give taks or conduct online classes on ReSkills almost every month last year.

When Bro. Bo asked us to write our biggest blessings for 2023, he only asked us for 10 blessings. But I listed so much more! It was so hard to limit it to only 10 and even hard to limit it to 23. There’s just a lot to be grateful for!

How about you? Have you made a gratitude list also for the past year? How many big blessings were you able to list?

If you have not tried doing this practice yet, I highly recommend that you try. It’s not yet too late.

This kind of practice or activity enables us to make peace and to appreciate more fully the blessings and good things that we experienced in 2023. It helps us have greater hope and peace as we embrace the new year.