“The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all.” This is from Psalm 34:19.

I think this Bible verse perfectly captures my experience in 2024. It was like I never ran out of challenges and concerns that brought me worries and heartache. But, through it all, God’s grace and faithfulness carried me through and enabled me to emerge victorious.

Thus, let me share my 24 biggest blessings in 2024. I actually wrote more than 24 last December 31 when I listed my biggest blessings for the year. (This is one of my annual traditions or habits that I started even as a teenager and which I taught and passed on to my children every New Year’s Eve.) But, for this blog post, I will only share my 24 biggest blessings.

#1 My number one biggest blessing is that that I continue to be alive, I survived 2024, and reached 2025! The gift of our lives is something many take forgranted. But if we pause and really think about it, we are all blessed to continue to be given the opportunity to live. According to homework.study.com, around 105 people die every minute. That number may vary depending on the country and the cause of death. Let this fact sink in. 105 people die every minute and here we are still alive at this moment. We are given another day and another year to live and experience the beauty of life.

For people who had health issues or concerns in the past year, like myself, this is significant. This is a huge blessing from the Lord. I shared in one blog post last year that I am already experiencing perimenopuase symptoms. My health concerns last year were all related to it. For the first time, since my childhood, I was hospitalized. This is only the second time I was hospitalized in my lifetime (not including the 3 times I gave birth in a hospital without any complications). It was a scary time for me. Thus, I’m so thankful that I continue to be alive in 2025 and I was given another year to be in the lives of my loved ones.

#2 All my immediate and extended family members are still alive and no one was hospitalized last year! Again, life is precious and unpredictable. Every day and moment we are given to spend time with our loved ones should be treasured. It will be my father’s 3rd death anniversary this month. Thus, I am thankful that my mother and brother are still alive. I’m also grateful that my immediate family members did not have any serious illness this past year that required hospitalization.

#3 My husband was regularized in his new job last year and because of this, we had HMO again that we got to use for our medical needs, especially when I was hospitalized. Medical expenses are so costly. I’m so grateful that we already had HMO again when we needed medical care. Truly, God is our Great Provider!

#4 My medical test results were normal! One of the things that stressed me a lot when I entered the peromenopause stage is that the doctors told me that I needed to go through many tests. One test after another was requested to rule out possible health problems. 2024 was not an easy year for me because it meant I needed to muster enought courage to go through all these tests and to have the courage to find out what the doctors will say about these tests. Thanks be to God that my tests were normal!

#5 We got to celebrate birthdays of immediate family members together as a family. We even had a vacation during my birthday month. This is something that not all families get to experience. That’s why I cherish every birthday celebration that we have in our family no matter how simple it may be. What is essential for me is that we get to attend Holy Mass together as a family and eat together.

#6 We got to celebrate Christmas and New Year together. We even had a quick family vacation after Christmas. Christmas is one of the seasons I look forward to the most each year and I love spending it with the ones closest to my heart. Thus, it was an answered prayer that I was healthy last December and that I was not in the hospital or sick during the Advent and Christmas Seasons. We got to do our annual Advent and Christmas traditions of attending the Simbang Gabi, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Masses as a family. The bonus is that my children and husband were even able to serve in some of these Masses.

#7 My middle child graduated from elementary with highest honors last year and I was able to attend his graduation! I am one happy, proud and fulfilled homeschool mom!!! Just like his older brother, this child of mine was homeschooled since birth by your truly. By the grace and mercy of God, we were able to complete and submit school requirements and he was able to graduate. I was able able to attend his graduation ceremony despite struggling with health challenges at that time. You may watch a short video about my son, Mateo’s, journey as a homeschooler from the time that he was little until his elementary graduation day on our YouTube channel (HOPE Netwrok) here.

#8 I got to fulfill and achieve my dream of becoming an illustrator of a children’s book! Woohoo! This has been a long-time dream. I had been drawn to the arts since my childhood. Drawing and painting were among my favorite pastimes when I was a little girl. But as I grew older and got busier with school and work, I got to spend less and less time on this hobby of mine. Then, when I became a mom, I stopped painting because I didn’t have the time to do it anymore. The perfectionist in me found it hard to try knowing that I will be disturbed most likely by my kids. But last year, I was moved to try out of need. The children’s story that I illustrated was also my children’s story. It was based and inspired by the life and Music Ministry of my eldest child, Yanthy. Initially, I wanted my friend to illustrate it. But he has been so busy with his other projects and it has been pending for over a year already. My eldest is growing old and we wanted to launch this book while he is still a child. He is now a teenager. I tried illustrating a page, then another page, then another one. And before I knew it, I was halfway through. So, I decided to finish it. My eldest child and I were so happy that this children’s book was finally illustrated and finished last year during Buwan ng Wika. It was perfect timing because the book is in Filipino. The title of the book is Ang Batang Pianista nag Aming Parokya. You can now purchase this in e-book format here.

#9 In connection with #8, God also made a way for me to launch this e-book last year. I was given the chance to share about it and read part of it during the online Buwan ng Wika event of CFA Homeschool. Then, towards the end of last year, I got to launch it with an onsite storytelling at the Resurrection of our Lord Parish. Our former Parish Priest, Monsignor Melchor david paved the way for this to happen. I did an interactive storytelling for 100 children and my eldest child, Yanthy, played the keyboard after.

#10 We have a vehicle that we still got to use for our needs and for our field trips and vacations. It was also used during emergencies in our family in the past year. Our Innova is more than 5 years old already. It has helped us immensely in the many years that it served us. We have gone to many places with its help. I hope it will last us for a number of years still.

#11 We had a family pictorial for our immediate family again after 7 years! Our last family pictorial was before the pandemic when my father was still alive. Now that the pandemic is over and we had the budget for it, I made sure that our immediate family would be able to make time for it before the year 2024 ends. I was already able to use some of them in my Facebook posts for my pages.

#12 I had a big CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility Project) event with a new client for my book Pasko Pa Rin. They bought over 200 copies of my children’s book which were donated to poor children. You can view more photos of this Christmas outreach last December here.

#13 I got to conduct onsite training programs again for clients despite my health challenges. One of these was for a repeat client.

#14 I had monthly dates with each of my 3 children in the past year. This is something that I invested time in no matter how busy or sick I was in the past year.

#15 My desktop computer is still working. It has been acting up in the recent years. But I keep praying to God to extend its life. God continues to grant this prayer of mine.

#16 I got to go to Confession at least once a month. Most of the time, it was on Mondays at the Mary Help of Christians Parish. My husband was working from home on Mondays last year. So, we would usually go to evening Mass there and go to Confession as well.

#17 I got to attend more daily Masses last year and receive Holy Communion more often. Our new Parish Priest brought back Wednesday and Friday evening Masses after Lent. This enabled my children and me to attend weekday Masses more often again even when my husband is in the office. Moreover, in God’s mercy, He made a way for me to receive Holy Communion through some of our EMHC (Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion) and sometimes our Parish Priest on some days when I was not well enough to attend daily or Sunday Mass.

#18 I’m delighted that I was able to raise kids who loved the Holy Eucharist and who have hearts for service! My boys chose to attend daily Masses even on early mornings, not only on Wednesday and Friday evenings when they also served as choir in our parish. On some days, they would even attend and serve in both early morning and evening weekday Masses. This was on their own initiative and even without me going to Mass with them.

#19 I got to attend a retreat on midlife spirituality. I wrote a blog post about this here.

#20 My husband was able to work from home for 2 days each week last year. This gave us more time to bond with him and to attend Masses together as a family even on weekdays.

#21 We got to homeschool again this new school year.

#22 My family and I got to attend a Holy Week Retreat with our LOJ Family and we got to attend The Grand Feast on Easter Sunday. We also had our annual visita iglesias.

#23 We got to spend and celebrate Christmas with my mother and brother. We even got to visit my father at the columbary on Christmas Day.

#24 I had Christmas outreaches and book donations again with the help of generous individuals. We got to donate copies of my children’s book Pasko Pa Rin to the Dumagat’s of Bulacan, to The Happy Ripples’ community library, to a parish in Bicol, and in collaboration with our parish’s Commission on the Family. You may view more photos here.

I may have a lot of challenges in 2024, but my blessings far outweigh and outnumber them. God has been gracious, merciful and faithful to me even though there were many times when I had been unfaithful to Him and when my faith was struggling.

I was also reminded last year that God’s grace is more than enough for me to survive and overcome my trials and that I continue to live and thrive because of His miracles and favors in my life.

It is because of the numerous blessings that I received from God, both big and small, that I consider myself truly BLESSED in 2024. It is no coincidence that my OneWord for 2024 was BLESSED.