One of the things that I like doing at the start of the new year is to look back into the past year and review the things that happened and what I did. Since I started choosing a word for the year or my #OneWord, I look back and review my previous year in the light of my OneWord and OneVerse. I blogged about my word for the year and verse for the year here.

I ask myself: “How did I live out my #OneWord and #OneVerse? Did I succeed in living it out?”

This year, looking back to the previous year brought me joy and fulfillment again.

Let me share with you why.

Year 2023 was not an easy year for me. In fact, it started out as a challenging year. Then, more troubles and challenges came. But what I am most proud to share is that despite all the curve balls that life threw at me, I kept standing, fighting and going, of course, by the grace and mercy of God.

So, even though I faced and battled many challenges and obstacles, I’m so grateful for the grace to persevere in living out my OneWord and OneVerse, PURPOSE and Romans 8:28.

TOP 3 WAYS I LIVED OUT MY #ONEWORD

I’d like to focus on the top 3 things that I did to live out my purpose last year.

The first is in homeschooling our children. I had been a homeschool mom for over a dozen years already. But it doesn’t mean that I do not find homeschooling challenging anymore. With every new season, comes new challenges. Like last year, I had 3 homeschooler. The eldest is in high school and the 2 younger kids are in elementary. I create and plan their individual curriculums or education plans each year and I also do my best to implement them. My kids love being homeschooled. However, that doesn’t mean that they are always cooperative and in the mood to do our homeschool lessons and activities. Moreover, I had health issues last year that kept bothering the while year. Honestly, there were many days and weeks when I didn’t want to homeschool anymore. I felt exhausted, demotivated, hopeless, unappreciated, etc.

It was something that I heard in a retreat at the beginning of 2023 that helped me to stay the course. The speaker in that retreat said something that afformed me and made it clear to me that God wanted me to continue homeschooling our children. Thus, even with all the challenges and obstacles, I chose to be true to the purpose God has entrusted to me. I just kept trusting in Him and in His Word in Romans 8:28 that God works all things for the good of all those who love Him and are called to His purpose. To make the long story short, I was still able to submit and comply with the school requirements for the end of the school year in 2022-2023. Then, we continued to homeschool again for school year 2023-2024.

The second way is in persevering also in my Christmas book project titled Pasko Pa Rin. This children’s book was met with a lot of hurdles before we were finally able to finish the illustrations. I just kept praying and doing what I needed to do to help expedite its completion and release. I was, therefore, overjoyed when we got to launch it at the Manila International Book Fair in September of last year. I wrote about this here. This was followed by many book tours and promotions. When I am not touring or promoting through a book table, I was promoting it online. It was exciting and at the same time tiring. Seeing parents and children buying copies of the book gave me so much joy and fulfillment knowing that with every copy sold, I am helping a child and a family prepare their hearts and homes for the coming of our Messiah.

This lead me to the third way by which I live out my #OneWord and #OneVerse last year. Aside from the book tours and promotions, I also got busy last year with our Christmas book donation drive called Buy a Book, Donate a Book. I spent a lot of time raising funds for our Christmas outreaches and book donations. I think that was what I had been busy with for the most part of the year last year. I think I started actively promoting our outreaches and book donation drive as early as August last year. I talked to A LOT of people. Some of them I didn’t know. Many of them were people in my network. by the grace of God and the generosity and support of many people, we were able to donate almost 350 copies of my latest children’s book Pasko Pa Rin to children around the Philippines. We had book donations and outreaches in Metro Manila (Pasay, Paranaque and Quezon City). We also had outreaches in various provinces like Surigao, Catanduanes, Pampanga and Mindoro. I have conducted storytelling sessions with catechism on the real meaning of Christmas during the Ber monthsas part of our outreaches. I felt so privileged and honored to follow in the footsteps of Saint John the Baptist in preparing the way for the Lord Jesus through the work that I did last year during the Ber months.

Although, I ended up drained and exhausted at the end of the year and even now during the first month of the new year, I do not regret all that I did last year. If I will be given a chance to go back to 2023, I will still spend most of my time working on bringing the message of Pasko Pa Rin to as many homes as I can.

Just like Saint Peter in Acts 3:6, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.” I gave the gift of faith and the gift of catechism, of knowing Jesus, our Messiah, our Savior, to the kids and their families during the last 5 months of the year 2023 through my children’s book Pasko Pa Rin.

Through my children’s book, I “proclaimed the good news to the poor,” set free those who were imprisoned by their negative thoughts during the Christmas season and helped those who were blind to their blessings see how truly blessed they were. I helped those who were oppressed by the pressures of modern society during the Christmas season be free from them by teaching and reminding them that Christmas remains to be Christmas even without all the merriment and glitter. That our Christmas celebrations can be simple, but meaningful.

Those were the top 3 things that stood out in my 2023 that reminded me that I was faithful to my purpose.

This 2024, I pray that I will be able to experience the truth of my #OneVerse and #OneWord again. I will share with you about these in my next blog post. Watch out for it.