The above was in a newsletter, received from a local prayer ministry. As we come to the end of our year of homeschooling, let this be a time of reflecting on the positive things that you have appreciated this year…in your home, in your community, in our nation.

Look back on the events in your home and family and focus on the things for which you can be thankful. Look for the highlights!

We all have challenges and will continue to do so, but if we focus only on those “mountains”, we sometimes feel overwhelmed. Looking back at where we have come from in the past year and counting our blessings helps to put things in a more balanced perspective.

We have previously written about the dis-ease that so many homeschool parents suffer from – its called: Am I Doing Enough?  so we don’t do that again.

While its good to self-evaluate from time to time, we want to encourage you today to focus only on the good things of 2016.

As South Africans we often take for granted some of the things that expatriates long for. Things like:

• Truly blue skies and plenty of sunshine year round
  
• Being able to get out into nature without travelling too far
  
• Braaivleis and open fires
  
• A friendly, relaxed culture where strangers will smile at each other or say hello
  
• Being understood when you use local terminology like bakkie, robot, slap chips, lekker, howzit, etc
  

As homeschoolers, we can be thankful for the extra time we get to spend with our children, while they are still living at home. As moms, whose two eldest children have left our nests, the reality of how precious the time is that we have with our younger children has really hit home.

Look back on all the small day-to-day victories that you and your children have achieved – chores that have been mastered, becoming better organised, new skills learned, new passions developed, accomplishments in sportsmanship, growth in character, kindness shown, acts of service to others etc.. reflect and be thankful for the milestones achieved.