Life gets better with age.

Happy Easter 2015 to all my readers.

I hope you have a great relaxing long weekend. I have no particular plans but I may go for a walk along the waterside since it is just around the corner.

Lately I have been a bit slack with my blog writing since I am also studying a few courses online and keep practising drawing.
Having just celebrated my 79th birthday I can assure you that life is getting better every day. There are still so many things to learn, pictures tu paint, books to write and new people to meet. I certainly need all the time that is allotted to me, however many years that may be.
Where I live my neighbours can get rather noisy at times and their kids are screaming. Isn't it heaven that I can simply close my window, thinking I don't have to deal with this?
If I want to start reading my Kindle Ebook at five in the morning, nobody is going to stop me and if I don't want to watch trite TV in the evening, I can switch it off without annoying anybody. You may think I am lonely but that is not so. I do enjoy my own company but I also have friends and family with whom I am in regular contact.

Don't let anybody tell you that old age is miserable. It's up to you.
Don't let anybody tell you that you are too old to learn something new. I teach German and my oldest student is well over eighty. She also studies Italian and French.

Enjoy the shining sun, the cooling rain and the refreshing breeze and if you live in a country where you have snowstorms (bin there, done that) then cuddle up with a glass of wine, a good book or even a friend.
Happy Easter.
PS The next five days my sailing book is available as free download http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Puruto

I have been busy

Time flies, people say. I can't believe this year is nearly over. I have been busy adding more publications to my amazon.com book site. Just recently I published two short stories.
Gardens of my Life is all about the gardens I have tended during my life and how important they were to me.
The other short story is about a shape-shifting bird, a falcon, who is from Arabia and becomes human in order to fulfill his destiny of helping others as a doctor. It touches on the struggle between freedom and responsibility. the story is called The Desert Falcon.
Here is my amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Puruto

 

All my publications are downloadable for a small cost. Two are available in hard copy. From time to time there are free downloads available.

Free download of my book

My book 'Over the Mountains - not over the Hill' is available as free download from amazon this weekend.
Here is the link:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Puruto

It is a travelogue about my Himalaya trek.

Enjoy reading.

Poem for a rainy Day

Raindrops

Gentle cooling drops

Rolling from benevolent clouds.

The sky a cosy blanket under which to cuddle.

Blooms exhausted from heat open their hearts

Their thirst quenched with soft moisture.

Leaves sending small brooklets down to their brothers and sisters.

Hot pavings extinguish their furnacesses.

Small wavelets on the lake reach up to welcome family.

A sparrow revels in the cooling shower.

The woman on the bench mingles her tears with the soft raindrops.

They dilute the salt, the sorrow.

They have a healing touch.

Elisabeth Puruto ©2014

Sunday at the Gold Coast

What a beautiful Sunday here on the Gold Coast. Cool and windy but clear blue skyes. Had lunch at an Indian restaurant by the waterside just around the corner. Now I am working on drawing project. it's difficult but I'm getting there.  Not as difficult as my trip across the Himalayas. I like challenges.
Don't forget today is one more day to download the children's story THE LILAC QUEEN free of charge from amazon.
Just type in Puruto into the search option and you find all my books. have a lovely day.

The Source of Inner Strength

 

The Source of Inner Strength

 

“Brenda had spent the last twenty years nursing her abusive husband after he was paralyzed in an accident while driving under the influence of alcohol. Yet she never complained, she never was bitter. She had so much inner strength.”

“Karl faithfully continued as a country doctor for years and years. Getting up at all hours delivering babies or attending accident victims. He could have moved to the city and be much better off financially, and with less working hours. Why didn’t he? He had so much inner strength.“

Such statements, we hear frequently, we admire the people who find the inner strength to swim against the stream of the popular ‘me first’ opinion. Not for them throwing in the towel, not for them giving up or going away; not for them self-pity or self-imposed martyrdom. Not for them ugly lines of bitterness in their faces. Lines there are, for sure, they are lines of caring, of concern and even sadness but never lines of being a doormat.

When we speak of inner strength we express recognition of something positive, even something rare. What is it? This inner strength? Where does it come from? How can we obtain it, that is, if we even want it, for it comes at a price.

In today’s predominately New Age worldview we hear much about positive thinking, about finding oneself, or the phrase ‘I can do anything if I truly want it.’ In other words, if you haven’t got it, don’t complain.

It is human nature to be self-centered and striving for more or better things or situations. Self-help books and expensive seminars want to teach us how to ‘improve ourselves’. Eastern and other religions tell us to ‘still your mind’ and all will fall into place but in the final account it is up to each one of us to cope as best we can.

Where do we get inner strength? Yoga meditation may make you calmer but taken to its logical conclusions there is hopelessness and only reincarnation to another life cycle over and over again until final Nirvana (nothingness). So why bother in the first place?

Or gaining strength from the New Age spirit world? A dangerous undertaking because evil spirits do exist and mean to harm us. Without the protection of God we have no resistance and we are at their mercy. They have no intention to give us true inner strength, rather they generate selfishness and hatred.

True inner strength has a beauty we never find in a person dabbling in the occult because such strength is free from fear. It doesn’t need to know the future. The man or woman with true inner strength is not passively resigned to a situation but embraces it purposefully. They look to Jesus Christ as their greatest source of strength because he has gone that path before. Since he is eternal God his river of living water gives unlimited inner strength. There is no fear of exhaustion, of running dry.

The reason why we see goodness and deep peace in people like Brenda and Karl is that they receive their inner strength directly from their daily communication with God. Moreover, they do not stem the flow for selfish reason but are content to let it run through them to those in their environment. They need not fear it ever ceasing.

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Lissa's Wish.

Here is a little true Story you may like to read:

 

Lissa’s Wish

“Please, Oma, may I go into the garden?” five-year old Lissa asked her grandmother.

“Of course, go on, enjoy yourself, “Oma answered.

Lissa flew out the backdoor, her pigtails bouncing, she skipped down the steps, across the concrete yard into her beloved garden. First she stopped by the Pansies surrounding the Sun Lawn, and said ‘Good Morning’ to her favourites, the deep purple ones with the golden faces.

Lissa had called this soft-green lawn the Sun Lawn because it was large and round. Just behind this she now balanced along the stone borders of the Moon Lawn which was sickle shaped and during spring the many white daisies were almost covered by the golden petals of the Laburnum tree leaning above it. The Moon Lawn half encircled the path around the large rose bed. Lissa stopped and bend over one of the last roses of the season. Oh, how sweet it’s perfume!

She walked on through the low dividing box hedge to the vegetables. Oh yes, she knew them all, her secret friends: the Brussels Sprouts were still too young to talk to her but the red Tomatoes told her that the whole bunch had quite a good party the night before, after all, they belong to the family of night shades. The big strong beans on their stakes expressed their indignation about this nightly reveling but Lissa only laughed and told the beans they should not be so stuffy. The peas still slept in their communal beds, just like Lissa when she visited her cousins and had to snuggle up in bed with several others. She threw them a kiss and walked on to the rockery and the two large, old pear trees. The rockery was to her like a fairytale book. So many different plants close together, each telling their part of a story. The Wallpepper with its golden, wormlike flowers was rough to the touch but got on well with the velvety, silver Lambs Tongues. They complimented each other and Lissa could see how they enjoyed each other’s company. The white Snow in Summer was still spreading its many small flowers over the grey rocks and pink ones were nestling in the crevices. Lissa sat down on a rock for a while and soon a small lizard shared with her the warming rays of the sun. As she looked up at the tall pear tree, she remembered when she had danced there, thinking herself a little fairy as a gently wind showered her with white petals from the pear blossoms.

Now, in autumn most of the pears had been harvested but Lissa saw one last golden one hanging at the tip of the highest branch.

“OH, I wish I could have that pear, “she said, and then it happened. A rustle, the pear broke loose and SPLASH fell down, straight onto one of the big rocks and broke in thousand pieces.   Wishes do come true but not always the way we imagine!

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