Eleanor Roosevelt, the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, was an outspoken human rights activist who won worldwide respect. She believed passionately in the transformative power of love and its importance in life, saying:

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

Much like the bravery required to step outside your comfort zone, leap from the safety of a perfectly good platform and zipline over 300m through the air…

Jayden_CCT

Which is why, when we received a rather unexpected message on Facebook earlier this month, we were happy to honour the spirit of love it represented. Mara, living in a small Australian town, wanted to show her boyfriend Jayden just how much she loved him by getting people across the globe to take photos of a message for him from their location. After a difficult childhood, she moved out of home at age 16 to stay with a school friend. Unfortunately the friend moved 3 months later and Mana had nowhere to go and no-one to turn to – she didn’t want to ask her boyfriend as they had only been dating for a few months. The stress of holding down a job and the demands of Grade 11 put a lot of extra pressure on the teenager.

Mara explains:

When Jayden noticed me struggling he moved out of home risking his relationship with his parents (who weren’t 100% fond of me at the time) to rent out a small apartment so that I would have somewhere to go without leaving town and to be able to complete school and keep my job. He was the first person to support me in every way, he helped me keep myself together, encouraged me to continue school and he promised he would ALWAYS be there for me. He turned me into the person I am now. I graduated high school, I have an amazing job and am currently doing a course in child, youth and family intervention. I never in a million years expected myself to be doing so well and to actually love my life… This is my way of showing him how much I appreciate everything he’s done for me.

Jayden_Norway

What an inspirational story! If you’d like to ‘pay it forward’ in celebration of love, simply write:

Jayden, Mara’s love for you is so big it has reached X (your location eg Elgin Valley),

draw a heart, snap a photo of the note with a beautiful view of where you are and email it to: Louisemara976@gmail.com

 

Here are some that she has already received: