Madeline Louise Jackson: the overly ambitious optimist who strives to find joy in the littlest things of life. That’s me! I am 17 years old, but I have been told that I was born an old lady. When people ask me to tell them about myself, interests, or hobbies, I immediately blank out and forget everything about me that makes me interesting. Ultimately, I end up sounding like the most boring person in the world, but the reality is that I am not so boring after all! I could tell you lots and lots of the things that make this brown haired, blue eyed, freckle faced girl different from the rest, but I will spare you the time and just give you a few snapshots of what make me, me!
First, I love to travel, and to say that I love it is quite the understatement. All I have ever wanted to do with my life is travel the world. Some girls online shop in their free time, but instead, I sit around and look at cool places I want to go. I don’t plan my dream wedding- I plan my dream backpacking trip across western Europe. So my love for travel is an all consuming love. Secondly, music is my thing. Some people are into sports or theater, but my love for music overflows into every aspect of my life. I write it, play it, sing it, listen to it, and everything else in between. On my bad days, you can find me in my room listening to the latest singles from my all time favorite bands or banging on the piano for hours at a time. Music is apart of me, and for that, I am grateful. Lastly, I am a self proclaimed optimist and an advocate of all things happy. Pessimism is such a waste of time in my opinion, and I just think optimism is so much more fun than realism, so why settle for anything less than optimism? I smile a lot. I say a lot. And I laugh a lot, but that is just who I am: the overly ambitious optimist who has the tendency to get swept away in her own little world of dreams, music, and happiness.
But, this blog isn’t called madelinejackson.happiness.org, it’s my world race blog! The World Race has been a dream of mine for quite sometime, and as I am sitting here writing this post, it’s almost too good to be true. It is still very surreal to me, but in the best of ways. So, why the World Race? Why did I choose this organization, and how did I get here? Well, I will tell you!
I have gone to a Christian school all of my life, and I have been an active member of my church for as long as I could remember, so Jesus has always been apart of my life in some way, shape, or form. Eventually, I began to understand the love of Jesus in a way that completely overwhelmed me, and I realized the importance of having Him as my personal Lord and Savior. So, there at summer camp, I committed my life to being apart of an ever-lasting relationship with my friend, Jesus. My faith has been full of ups and downs since that night at summer camp, but all of those ups and downs brought me to where I am today. I heard about the World Race through a friend, and I knew that the lives I read about would one day be apart of the life I would fall in love with. I continued to ask the Lord for His guidance in my life, and He made it very clear to me that the world of international missions had a special place for me. The World Race was where He led me, and here we are! The Lord has been oh-so good to me, and I am incredibly excited to live out the life He has called me to lead as a World Racer!
The next year is going to be full of a lot of exciting things, and I can’t wait to share this experience with each and every one of you! Thank you for supporting me through your prayers and just your presence in my life. I could not be more grateful!
Yours truly,
Madeline
