– What Name To Leave For Yourself –

What is your middle name? You may not have heard by now but I was not given a middle name. Don’t worry, it’s never bothered me. As a matter of fact, I’ve had fun making my own to fit with how I feel at the time. More often than not, I just relax and enjoy calling myself Marianne No-Middle-Name Petersen.

My name this time last year went from Marianne Me-and-My-Book Petersen to Marianne Only-Jesus Petersen. Let me explain.

A few months before this last January 1st showed up, there was a deeper need to make a deeper commitment in how I was going to publish my book.

“I have to decide. I have to decide if I need to find a publisher or self publish my book,” I kept telling myself. I needed to choose the best way to get the book, along with me, myself, and I out into the world. “I know. Instead of making a new-years resolution to decide, I’ll sort of twist a new-years resolution around, and make myself decide by the last day of 2017. Perfect!”

Now sure, I could share all the reading, studying, and website devouring I had done those last few months, but I won’t. Instead, I just want to share what my heart learned as those last few months of last year went by. But first, start the song below. The words can explain better than I can why I changed my name.

(Ignore little commercial that might show first.)

As I was getting lost in the light of thinking how to make a mark, how to get my book out into the world, I felt too much it was my job. It was up to me  how to make me and my book something the world would remember. But something happened. I began realizing that I was focusing too much for my own legacy. I was getting a little lost in trying to get the world to remember my name. A few things popped inside my heart, having me see I was focusing a bit too much on Marianne Get-Known Petersen.

Slowly but surely I began to decide, by God opening my eyes even more, that not my name, but His name is who the reader is to remember. I soaked in more of the fact I don’t want to leave a legacy, I don’t care if they remember me, but rather Jesus. Those few months I began thanking God how He was having me see even more what the true reason for my story was for: to get others to see Him instead of me. I want my life to prove there is only one, and that one is not me.

Now sure, I still do have hope, followed by much prayer, that many do read my book and pass along a ‘thank you’, but my goal is for them to remember Jesus far more than myself. I want my efforts to point to Him.

Back to why ‘Only-Jesus‘ became my new middle name? Because His name is the only name in my book to remember.

What’s your middle name? I promise, if you change it in your heart to Only-Jesus, you get the best trophy of all.

Marianne Petersen’s book God and Your Pillow is now available. (Amazon) – You can follow Marianne on Twitter at @marimemoirs and read more on her blog, marimemoirs.com.

If interested, Click here to read a past post sharing a bit what my book is about.