Perfectly Normal/ebook by Sheila L. Jackson

Author's Bio:

Sheila L. Jackson is an author, inspirational speaker, and teacher who love to bring out the best in others through God’s inspiring word. When Sheila is not writing or speaking, she works as a clinical laboratory scientist in her hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana. Unable to ignore or run from her calling as a writer any longer, she stepped out in faith and became a published author of several non-fiction and fiction books.

Through her love and thirst for God’s words, she inspires others to follow their passion. Sheila pushes those around her to use their gifts and talents for greatness. And that God uses those that consider themselves as worthless for His glory. As a missionary at her church and the surrounding community, she helps people to realize that they are destined to succeed in whatever they set out to do.

Women go through so much in life. With roles, such as motherhood, wives, and as career women, it's easy to lose ourselves in the mist of the hustle and bustle. At women conferences and banquets, Sheila speaks words of empowerment in these settings that women will know that they have a purpose in life than just caregivers. She speaks from experience on the subject, because it was at a women’s conference years ago that she found the strength and courage to follow her dreams and bring them into fruition to become an author.

She has penned many articles, such as: Only the Strong Survive, Count it all Joy, and Suffering in Silence, which appeared in Dream Magazine. She also wrote: Voting Booths, allows you to speak now or forever hold your peace (during the 2009 presidential election) and The Effects of Bullying in our school system for the Shreveport Times.

Sheila is the author of two spiritual growth non-fiction books, The Enemy Within, Through The Eyes of God, and one (e-book) Perfectly Normal. She’s also written two inspirational romance novels, Where Was God and Joi and Payne (release date TBA). Visit Sheila L. Jackson at:https://www.facebook.com/sheilalj, www.sheilaljackson2.com,https://twitter.com/sheilaljackson

Perfectly Normal Synopsis

Christian Life/Spiritual Growth

Have you been told that you are worthless, ugly, no good, and will never amount to anything? Has it caused feelings of loneliness, depression, and even self-hatred? With all the mixed messages from society, and social media, seeing oneself as perfectly normal has become a personal struggle.

Stop allowing others to validate you, due to your socioeconomic background, weight, race, class, and gender. God has called you out for so much more. See yourself, in a better, more positive light. Come out of the darkness, into God’s marvelous light, so that you can see that God has created you perfectly normal.

Download ebook at:Amazon and smashwords.comsmashwords.com

Sample Chapter

Chapter Four

The Grasshopper Image

And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, we be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the habitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight (Numbers 13:30-33 KJV).

Do you see yourself as average when compared to others? Do you listen to or believe the negative comments that are said about you? Do you use your weaknesses as a crutch for not doing what God says you can? Do you feel small or inadequate in your own sight? If so, then you are suffering from the grasshopper image.

The grasshopper image is when you magnify someone else’s abilities to seem more important or powerful than yours and begin to see yourself as small, inadequate, inferior, and incompetent in comparison. The ten spies in the verses above suffered from the grasshopper image. They concentrated more on their enemies’ strength and size instead of remembering how mighty their God was when He fought for them in past battles.

When they called themselves grasshoppers, they doubted who they were as a nation. A grasshopper is an insect that is so small that it can be crushed easily underneath one’s feet. That is how the ten spies saw themselves—as nothing—as small insects that could be trampled over at a moment’s notice.

They were powerless within themselves, but their God was mighty. The battle was already won. God wanted them to step out in faith and believe that they could occupy the land of prosperity, the land that He had promised so long ago to Abraham and his descendants. The problem began when they started focusing on their adversaries and stopped listening to what God had spoken to them about possessing the land.

Our attitudes mimic those of the children of Israel when God speaks to us to go out and conquer positions on our jobs or step out in faith and start a new career in order to be prosperous. We often make excuses why we can’t. We either are scared we might fail or afraid of what people might say or think about us running our own business. Therefore, our pursuits are doomed due to our negative images and lack of faith in what God said we could have.

The problem starts with self. We blame others for our lack of confidence or motivation when tackling tough situations in our lives. The ten spies made every excuse as to why they could not defeat the Canaanites. The men were giants, the people were stronger, and the cities had walls that were too large to climb. They also complained about how their enemies were all around the region. The Amalekites dwelled in the south; the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites all dwelled in the mountains; and the Canaanites lived by the sea. So, in their minds, the ten spies probably thought that either way they came into Canaan one of these tribes would surely overtake them.

If only the ten spies would have thought about what they were saying. They would have realized that fear of others only held them hostage within their own minds. What we speak is what we have. Breaking free from a negative spirit is difficult when doubting what God has said. He said, “You can do it,” but your mind has told you that you can’t. Whose report will you believe—God’s or men?

You may feel inferior because of what has been programmed in you by others or by what you have seen. The ten spies became grasshoppers in their own eyes because of what they saw. They saw no breach in their enemies’ fortress that would have allowed them to plan a sneak attack. Their men looked like giants, which they thought could have stomped them to death.

The spies had no confidence in their own abilities to conquer the land of Canaan. To make matters worse, they brought their negative reports to Moses and the children of Israel about the people that dwelled in the land. Immediately, their spirits fell. Fear encompassed them, and they felt defeated before the battle began.

Fear has a way of spreading like wildfire. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb had faith in God. The stories of the ten spies were the same; therefore, the people swayed towards their reports. The danger in listening to negative people is that it will keep one living in fear; when this fear is passed on to others, chaos is triggered

If only the Israelites would have had faith, they would have known that there was no battle or anyone tough enough that their God could not subdue. In their eyes, they felt weak compared to the strength that they saw in their enemies. The children of Israel were not aware of the tricks of the devil and did not know that our physical eyes can be deceiving at times. Fear magnifies situations in our lives, and it makes people—in our sight— appear stronger than what they really are. That is why we cannot look at self when it comes to conquering battles against those that have a stronger looking psyche than ours. Battles are not won by strength alone; they are won by strategically outwitting the opponent.

The Israelites are a lot like us. We give up before we try. We complain and blame others for the battles we experience. We allow Satan to get us right where he wants us, with a negative self-image of ourselves. The spirits of inferiority, low self-esteem, inadequacy, and the grasshopper image are all mental weapons of his. They are different words, but their effects are equally devastating, because he uses them to keep us defeated and depressed within our minds. Satan does not want us to move forward in the promises of God. So, he plays on our fears and weakness to keep us trapped with a negative self-image.

No one is immune to this spiritual illness called the grasshopper image. It was designed by Satan to keep God’s children in Egypt and amounts to mental slavery. His job is to cast fear and doubt into the hearts and minds of men. The Bible says, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV). So, if our minds are sound, why are we falling apart every time the wind blows? If our minds are powerful, then why can’t we see ourselves victorious over the obstacles that cause us to stumble in defeat? And if we have love, why is it difficult for us to love ourselves enough to know that we are not grasshoppers but spiritual giants over our problems?

If you believe yourself to be nothing, then that is the way people are going to perceive you to be. Believe it or not, people can sense your lack of confidence, and when they do, they prey on your weaknesses. You see it all the time on the reality television shows. If an opponent senses someone’s lack of confidence, that person will intimidate and play on the other person’s weaknesses until he or she quits the game.

The ten spies were defeated before Moses sent them out to spy on the land. If they were confident in who they were in the Lord, they would have known before going into Canaan that with the Lord they could defeat anyone who got in their way. How you see yourself first starts within the mind—either as a giant or as a grasshopper. The spies saw themselves as grasshoppers, and that is what they became in their minds.

People talk about how they believe God to do this or that in their lives. But when the time comes to step out in faith and trust Him to do what they have confessed, they begin to recant and become fearful. The worst thing about fear is that it is like a disease. The spies brought their fear into their camp when they told the others what they saw in Canaan. The spies polluted the people’s minds with their negative reports and made them want to pack up and return to Egypt.

When a person is always negative, seeing the bright side to anything in his or her life is a challenge, and being around people like this will hold you back. The ten spies did just that with their evil report. The Israelites should have known that if they had returned to Egypt, they would have been mocked and resumed their positions as slaves. The Egyptians would have thought that their God had brought them out of Egypt only to forsake them in the wilderness. Fear and doubt make you believe that you had it good on the other side of the river, which represents poverty and defeat, when in reality it was a living hell from which only God could have rescued you. He wants to bring you into a land that is flowing with milk and honey, which represents prosperity. God will show us the promise and tell us that He will be with us to bring the promise to pass.

Too often we find that we are fighting a losing battle because we are afraid of what people will think about us. We allow what people say and think to keep us from being blessed of the Lord. Sometimes, we think that we are not worthy of having better, and then we allow Satan to rob us out of our blessings. He wants us to believe that we are not capable of having a better life. Therefore, we stay in the land of poverty because of the negative image we have of ourselves.

Defeating the Giants

God can take the smallest of things to defeat those that are of great stature. When King David was a boy, he defeated and killed one of the greatest giants of his day—Goliath. Goliath challenged Saul and his army in a single dual, but they were afraid to fight him one-on-one because he stood nine feet tall. David accepted the challenge to defeat Goliath, and he told King Saul, “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of the Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37 KJV). When David stood in battle with Goliath, the giant looked at David with contempt; little did he know that David had the Lord on his side. “Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied” (1 Samuel 17:45 KJV). David took one of his smooth stones, put it in a sling, and hit Goliath in the forehead. The giant fell to the ground, and David took Goliath’s sword and finished the job. The old saying goes, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

If only the children of Israel had faith in what David believed when they came face to face with the giants of Anak, they would have been in the Promised Land in a matter of days instead of forty years. They too should have spoken like David when he said that the Lord would deliver him out of his enemies’ hands. They saw how God parted the Red Sea and kept their enemies at bay with a fire while waiting for it to dry before crossing to the other side to freedom. How could their faith have weakened so soon?

Are we that much different when facing the giants in our lives? Fear is the giant that is often governing our lives. If we let it go unchecked, it will keep us from growing and blossoming into the person that God has called us to be. We are allowing negative conversations about us from others to stunt our growth. We worry about what people say and think about us more than what God thinks or says. We have allowed their lies to emotionally stagnant us. We lack confidence in God, as well as ourselves, because of how we perceive ourselves to be physically and spiritually. We believe that we are failures. Why? Because it has been planted in our heads by others that are trying to make us feel ashamed of our heritage and who we are. These are the spiritual giants that we are faced with every day.

Defeating the Workplace Giants

The grasshopper image is also found on our jobs. Whether it exists through our coworkers or us, the spirit of inferiority does not discriminate. People are willing to be mistreated and abused by their employers and coworkers in order to climb up the corporate ladder to achieve vain success. All one has to do is just look around one’s work environment and see people that are willing to compromise their dignity in order to be a part of the “in crowd.” We hate being belittled but are too afraid to speak out against it for fear that we will be shunned by coworkers or fired. We allow people to walk all over us because of the need to be accepted.

Success is a state of mind, not how fast and hard you play to move up the corporate ladder. Stepping on others and making them feel useless is not the way it should be done. Many coworkers can be ruthless and conniving in their approach to others. You must be willing to stand against their intimidation and sarcasm towards you. Seek God before approaching situations like these. He will show you how to handle combative coworkers without being fearful.

I have witnessed in my own experiences on numerous jobs that when people are hurting, they will try to make you feel the same way. Keep in mind that people bring a lot of baggage from home and dump it at the job. They want to hurt you because that is how they are feeling inside. It is not that you have done anything to provoke their behavior. Before you harbor their injustice towards you in your heart, pray. Most people take it personally and never get over the pain of an abusive boss or coworker, but you must do so before the grasshopper image consumes you and strips you of your identity.

Now more than ever, people are using their sick leave because of work related stress. They have fallen into the grasshopper image. If they had confidence in themselves, they would know that God did not create them to be doormats. You do not have to let people walk all over you because of the positions or titles that they hold in the workplace. You deserve to be respected. Some people in society are prominent and influential, but that does not give them the right to treat others as any less.

Many people cannot handle power. People like this make the worst bosses or supervisors. They use their authority to mistreat their employees. They do so because of the underlining insecurities of their own abilities to do the job. Often they have scratched and clawed to get their positions without any qualifications. Now they are scared that someone with more experience will take their jobs, and set out to make them feel useless and unimportant. Eventually, the person quits, and they hire an employee with fewer qualifications that will not outshine them.

The grasshopper image is causing people to become emotional wrecks from the time they clock in on the job until the time they clock out. They know that their day will be dreadful due to managers and supervisors that have no awareness of the truth of God. If they really reverenced God and served Him, they would be better at managing and treating their employees with respect.

Evidently many employers aren’t watching the news, because if they were, they would see how the mistreatment of their employees is like a volcano waiting to erupt. When bosses cause their employees to feel as though they hold less value than an insect, those employees will take a combative approach to the job and harm everyone in sight—even those that are innocent. Many people who have been stepped on through the years cannot take the pressure of an abusive boss or coworkers anymore and act out aggressively as a result.

In contrast, the workers that know who they are in Christ pray about the injustice of their employers, and they leave it in the hands of Him to handle. They pray when they arrive and pray when they leave. They understand that the power of prayer will keep them in perfect peace. The ugly and belittling words spoken by a supervisor or coworker do not depress or discourage them. They know that when people lack confidence within themselves, they will try to make others feel the same. Being alienated by coworkers is not a problem for them because of the love of God that they have in their hearts. It helps them to cope with the day-to-day attacks. They have no fear of what the day will bring because they have confidence that the Lord will give them the strength to stand.

How do you see yourself… perfectly normal or a square peg, trying to fit in where you don’t belong? I pray that after reading this chapter, you will see yourself as a giant. Therefore you can face your oppositions head on, knowing that your size does not determine how the battle is going to end; how you see yourself when going into the battle is what drives the outcome. I pray you will see yourself as a warrior that has reclaimed your dignity, self-esteem, and confidence.