Who Touched My Thermostat?

    I was just listening to some snippets of Tina Campbell's new songs

that she has written for her solo project that was posted on fb. (S.N.: That song "Only Jesus Did It" gave me life. YES MRS. CAMPBELL!) I must say that I commend and applaud her for going through all that she has with her husband and still have the energy and power to stand, to smile and to even still be married to him all while going through it in the public eye. Shoot, Shakresha (Kre Kre for short) would have stabbed him in his heart just because her nosey homegirl found out about it and she didn't want to look like no punk to the hood who could care less because they was helping him to cheat.................. Too much? My bad. But anyway's. I truly applaud her. It takes a strong person to walk in those shoes and BABY she did that.
    Truth be told, we can all be a Tina Campbell. But a great deal of us chose not to, then call the next sister crazy for getting through it. Tina found healing through writing and music. The Word tells us that through every temptation our God provides a way of escape so that we may endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13 paraphrase). A lot of us refuse to use the way of escape and allow our flesh to reign. Then we get ourselves in deeper troubles than we ought to and blame the person and GOD instead of ourselves then claim that s/he made me do it.
    Hear me when I say this, NOBODY CAN MAKE YOU DO ANYTHING THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO DO!!! None of us are walking around with bits in our mouths being navigated in directions by someone else holding the two attached reins. The things we do out of haste, malice and anger or our own doing. We control ourselves. And if you claim that you don't, my question to you is this: When did you take your hand off of the thermostat of your life? Yuiou should never let someone else's hand replace yours on the thermostat of your life. In my opinion, that's a form of slavery. You being dictated to on how to feel and when to feel it. How to react and when to react according to the way they feel and what they are trying to do..........
    We have to get to a place where we are in complete control of ourselves and no one else. I want to get to a place where if someone spits in my face I can walk away with a smile on my face and skip in my step and go get some ice cream. (I know THAT extreme is along shot, but a girl can dream right? Lol) My 3 children are watching Mommy. I'm not saying that I want them to allow people to do anything and everything to them and they just take it. But I want them to be first thinkers over being first reactors. The thinkers have always prospered in this world. Reactors normally end up in jail and I refuse to go see anybody in jail over something that you simply lost control of.
    Last thing I want to say is this, you can't know how strong you are or how far you've come if conflict didn't happen. Mrs. Campbell, I'm sure, is probably surprised of herself being able to handle all of that not "kill some body"(as she stated). But daily we should be growing as a person. Trials and tribulations are apart of this life we live in today and we're going to have them until the day we lay 6 ft under. If you don't evolve or grow at any point, what's the point of being here? GOD created us grow, to move forward, to evolve. I definitely don't want to be the same L I was last year or 5 years ago. I've gotten a year older in age but not in my thinking or maturity? That's for the birds. Give me growth any day. But my hand is on my thermostat and I'm going to take a page from Mrs. Campbell's book and keep it there.
Unapologetic is me, L.