Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23 (NRSVUE)

This verse always gives me pause, for it's not the way of our society to prioritize matters of the heart, to rely on our heart (spirit, emotion, feelings) for the very springs of our life. This, I've always suspected, needs examining. Dr. Anita Phillips does just that in her new book, The Garden Within: Where the War With Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins.

I connected with Phillips right away, both because of her childhood church experiences, and her passion for learning. It was in her college studies that she made the first, astounding revelation; a seedling and a neuron look remarkably similar (yes, there are illustrations to show this). She began to piece together a theory, perhaps the internal makeup of our bodies were not metaphorically comparable to objects of nature, but instead there was an actual garden within us, too. Verses like Isaiah 58:11 began to take on a whole new meaning:

The Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your needs in parched places
and make your bones strong,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11

There's that spring of water again. The Lord himself if doing the watering, and when he's in charge, the waters never fail.

The book goes on to unpack this concept. The ways various parts of our anatomy resemble seeds and plants and fruit. Mixed in are a variety of stories from the author's own life, and those of her friends and patients. They focused on the heart, identifying how they were feeling, what long-term effects that might be having on their bodies, and where in their body they were feeling these things. It was all interconnected!

I thought of the work we'd done with a therapist and our teenager. Much of it was the very kind of work discussed in this book. Learning to acknowledge what she was feeling, what was true, what fears needed to be faced.

In one of the book's final chapters, there is a great exercise to begin to understand what this work might look like for an individual. Without giving emotions more weight then they deserve, Phillips gives them their proper place in the overall health of a person.

The Garden Within has already been promoted widely:

• Featured on SUPER SOUL PODCAST hosted by Oprah Winfrey
• Additional features include Oprah Daily, Red Table Talk, Essence, Tamron Hall, Woman Evolve, Proverbs 31, the Today Show, and more...
• Instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller

Here's a short book trailer to hear from the author directly. Get your own copy from FaithGateway here, and save 30% or more at FaithGatway, plus download a FREE reading plan with your purchase. 

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I received a copy of The Garden Within for the purpose of generating a review.