So it’s Valentine’s day and I’m outchea talking about enemies of the heart by Andy Stanley.

Instead of going all red heart cut outs and lovey dovey messages I’m looking at the heart from a different perspective.

Andy Stanley’s book aims to help with “breaking free from the four emotions that control you” namely guilt,anger ,greed and jealousy.

It is a small but powerful “self help book” divided into for pivitol parts,

Part one

“Where did that come from” deals with where these controlling emotions orginated (spoiler it’s different for everyone).

Part two

“Deeper debts” unpacks each of the emotions and likens it to debt…guilt-I owe you, anger-You owe me, greed-I owe me and jealousy-God owes me.

Part three

“For true change” deals with these emotions with practical sometimes uncomfortable solutions.

Part four

In “moving forward” Andy Stanley talks about why we need to change and how we can go about it.

It ends off with discussion questions which give you real food for thought.

Andy Stanley is brilliant. This is my first encounter with his work and I’m already crazy impressed. There is a lightness in his way of writing that makes you feel spoken to not spoken at and his humor and practicality definitely speak to me as a person.

But like I promised my book reviews will not just be my opinion. For each Christian Art Media book review which I will be doing over the next few weeks I have a secondary reviewer making it like a book club of sorts.

I’ve known today’s reviewer for years we have had the weirdest career history as she has always been a year ahead of me in similar positions from graduation to internships to various departments in the same company…this is what my friend Liezel Searle thinks of Andy Stanley’s book Enemies of the Heart….

If you’re a blogger and mom reading this you will know TRUTH BOMB MOM Kristina Kuzmic. She get’s right into the heart of it. You watch going yeahhhhhh!! Now put this dynamite package into a small well written book (written by a male might I add) and you’ve got Andy Stanley’s Enemies of the heart (Breaking Free from the Four Emotions That Control You). And what a TRUTH BOMB moment I had reading, re-reading and highlighting on every page. Andy gets down to business from the get go “Those things that disrupt the rhythms of the invisible heart linger. If left alone, some will linger for a lifetime. After a while we come to accept those disrupters as part of us, part of our personality. And so we catch ourselves saying, ‘That’s just the way I am.’ But you weren’t always that way. And those closest to you know it. So let me ask you, how are things with your heart? Not your career, your family, or your finances, YOUR HEART?” It’s an awkward question, yet so essential to our healing as a woman (a man). This book will be doing the rounds. Hubby, Yes! hubby has dibbed it as next read. He heard Andy Stanley speak at a local Global Leadership Concert and was rather impressed with my reading material – big ups Ella Bella. My heart is currently as squishy as a piece of my kids playdough, but this book is as essential to our growing up heart. None of us reach adulthood without a few dings to the heart and our response to those dings determines the condition of our hearts. Go, run, if you do anything this year, make this book your resolution.

Obviously this is a yes from us…book available through Christian Art media for R139.95