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Leaving The Land Of Numb: A Journey to Connect My Emotional and Spiritual Lives
Growing up in a family where everyone was Just Fine , Don Follis learned early on to keep his arms crossed and his emotions at bay. While his spiritual life groaned for development, the Land of Numb held him back. He didn’t think about the connection between his emotional and spiritual lives. In this memoir, Don tells the story of how those two lives finally got integrated. He learned to feel his emotions, both painful and positive. His journey took him through a teenage marriage and divorce, rejection by the church because of that divorce, a ministry career despite the rejection, the death of his son, and a new vision of the richness of the emotional life of Jesus.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published July 6, 2023
2 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 8, 2023
Don shares an honest and challenging story of his journey to experience the full spectrum of life’s emotions, the good, the bad, and the ugly. His memoir is relatable and heartfelt and I found myself reflecting on my own experiences of living in the “land of numb” and choosing to instead live present in life’s many highs and lows.
A great read for all of us!
A great read for all of us!
August 3, 2023
Don Follis has a powerful story to tell about his life being shaped by love for the purpose of his ministry: love lost, love withheld, love eternal. He was so out of touch with his heart as a young man he couldn’t even had told you why he wanted to be a minister, but God had a purpose. God called him, then God taught him everything he needed to know. I love this story, and the tangible, relatable points that I can apply to my own life, love, grief, and calling.
July 29, 2023
Don is a good friend, so admittedly, I'm biased, but I think I would have given five stars had I not known him. I can't be sure because maybe his stories meant more to me in that I know something about several of them. Anyway, Don is a good story teller and this book sounds like Don.
He gives considerable time to his failed teenage marriage and to his grief over the loss of his son, Ian. Both are portions of his life I wasn't involved in and I found the revelations to be deeply moving. Coming from somewhat similar backgrounds, I'm familiar with keeping emotions under control and I've occasionally wondered why he thought getting in touch with them was so important. This book answered that for me.
It's well worth a few hours or your time to read.
He gives considerable time to his failed teenage marriage and to his grief over the loss of his son, Ian. Both are portions of his life I wasn't involved in and I found the revelations to be deeply moving. Coming from somewhat similar backgrounds, I'm familiar with keeping emotions under control and I've occasionally wondered why he thought getting in touch with them was so important. This book answered that for me.
It's well worth a few hours or your time to read.
July 11, 2023
A COMMUNION OF SORROW
Don Follis offers a peek behind the curtain of loss
Memoirs are often overstuffed with travelogues and name-dropping, but this new book from Don Follis, Leaving the Land of Numb, offers something different. A pastor who lost his adult son, Follis demonstrates through painful example the frustrations and day-to-day realities of living with loss.
Follis writes with genuine candor. His enriching anecdotes have an undertone of sorrow that informs each page. From him, we get a sense that in our own spiritual trials, we are not alone.
Bereaved parents often quip with dark humor and sorrowing eyes that they belong to an exclusive club that no one wants to join. Follis shows us just how painful membership can be. He offers a peek behind the curtain of loss. In his most powerful chapter, “The Thief Comes Only to Steal and Kill and Destroy,” Follis tackles the emotional complexities of grief and parental bereavement. “There is no going back to normal,” he writes of the death of his son, “when your child precedes you in death.”
Brief asides such as these may be the memoirs greatest gift. The author’s love for his son, and his hope for reunion, offers a true communion of sorrow.
The author has the pastoral predilection for anecdotes and a certain fondness for New Testament passages. At times this provides that human touch and a sense of comfort with the familiar. The book is slim, packed with plenty of white space, and most certainly an easy read. There are no citations for the text’s ubiquitous quotations, but the book provides study questions and a useful list of volumes for further reading.
Don Follis offers a peek behind the curtain of loss
Memoirs are often overstuffed with travelogues and name-dropping, but this new book from Don Follis, Leaving the Land of Numb, offers something different. A pastor who lost his adult son, Follis demonstrates through painful example the frustrations and day-to-day realities of living with loss.
Follis writes with genuine candor. His enriching anecdotes have an undertone of sorrow that informs each page. From him, we get a sense that in our own spiritual trials, we are not alone.
Bereaved parents often quip with dark humor and sorrowing eyes that they belong to an exclusive club that no one wants to join. Follis shows us just how painful membership can be. He offers a peek behind the curtain of loss. In his most powerful chapter, “The Thief Comes Only to Steal and Kill and Destroy,” Follis tackles the emotional complexities of grief and parental bereavement. “There is no going back to normal,” he writes of the death of his son, “when your child precedes you in death.”
Brief asides such as these may be the memoirs greatest gift. The author’s love for his son, and his hope for reunion, offers a true communion of sorrow.
The author has the pastoral predilection for anecdotes and a certain fondness for New Testament passages. At times this provides that human touch and a sense of comfort with the familiar. The book is slim, packed with plenty of white space, and most certainly an easy read. There are no citations for the text’s ubiquitous quotations, but the book provides study questions and a useful list of volumes for further reading.
January 9, 2024
Caution! You just might find yourself swept along as a companion of Don's, an immigrant from the Land of Numb arriving on the shores of your own emotional authenticity. If you love good storytelling and find yourself curious how a divorced 19 year old kid from the plains of northwestern Kansas could find a path in Christian pastoral ministry, then this memoir will be a real treat for you. Truthfully, wherever you hail from, this is just a well-told American tale that will invite you to to look in the mirror of Don's life and find yourself looking back, asking better questions of yourself and feeling beckoned to the God who calls you his beloved. I highly recommended this book!
August 31, 2024
I know Don Follis from the 2 years my wife and I lived in Champaign-Urbana. This book reflects Don well - a good storyteller with an inviting personality. You feel like you are walking alongside him. There are lessons in his stories. But he is never preachy. Rather, Don shares with you and invites you along.
September 15, 2023
Don is gifted with self-reflection and the ability to share what he has learned in an engaging way. Kudos!
February 12, 2024
More memoir than self-help, and I felt that other than his chapters about his son, the writing was stilted, and certainly didn't contain much about his theme.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews