The following are Dana's words as given in her July 10 article, Straddling Worlds: Disillusionment and the Call to Discomfort - Reformed Journal. It includes a thoughtful quote from Barbara Brown Taylor's book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Dana starts with her own story of her turning to God when she was far from home and when she was "questioning, disoriented, and uncertain:"
"Disillusionment is defined as the state of being freed from an illusion or false belief. It can be a letting go, rather than a disappointment. A dying, but in order to make room for new growth.
I’ve long been a fan of Barbara Brown Taylor—author of Leaving Church and Learning to Walk in the Dark. But recently, I came across a used copy of her 1993 memoir and collection of sermons, The Preaching Life. In its first chapter, “The Truth in Ruins,” she writes:
Disillusionment is a loss of Illusion— about ourselves, about the world, about God— and while it is almost always painful, it is not a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for the truth. Disillusioned, we come to understand that God does not conform to our expectations. We glimpse our own relative size in the universe and see that no human being can say who God should be or how God should act. We review our requirements of God and recognize them as our own fictions, our own frail shelters against the vast night sky. Disillusioned we find out what is not true and are set free to seek what is— if we dare. "
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