A Trauma-Informed, All-Inclusive Reflection on Blackaby’s September 22 Devotional
For those who have been told their minds are broken. For those who have been asked to
check their thinking at the door. For those who have had to reclaim the right to discern
for themselves.
A Sanctuary Table for Discernment
Prepare Your Mind is part of
From Collapse to Rise: The Rewired Sanctuary
—an ongoing archive of testimony, creative work, music, spiritual reflection,
trauma-informed tools, and the slow work of restoration.
This study guide also sits alongside
The Resurrection Directive
, a core theological and trauma-informed working document for restoration.
This guide is not the Directive and does not require anyone to adopt its language,
conclusions, or theology. It is simply an invitation to reflect, discern, question,
and take what serves.
You are welcome to begin wherever you are. You do not need to read every page, agree
with every word, disclose anything about yourself, or participate in any future group
in order to be here.
A Note Before We Begin
This is a first draft: a document offered for feedback, not a finished product.
I am sharing it to see whether there is interest in gathering around devotional readings
together—perhaps regularly, perhaps in an online space such as Circle. This would be an
online-only space. There is no pressure and no expectation of participation. You are
welcome to read, reflect quietly, and never say a word. You are also welcome to share,
question, push back, adapt, or disagree.
This is an open space, not a space that assumes everyone shares Christian beliefs. The
devotional at the center of this guide comes from a Christian tradition, and I want to
name that plainly. At the same time, people who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim,
spiritual-but-not-religious, questioning, recovering from religion, members of other
faith traditions, and people of no faith are welcome here.
The questions raised by this devotional—how we think, how we discern, how we prepare our
minds, and how we resist surrendering our judgment to controlling authority—belong to all
of us.
If you would be interested in a space for readings like this, find me on social media or
email me directly at
rockydubroc@icloud.com
.
If not, no hard feelings. Take what serves you, leave what does not, and do your own
thinking with it.
The Source Text
“Prepare Your Mind”
Experiencing God Day-by-Day, September 22 — Henry and Richard Blackaby
“Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the
grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
— 1 Peter 1:13, NKJV
Your mind is a wonderful thing! You can memorize life-changing passages of Scripture
that can undergird you in your daily life; you can meditate upon God’s Word,
discovering His magnificent truths; you can discern between truth and falsehood; you
can recall God’s past blessings.
Some of God’s most effective servants were those who disciplined their minds for His
service. Moses, educated in the best schools of Egypt, assembled the books of the Law
for the Israelites. Isaiah used his scholarly mind to write an exalted prophetic book
in Scripture. Paul learned under Gamaliel, the outstanding teacher of his day, and it
was through Paul that God presented much of the theology found in the New Testament.
Sadly, many Christians today do not exercise their minds to be of service to God. They
allow others to do their spiritual thinking for them. If they can find their theology
from a book, they will not bother to study God’s Word themselves. If a speaker makes
an authoritative statement, they readily accept it without verifying whether it is
biblical.
Paul urged Christians to strive for maturity in their thinking (1 Cor. 14:20). He said
there was a time when his spiritual thinking was immature, but he had prepared his mind
to know and understand the great truths of God (1 Cor. 13:11). He had not allowed
others to do his thinking for him. When you became a Christian, God renewed your mind
(Rom. 12:2). Be certain to use your mind in a way that brings glory to God.
Before You Begin
This guide began with a reader recognizing himself in the Blackaby devotional’s framing
of Paul’s growth: that spiritual maturity includes preparing one’s mind and refusing to
let others do all one’s thinking.
Robert Andrews’s creative work—his music, writing, and public witness—has often expressed
that same refusal to surrender his thinking to others. This guide is offered in that
spirit: not as an authority to submit to, but as a companion for your own discernment.
The original devotional addresses a broad Christian audience. This guide broadens the
frame intentionally to include people who have been marginalized by institutions claiming
spiritual authority—particularly disabled people and LGBTQ+ people. It uses
trauma-informed language and begins from this conviction: you, exactly as you are, and
with whatever support, access, rest, care, or accommodation you need, are already capable
of participating in the life and discernment of God.
This guide also welcomes people of any faith, multiple faiths, uncertain faith,
recovering faith, or no faith. You do not have to adopt Christian beliefs, disclose your
beliefs, or make yourself legible to anyone in order to be here.
God Is Not Limited to the Doorway That Hurt You
This guide begins with Scripture because the devotional we are reflecting on comes from a
Christian tradition. But I need to say this plainly: Scripture was weaponized against me.
Words that were supposed to lead toward life were used to create shame, fear, silence,
and distance. So God met me by other paths.
God met me in music. In creativity. In learning technology and using AI tools to adapt
around cognitive disabilities. In mirrors—through the slow, surprising experience of
seeing myself with love rather than contempt. In moments of beauty, survival, curiosity,
and breath.
God was not limited by the doorway that hurt me.
Only later did I begin to recognize that the Word had been at work beneath it all—not
hidden as a trick, not wearing the face of the people who wounded me, but patiently
reaching me in ways I could receive safely.
God knows our wounds. Love meets us where we are.
For some people, Scripture is a place of comfort. For others, it is still complicated,
painful, or unsafe. You do not have to force yourself through a doorway that has harmed
you in order to be loved by God. This guide will engage Scripture because it is part of
the source material, but it will never require you to override your safety, your body,
your questions, or your lived experience.
Read what you can. Pause when you need to. Take what serves you, leave what does not, and
trust that God is not afraid of the path that brought you here.
The Name That Helped Me Speak
Robert Andrews is my name. Rocky Dubroc is an artist alias I use for
some creative and online projects.
Rocky is not a separate identity or a different person. It is a creative name—a layer of
protection that gave me room to make work, experiment, learn, and speak when doing so
under my own name did not always feel safe or possible.
Over time, I have come to understand that the Spirit met me there, too. God did not reject
the name I used to create a little safety and distance. God met me in the work I was able
to make through it: in music, writing, technology, questions, and the slow practice of
learning to be seen.
The name was not a deception. It was a boundary. It was a way to keep creating while I
was still learning where it was safe to be known.
If you have ever needed a different name, a screen name, a private account, a character,
a creative practice, or a little distance in order to survive, create, explore, or tell
the truth safely: that does not make you false. Sometimes protection is part of the path
toward wholeness.
Part One: The Gift of Your Mind, As It Is
Scripture Anchor: 1 Peter 1:13
The devotional opens with an invitation: “Gird up the loins of your mind.” This is a
physical metaphor—the image of tucking a long robe into a belt so you can move freely,
run if you need to, and work without tripping. It is about readiness, not strain.
Preparation, not performance.
For reflection
What has your mind survived? If you have a neurodivergent mind—ADHD, autism,
traumatic brain injury, a learning disability, or a mental-health condition—your
thinking may have been called too much, too scattered, too slow, too fast, or too
sensitive. What would it mean to believe that your mind has worth, starting exactly
where you are?
The devotional names four capacities: memorizing, meditating, discerning, and
recalling. Which comes most naturally to you? Which has been discouraged or shamed in
you by religious authorities?
Romans 12:2 speaks of transformation and renewal. What might it mean to receive that
as an invitation into God’s life rather than a command to erase your personality,
disability, embodied identity, or need for support?
The Inward Parts: Truth Without Self-Rejection
“Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to
know wisdom.”
— Psalm 51:6, NKJV
There are parts of us that learned to hide: the part that became vigilant because it had
to; the part that learned to scan a room for danger; the part that goes quiet around
authority; the part that doubts its own worth because it was taught that its body, mind,
gender, sexuality, disability, questions, or needs were too much.
Some religious systems call these parts sinful simply because they are inconvenient,
emotional, different, or difficult to control. They may tell us to silence them,
suppress them, or crucify them.
But Psalm 51 does not say that God desires our disappearance. It says God desires truth
in the inward parts. God meets us in what is hidden and teaches wisdom there.
This does not mean every inner message is automatically true, nor does it mean pain itself
is holy. It means that no part of you has to be despised in order to be brought to God.
We do not crucify the inward parts that survived. We do not crucify the part that needs
rest, access, protection, therapy, medication, community, boundaries, or time. We do not
crucify queerness, disability, neurodivergence, grief, or the honest questions that arise
when authority has wounded us.
We bring those inward parts into truth. We listen with compassion. We ask what each part
has been trying to protect. We invite God’s love into places that have known shame.
What is crucified is not our humanity, but the sin and shame that distort it: domination,
self-contempt, and the lie that we must abandon ourselves to be loved by God.
Christian transformation is not self-erasure. It is the slow work of becoming more
truthful, more free, more loving, and more fully alive.
For reflection
Which inward part of you has been criticized, hidden, or treated as a problem to
solve?
What might change if you approached that part with curiosity instead of contempt?
What has this part been trying to protect, communicate, or survive?
What beliefs about yourself need repentance—not because you are bad, but because
shame taught you a lie?
Part Two: The Thinkers Who Were Not Siloed
The devotional points to Moses, Isaiah, and Paul—each educated, each trained, each using
their intellectual capacity in service to something beyond themselves.
But the Spirit does not only work through formal education. The Spirit may also work
through lived experience: the knowledge that comes from surviving systems that were not
designed for you. LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and neurodivergent people may carry
forms of wisdom that cannot be learned in a classroom.
The Spirit may also work through embodied knowing: the wisdom of a body that has learned
to notice safety and danger, belonging and exclusion, truth and manipulation. This
awareness can contain important wisdom, while also deserving gentleness, rest, and the
support of safe people.
Community testimony matters, too. The collective knowledge of people who have been told
they do not belong and found one another anyway—such as the Black church, the disability
rights movement, and queer Christian communities—can be part of the church’s shared
discernment.
For reflection
Where has your mind been trained by life rather than by a teacher? What has surviving
taught you that a textbook could not?
Who are the “Gamaliels” in your life—not only formal scholars, but people whose lived
wisdom has shaped your understanding of God?
What formal or informal education has prepared you to think, create, care, question,
or discern?
Part Three: The Central Challenge—Thinking for Yourself
“Sadly, many Christians today do not exercise their minds to be of service to God. They
allow others to do their spiritual thinking for them.”
This is the heart of the devotional. It is also a difficult invitation for people whose
thinking, bodies, identities, or experiences have been treated as disqualifying.
When you have been told that your sexuality, gender, disability, or questions disqualify
you from spiritual insight, the act of thinking for yourself can become an act of
resistance. When religious authorities have used Scripture to justify exclusion, the work
of asking whether that interpretation is faithful, loving, and honest is not rebellion
against God. It can be part of obedience to God.
Institutions should be examined carefully when they discourage questions, punish honest
disagreement, or use authority to override conscience and safety. Healthy communities
cultivate learning, accountability, and shared discernment rather than demanding
unquestioning compliance.
For reflection
What beliefs were you taught that you have had to unlearn?
What spiritual truths have you discovered because you refused to let someone else do
all your thinking for you?
What would it look like to think for yourself in a way that honors your survival
rather than dismissing your caution?
What form might your own statement of creative, spiritual, or intellectual freedom
take?
Reading Scripture With Care
If someone tells you what the Bible says about your identity, body, or belonging, you are
allowed to question their interpretation. If engaging the text feels safe, you may read it
yourself—in a translation and context that support care and clarity. You may also seek out
trustworthy, affirming teachers and communities.
Original-language study can be helpful, but it is not required for faithful reading.
Reliable translations, study Bibles, scholars, and communities of interpretation are also
real resources.
You do not have to face a weaponized text alone, and you never have to override your
safety in order to prove your faith.
Part Four: Maturity in Thinking—A Growth, Not a Destination
The devotional uses Paul’s language of childhood and adulthood to invite growth. In
1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s wider point is that even present knowledge is partial and must
be governed by love. Maturity is not certainty, superiority, or having no more questions.
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul calls the congregation toward mature thinking in the context of
worship, communication, and discernment. The broader invitation is not to isolate
ourselves or canonize private opinion. It is to grow in thoughtful, loving, responsible
judgment.
Paul’s own immaturity included persecuting the church while believing he was serving God.
Sometimes the most dangerous immaturity is the certainty that we cannot be wrong. Growth
may require humility, repair, listening, and the courage to change our minds.
For many disabled and LGBTQ+ believers, learning to trust one’s own discernment can be
part of healing and maturity. It does not require rejecting every teacher or community. It
means refusing to surrender conscience, safety, and God-given dignity to coercive
authority.
For reflection
What does “immature thinking” look like in your own spiritual history—not as a
judgment, but as an honest look at where you used to be?
What changed? What helped you grow: a book, conversation, crisis, creative work, or
community that let you ask hard questions?
Have you ever been certain about something spiritual that you later realized was
wrong? What helped you survive that realization?
What would growth look like for you if it were rooted in love rather than fear?
Part Five: Practical Preparation
“Girding the loins of your mind” is an active metaphor. The following are accessible,
trauma-informed ways to prepare your mind for discernment, learning, and the Spirit’s
work.
For every kind of mind
Give yourself permission to question. Write down one thing you have been taught about
God that does not sit right with you. You do not have to resolve it today.
Find your thinkers. The devotional warns against letting others do your thinking for
you, but it does not say to do it alone. Seek people who think with you, not for you.
Practice discernment in community. Wisdom may include prayer, reading, trusted friends,
affirming faith communities, disability accommodations, medical or mental-health care,
and professional support when trauma has made spiritual questions feel unsafe.
Notice your own patterns. You may observe details, relationships, or inconsistencies
that others overlook. However your mind works, its way of attending can be part of your
participation in discernment.
For disabled thinkers
Your mind may process differently. That is not a barrier to spiritual knowledge. The
Spirit speaks in many frequencies, and you are not excluded.
If memory is a challenge, preparation may look like a running notes file, voice memos,
visual reminders, or returning to the same passage many times. That is not failure.
If focus is a challenge, you may prepare in short bursts, in your own rhythm, and in
whatever posture, environment, or format your body needs.
For LGBTQ+ thinkers
Your identity is not an obstacle to spiritual understanding. Your experience may help
you notice exclusion, coercion, and interpretive harm that others have overlooked.
If you have been harmed by authoritative religious claims, you may need time, support,
and boundaries as you discern what is trustworthy. That care is not a failure of faith.
Your community’s theological work—the readings, reclamations, questions, and
reimaginings—belongs in the conversation. Your thinking matters.
Closing Prayer / Intention
God who renews minds,
I come with the mind I have—not the mind I was told I should have, not the mind I may one
day have, but the mind I have right now. Scattered or focused, quick or slow, traumatized
or healing, questioning or certain.
Prepare this mind for Your truth. Not someone else’s version of it. Not the version that
was used to exclude me. Your truth, received with humility, tested in love, Scripture,
prayer, experience, and trustworthy community—as I am ready to receive it, as You are
ready to reveal it.
Give me the courage to think for myself. Give me the humility to learn from others. Give
me wisdom to recognize teaching that equips and invites discernment, and authority that
controls through fear, shame, or coercion.
And let the thinking I do—in this season of growth, in this preparation—bring glory to
You and freedom to the people You love.
Amen.
For Group Discussion or Journaling
What part of this devotional or study guide resonated most with you? Why?
Have you ever been told to stop thinking, or that your thinking was wrong? How did that
affect your faith, spirituality, or sense of self?
Who in your life has modeled spiritual independence, careful discernment, or the courage
to ask difficult questions? What did you learn from them?
What is one area of your spiritual life where you want to prepare your mind more
intentionally?
What inward part of you needs compassion rather than condemnation today?
What would growth look like for you right now if it did not require self-erasure?
Continue Exploring
This guide is one entry point. You are welcome to explore more of the work—or to stop
here. Both choices are welcome.