For who is God except the Lord? Who but our God is a solid rock? God arms me with strength, and He makes my way perfect. He makes me as sure-footed as a deer, enabling me to stand on Mountain heights. Psalms 18:31-33

Really all of Psalm 18:30-36 jumped out to me. So much of what I’ve been going through lately is addressed in this passage. But when I read, “He makes me as sure-footed as a deer…” my first thought was “I’ve never felt sure-footed.”

Now this is an exaggeration. I listen to the Holy Spirit and feel assured in the steps He tells me to take. But plain old Lilliana? I never feel confident in the way I feel or think. I’ll feel an emotion and then overthink it until I have no idea what I’m feeling anymore. I’ll sit in my head pondering the way I think, the way I act, the next decisions I should make, the person I think I am — dissecting it all to the point it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Like when you say a word too many times and it starts to sound like absolute nonsense.

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This moment was building upon an encounter I had with God earlier that same summer. At the top of a hill in Virginia, at my first summer camp, the speaker called all the kids to the front and told us to ask God for guidance on what our calling was. Through this time of prayer God revealed to me a general calling to ministry. Then while learning about Amy Carmichael’s life and ministry I felt such a burden for the people she was ministering to. I rushed downstairs where my parents were sitting in the living room, tears streaming down my face, and told them I felt God was calling me to India.

Since that day ten years ago I have been preparing in different ways for the day I’ll eventually call India my home. My current method of preparation is through my internship at Glad Tidings Church in San Francisco.

Allow me to dive into a backstory on this internship. Two years ago I had started the 16hour drive to my first Called Camp — a weekend camp right outside of Santa Cruz for teenagers who feel called into ministry. On the way there I chipped a tooth. Front and center in my mouth. I was so upset. But I decided during the weekend at camp I would be contending for my healing. During one worship session at camp they set out a mic and opened it up to any students who felt God had given them a word.

While praying that God would heal me, he gave me a word about healing to share with everyone. But I believed I couldn’t share it until I was healed. The conversation that followed went a bit like this:

Me: “Alright God that’s cool and all but you’ve gotta heal me before I can give that word.”

God: “I’ve given you that word to share with everyone.”

Me: “…Again, awesome, but I can’t give this prophetic word about healing until I have the testimony of you healing me.”

God: “…”

Me: ”…”

God: ”…”

Me: “Alright fine I understand.”

At the end of the camp I was talking to the Pastor who runs the Called program and he was telling me a little bit more about that night. He had asked Pastor Tim Gavigan — the speaker for that year — if they should transition into the next portion of the night or if they needed to leave the mic open a little longer. And apparently Pastor Tim told him that there was one more person supposed to get up and speak, and her name was Lily. That very moment I walked up to the mic and the Pastor over Called said “Well that’s Lily right there.”

This on top of his preaching and a few other things he prayed over me during camp instilled Pastor Tim as a personal hero of mine.

Fast forward two years and I’m looking for a church internship. I had no idea what it would look like but I knew I wanted to jump straight into ministry and I knew I wanted to be back in California. I’d done my time in Nevada and I was joyfully looking forward to leaving it and its sage brush behind.

I spent the summer searching but couldn’t find anything that seemed to fit. I’d even reached out to this same Pastor over the Called students and asked if he knew of anything like what I was looking for. He said he’d be on the look out.

Then in November he reached out to tell me about an internship spot available at a church in San Francisco called Glad Tidings — Pastor Tim Gavigan’s church.

The day I got his text I’d been sitting on the living room floor and enjoying being alone in the house for a few hours. After reading his text my jaw dropped and I jumped to my feet. I couldn’t believe it. If I had been tasked to dream up the perfect answer to what I was looking for I wouldn’t have even thought to imagine it being this good.

My family came home just a moment later. They saw me standing in the middle of the room, mouth agape, and froze. When I told them what had happened the words hung in the air and everyone was silent for a long moment.

Every now and then I remember how crazy it is for me to be where I am doing what I’m doing and I’m struck with the same kind of impossible awe. God’s hand was over every moment of this. Even when things were moving so much quicker than I ever expected and I was constantly being torn between complete elation and the realization that I’d be leaving my family in just a few months.

God has really been showing me, in the four months that I’ve been in San Francisco, all the ways in which this internship is preparing me for the mission field. I get the opportunity to work alongside all the different pastors on staff, learning and assisting in each of their ministries. From congregational care to planning missions trips to finances.

The official description of my role is Revival Training Center Student. Glad Tidings is a church that is contending for revival. And it has been such a privilege to learn what it looks like to walk that out. (if you want to read more about what my time here has looked like you can check out this article I wrote about it on my blog).

Recently God revealed to me another part of this process that will help equip me that I have been ignoring. And that’s raising support.

I really wanted to find a part-time job and work two days a week to make enough to live on. However as door after door kept closing I turned to God (see the problem here is I should have turned to him before all the applications) and asked what He wants me to do. And this is what he laid on my heart. Exercising an ability to raise funds for the mission at hand. And because He’s given me this gift of writing I’ve decided to send out a monthly newsletter to do just that.

My goal is 800 a month. I’ll be sending out a newsletter like this one every month that will really explore updates on the ministry, lessons God is teaching me, and snippets of what it’s like living in San Francisco.

If you give you’ll be helping me to continue the ministry I’m doing in San Francisco. To remain a light in the city of San Francisco, helping alongside the staff at Glad Tidings as we prepare for the revival that is coming for the city.

There are a few ways you can send support:

1. Send money to my Venmo @Lilliana013

2. Send checks to 1280 Webster St, San Francisco CA, 94115, addressed to Lilliana Elrod

3. Subscribe to my blog on Substack here. You can follow me for free but paid subscribers get access to all the content. This option is limited to a set 10.00 a month.

I ask that you would consider giving to partner with the mission God has for me here. And I also ask for prayer. That you would take a moment to pray with each donation, or keep me on your mind to pray for even if you cannot give at the moment.

We’re on our way to visit the guide’s home. When we get there we’re greeted by his mom and one of his sisters-in-law, who invite us into the mother’s bedroom that also serves as a living room. Then they serve us chai and little cookies. It was seriously the best chai I have ever had. They kept offering me more and more, and I kept drinking it until I started to feel sick.

While there I excised as much of what I remembered from our Bengali lesson to speak to the mother of the home. It was such a magical little pocket of time. It felt like a page torn out from the books I grew up reading. And it really compounded the principle I brought home from India. And that’s on hospitality and generosity.

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A few months ago I had a revelation about living this season of my life completely for the Lord. Now that sounds like something we should all be doing, no matter what season of life or lifestyle we lead. However I am specifically referencing Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34

“I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband.”

Now before we get into it I need to clarify that I am not promoting having no life outside of ministry (though I do believe that as Christians we should view our very lives as our ministry). I spend plenty of time outside the church, with friends, pursuing my other goals and hobbies, etc. This discussion is more about how in this season I am blessed to be consumed solely by the Lord’s work, and the care of His house.

I also feel the need to make the point that I am in no way complaining about the things I’m about to share with you. Nor is it an attempt to victimize myself. I share all this out of the abundance of my gratitude. Again, I count all of this to be a blessing. I know I won’t always be so free to be solely concerned with the Lord’s work and I am exalting in this season where I have that opportunity.

My roommate’s number one said phrase is “Passion for the Lord’s house will consume me.” This is a paraphrase of Psalm 69:9—

“For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”

—and John 2:17—

“His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’”

And last Saturday night I truly understood — maybe for the first time — what she means. It was a long, busy day at the church. My church hosted its first Taste of the Nations fundraiser event. We had 12 different tables of food from other countries to raise funds four our missions trip in June. And as a member of the missions team I was there serving from 10am to 4pm. It was such an amazing time, and we ended up raising three times our original goal!

After the event I was exhausted. I’m sure everyone was. I went upstairs to my little church-mouse apartment and spent the rest of the evening reading The Wind in the Willows and reveling in the rain from my window.

And at 8:15 pm, just as I had microwaved some leftovers and started a new anime, my roommate called me saying there was a flood downstairs.

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The past weekend has been a very rainy one in San Francisco. In fact it’s been the wettest April storm in the Bay Area in seven years. During all this rain one of the drains on the roof of the church became clogged. The result was a massive puddle on the carpet 14 hours before Sunday service. We got to work laying down towels and gathering buckets, but I was at a loss as to how we were supposed to get it all cleaned up. These sorts of little fires always seem to be popping up in ministry life. But the buck has never fallen on me before. I may be recruited to help out, but at the end of the day I was just another pair of hands to be instructed. Never had something like this been my responsibility. And I’m not saying the flood was completely my responsibility. But for the first time I was equally responsible for cleaning up the mess as the others.

Our pastor came over to help and the three of us sorted out the mess in a little under an hour. — though through some rather odd methods. At one point I found myself sweeping up water into a dustpan. And it was one of the most effective means of getting rid of the water!

And yet through all of this I felt my heart swelling with joy and gratitude. I believe I was actually smiling through most of the clean up. I kept my mouth shut for fear of being the annoying one talking about how fulfilling it was to be sweeping up flood water at 9pm. Though I doubt I would have irritated my fellow sweepers. Passion for the Lord’s house is a common attribute I have observed in many of the staff members and congregants at my church.

I was so overwhelming grateful to God to be where I was, doing what I was. Serving Him. Spending my night taking care of His house. And to be doing it alongside fellow servants of the Most High. There was such an air of unity that night. I doubt that the unity was anything out of the norm, as that is a principle often taught, modeled, and felt in the church body. But I felt it more acutely as we went about the quiet work of wringing out sopping towels.

After the mess was dealt with, and the fans were placed by the wet spots for the night, my roommate and I stood on the roof of the church for a few moments. “Saturday nights at 1280 Webster street, Lilliana,” she said with a laugh. Her comment has stuck with me. It was said with audible fatigue, and yet it was clear how much joy accompanied it.

For the past ten years of my life I have known I am called to be a missionary. Now I do believe that is something still in the distant future — though of course if God told me to pack my bags and fly abroad tomorrow I would. However I have spent these ten years in preparation for the day God tells me to go. And I believe that this season, this opportunity, is another large step in the preparation process. The refining process.

While sweeping up the water I couldn’t help but compare my life now to what it may look like in the future as a missionary. I believe the spot I’m in now — this city, this internship, this church environment — is probably one of the closest ways to experience what life in missions will look like while still living in America.

I think about all the ways I have gotten to show God’s love to people since being here. Like handing out groceries to people living in the Tenderloin. Or simply having a conversation with people on the bus. Showing up for people in little ways — little pockets of opportunity to show God’s love for them in action. And it makes me think of all the missionaries in closed countries whose entire ministry is restricted to these moments. The missionaries who have had to change the image of what a church service should look like, what outreach should look like, in exchange for the slow, simple work of building relationships and relying on God to work in peoples’ hearts.

The other night I was driving back into the city with a group from my church. I stared out the windowed roof as we passed under the towers of the Bay Bridge. For some reason passing beneath each tower the bridge was hitting me with an intense feeling of importance. Like the emotions of some deep revelation were washing over me before the actual thought had formulated. Then I remembered a moment from two years ago, when I was leaving NYC after spending the day there with my best friend and her family. I had stared up at the towers of the bridge leading out of the city and felt a deep remorse that this could be the last time I visit the city. Remembering this moment helped me realize that the feeling I now had was the complete opposite. It was the feeling of knowing this is my home in this season. That God has me here for a reason, and this city, this church community, in this time, is my mission.

I am so grateful to God for this perfect place he has positioned me in. The perfect environment to be stretched in all the ways that will make me a better servant of Him in the future. A better picture of His love and ministry — even if I can’t always launch into an exhortation of the Word with the person sitting beside me at the cafe while we wait for our coffees together.

If you want to support me in this mission, I am rolling out paid subscriber perks. For ten dollars a month you’ll gain access to all my writing, more personal updates, and discussion threads. And you’ll be helping me to continue ministering in this season.

Above all else I ask for your support in prayer. And I hope you’ll follow me in this journey as I look forward to many more Saturday nights at 1280 Webster street.

However it was only after that — when I sat down and tried to hit publish — that I realized I had to be eighteen to do so. KDP requires their authors to be legal adults so that any contract will be binding. That, or I could publish under my dad’s account, and neither party was willing to do that. So I spent the past six months waiting to publish Gift of Spades.

Just a week ago I turned eighteen. I published Gift of Spades the very same day. So many people have shown their support online since I made the announcement. So far I’ve had more sales than I thought I would at this point — even some from online friends I met in the process of marketing its’ release.

With this said, I’d like to talk about a strange phenomenon I’ve noticed in my writing throughout the years.

Gift of Spades follows a young girl named Elodie. She lives with her parents on their farm and wants nothing more than to one day have her own farm. But when her Gift Day arrives, she’s given a Gift that threatens to take away the only life she’s ever known. She’s moved to the palace against her will and has to learn to navigate this new life.

This story focuses a lot on the changes Elodie is forced into. She fights back on every little thing and tries to find a way out. Which ends up hurting new friends she’s made in the process. Throughout the story Elodie has to come to grips with the changes in her life and find a new meaning. A new future.

Now for those of you who know me personally, you might be thinking that summary could be describing my own journey. That’s what I’d like to discuss. I started writing Gift of Spades probably a year and a half to two years before I learned my family and I would be moving from our home in upstate New York to a tiny town in Nevada. Admittedly this wasn’t the first time I had moved across the country. I was originally born In California, and my family has lived in many states around the US. However I had never been upset about these past moves. Growing up it was always just my family and I. I was homeschooled and didn’t have many friends.

In New York, I found a best friend in our pastor’s daughter. I started attending youth group for the first time. It was at the church there that I began to involve myself in ministry and grow closer to God than I had ever been. It was the only time I can remember leaving being so hard.

While going through all of this, I had already been exploring these difficult transitions in Gift of Spades. I had a safe, isolated place to vent my frustrations — even when the news was still a secret. There was more than one cute scene of Elodie voicing my own thinly-veiled frustrations. Though unlike Elodie my move didn’t come with the friends she finds at the palace.

Even now, with the book I’m currently working on, I’ve noticed some of what I’ve written coming to pass in my own life. Some admittedly more broad. For example the main character, Kat, starts the book moving away from her family to NYC. As I’ve mentioned in my earlier articles I’m moving to San Francisco Jan. 9th. Now this similarity could very well be a coincidence, but throughout the years I’ve found it comforting to find my characters going through — or having already gone through — the very things I’m facing. It’s the reason we all love characters we relate to and resonate with, though I feel it’s more intimate with the characters I’ve created and spent so much time with.

With this said, I’d like to talk about the main parallel between my life and the life of Kat. The overarching theme of the project I was just talking about is Kat learning that loving and trusting people is always going to be painful, people are always going to let you down and hurt you, but it’s worth it to love them anyway.

Around the time I finished the first draft and started really stating this theme in my edit, I wound up in a similar situation. I, along with many others, found myself betrayed by someone close. Writing Kat’s arc, I began wrestling with the very thing she was wrestling with. I had believed this theme when I started writing about it. However this situation had me questioning whether or not it really was worth it to keep loving and trusting others again and again. I had to figure out how fully I believed in my theme in real time as Kat was coming to grips with it herself.

Now a lot of similarities can be attributed to two things. One, spending that much time in someone’s head — even if they’re fictional — has an impact in one way or another. I’ve seen my favorite color and even the style of clothing I like to wear shift to fit with my characters’. And two, each character I create is bound to reflect a bit of myself.

However I also believe that God can speak through people through anything He sees fit. And I believe He speaks to people in ways He knows we’ll understand. For example my dad was just talking about this in the case of the wise men. Throughout the Christmas Story, God uses angles to speak to those involved (Mary: Luke 1:26-27) (Joseph: Matthew 1:20) (Shepherds: Luke 2:8-9). But when the wise men were warned not to return to Herod, God spoke to them in a dream (Matthew 2:12). That was the form of communication they would have understood as being divine.

Experiencing the same things as my characters has helped me better understand what I myself am walking through time and time again. Often what God is teaching me in a season can be found in a project I’ve already been working on.

Now I’m not claiming I can predict the future or anything like that. Rather I’m exploring a unique way God speaks to me. I think it’s wonderful how God speaks to each person in the way they’ll understand. He understands where we’re coming from, how we process, and how we contextualize. And I will forever be grateful to Him for that.

I want to leave you all with a question. What are the unique ways God speaks to you? Are you making room to hear Him speaking, even in ways you might not have expected?

I think we should all make a greater effort to look for Him in every facet of our lives. Even areas we may deem ‘weird’ or ‘mundane’.

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I’ve got about a month left with my family. Every now and then it hits me and I start to get upset at the thought of leaving them. But for the most part …

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