| ENTRY 002 | God Is In The Details: GUBA, Mantles, and Working While Wounded
Can we talk about God being in the D.E.T.A.I.L.S for a minute!?
When I first heard God whisper, “Working While Wounded. This is the name of your Podcast. It has oil over it. It is a healing ministry,” I was in disbelief. I had just spent the entire month of June feeling rag-dolled by the deep healing and refinement process that the Lord loves to bless us with. So, on July 1st, 2026, during my midnight prayer hour, when God put me on divine assignment to start the Working While Wounded Podcast (which has now evolved into a digital community), I was surprised to say the least. I wasn’t asking him for it in that moment. He just dropped it into my spirit, so naturally I jotted it into my journal.
But how like God is it, to have me reflect back to two years ago. After rummaging through that one memory box with old notebooks and birthday cards, full of nostalgia, you know the one…I sat staring at my 2024 vision board. Right off of the edge, I saw two cute little blocks of a magazine paper cutouts that read “PODCAST” and right next to that it said “I HEALED.” I laughed, because around that time, a podcast was something that I originally thought about doing with my cousin, more like sister; but we lived an ocean apart, we were both busy adulting, and honestly, come on, the market was already completely saturated with podcasts. Long story short, it wasn’t something that was on my radar at all.
Then I thought about how in January of 2025, the Lord called me away from my military career to do…well, actually He never told me what exactly. All He said was “Submit your packet [to get out of the military], now.” So, after a month of tussling back and forward with Him, because I am NOT the kind of person that likes doing anything without a plan A to Z, He obviously won and I obeyed. And now, here I am, writing this blog entry with a whole lot more time on my hands and exactly 45 days until I am officially a civilian worker again. Apparently though, God has decided to fill all this new found time with the W|W|W assignment. And to tell you the truth, it’s scary—and yet, I am excited for it at the same time.
The night He told me the name of W|W|W, I saw it visually before it was ever physically anything. I saw “WORKING while WOUNDED”and specifically, I saw “while” written in cursive, but “WORKING and WOUNDED” written in bold letters, hence the logo. The wording is exactly how I pictured it when the Lord showed me the name of Working While Wounded. It was a primarily bold font with a cursive accent, which I think fits the brand perfectly. The emphasis is on working to serve out your God-given purpose WHILE you’re wounded, not after you’ve healed, because healing from God comes as you go. And make no mistake, He is Jehovah Rapha, The Lord Who Heals!
Now, I am laughing again, because after I was done journaling all that God was telling me about W|W|W, I immediately went to funzie branding ideas—I’m talking going crazy creating logos from Pinterest and CapCut with dots, stripes, and no color scheme whatsoever, just thankfully no stars. I felt like I was 12 again, and my midnight creativity was running wild. The cringey part is that I actually used the midnight-frenzy logo mockups as my first profile picture and banner on YouTube.
I had no idea where I was going with that, I just knew I was going somewhere. Even though I’m a little embarrassed, it was so fun tapping into a child like creativity. As I continued to seek God more on what W|W|W was supposed to be, I thought to myself that I couldn’t try to build something intentional, that communicates alignment, while having all these wild, insignificant, and mixed-matched patterned prints; at least not for this assignment. I think the Lord was just letting me have my fun, which I really appreciated. But, at the end of the day W|W|W is His community, and I am just the person allowed to steward it. So, as the week went on, I continued leaning into what God envisioned for W|W|W; not just the graphics, but the voice, the presence it creates, how it makes others feel, does it scream or does it invite? Those questions started shaping the details, and they became important. I worked all week on it and eventually, with the help of God, AI, and Canva, W|W|W settled into an established branding kit—a part of which was the core brand palette.
My personal favorites are Mustard Seed, Wine of the Covenant, Covenant Olive, and Risen Linen. They are so warm and inviting, but the best part is they tell an intentional story that points back to Jesus.
Mustard Seed: In Matthew 17:20, Jesus tells His disciples “For truly I tell you, if you have the faith of a Mustard Seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Working While Wounded is exactly the result of my mustard seed sized faith in this season. God spoke a word to me about it, and I have decided to have just enough faith to act on that word, and see what He spoke come to pass. Everything in the start up season is slow, the building process can take a long time, and so, it’s hard not to lose heart in what God said is true, but this is my attempt to have faith in His word.
Wine of the Covenant: In Luke 22:20, at the last supper with His disciples, before His death, Jesus told them with glasses full of wine, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” How precious a reminder to know that God sealed His covenant to us through sending Jesus, His son, to sacrifice Himself for us and cover our sins with His blood, which still works and is still healing and covering us today. It reminds me that my freedom and my life were bought with a high price, and so I only want to honor the one who set me free.
Covenant Olive: This one is special. It takes me back to Jesus in Gethsemane in Mark 14:32. Where just before His crucifixion He was in the Garden praying to God for relief in the assignment that He was given to sacrifice Himself for humanity. He was under extreme pressure and yet He still remained obedient to God’s will and what flowed from that decision of obedience was not only the precious blood, but also the anointed oil. I write in depth about my experience with a pressing season in my previous entry, GETHSEMANE: The Place of Pressing. Specifically, I write about how W|W|W is also a result of my spirit overflowing with oil, because of how merciful Jesus is, even during the painful, pressing seasons.
Risen Linen: This is sentimental because it is a reminder that this life is not our final inheritance; that through what Jesus did, we can live in eternity with God in the Kingdom of Heaven, when this life passes away. In Matthew 27:59, it says that after Jesus’s death, “Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in His new tomb.” 3 days later at Jesus’s tomb, in Matthew 28:7, an angel of the Lord told Jesus’s disciple, Mary Magdalene, “I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is not here. For He has risen, just as He said.” After Jesus endured the pressing season and completed His assignment, He was resurrected and given new life in eternity. That’s also a promise that we get to hold onto. When we die, there is a place that we can go, where we live in this same joyous eternity with God, but it is our decision to make.
When I look at all the detail wrapped up in W|W|W, I fall in love with Jesus all over again, and I pray that it would be a community that causes others to fall in love with Him the same way. I didn’t know branding could be so much fun and tell such a story, until I decided to let God lead the design. God was down into the details of every color and every text font in the logo.
Okay, now I’m laughing REALLY HARD, because as I was thinking about all of this branding: the warm tones, the voice of W|W|W, and all things concept, the Holy Spirit reminded me of another cringey memory, but this time from three years ago (insert eye-roll because the Holy Spirit thinks it’s funny for making me bring this up). Everyone meet, GUBA. Yeah, you can laugh, because WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY!?
Ya’ll, I’m actually so embarrassed of this one, because what was I thinking? But, let me explain. In 2023, I was going through a lot of therapy, because my mom passed away in 2021 (you can read the About Me post on any of my platforms for more backstory on me). At some point, I had gotten to a place in my healing journey where I thought I wanted to share it with the general public?? I don’t know, I guess I had this concept that I wanted raw, open, honest, and transparent conversations about dealing with grief, trauma, and the journey of finding your way back to yourself. My immediate action for this was to make an Instagram account (L.O.L). The above image was my logo, but that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that I was digitally putting this logo on hoodies, fanny packs, socks, and literally trying to make something out of nothing. Like, girl…not to mention the NAME—GUBA!? HELLO? Who in their right mind is gonna wear that!? Also, who, what, where, when, why, and how did I even come up with that?
Well, the term GUBA was based off of the concept that on this page, I wanted to talk all things life, trauma, growth, and healing (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Abundant). In fact, I wanted this to work so bad, that when the acronym didn’t make sense as GBUA, I had a minor moment of dyslexia, and came up with GUBA, because I thought it flowed better. So, then I just started drawing it, and I still, to this day, can’t believe I actually made a post. Thank God I didn’t follow anyone I know, because they would have been like, “BLOCK.” All joking aside, let me tell you how the LORD showed up in a massive way, even in this goofy moment that I had completely forgotten about.
Thankfully, God did not allow GUBA to make it past that one instagram post, because truthfully, I believe that if He did, I probably would have been doing a lot more bleeding on the internet than pouring oil on it, which wouldn’t have been fun for any of us. Fast forward to 2025, two years after I was re-baptized, the Lord spoke to me for the very first time, about what I believe was the very beginning of W|W|W. By this time, I had been praying for a couple of years that God would heal me from my trauma wounds, but I was also consistently asking Him to use me as a vessel for His good work. Never truly feeling worthy of a calling, I kept praying, but I wasn’t actively pursuing it until 2025. So, as I began to more deeply seek the Lord, He revealed Himself to me in new ways.
First, he took me through a series of tests in obedience. He asked me to set down a situationship that I was in at the time, but I really didn’t want to do it, because I thought it was the worst possible timing that He could have had to ask me to give that up. The guy that I was talking to, had finally just decided that he wanted to make our situation a committed relationship. In retrospect, God was right and it was the best choice I could have made. And it ended up being a set up for the next bigger act of obedience He would ask of me: to leave my career in the military. Then, a few months later, He asked me to make more time for Him, to go and serve in His house, which meant one of my favorite hobbies had to go. And there were plenty of other requests, but those were the biggest. All that to say, in a season of what felt like losing, was really God producing a willingness in me to submit and to trust Him with each decision, no matter what it felt like it cost in the moment. With each act of obedience His voice got clearer. It was like I could be in the Bible for days, fasting for days, worshipping for days and not grow weary. But, then I got into a spiritual lull around April 2025, all the way until June. In June 2025, I attended Shantia Dajah’s First Class Summit Women’s Conference, and the Lord completely revived my spirit and spoke an unexpected word to me at the very end of the conference, during the closing prayer. The last page of my journal for that season reads “Healing is your mantle.”
That is what He spoke to me one year ago, and I was simply, confused. The only time I had heard the word mantle before, was whenever my mom told us to put something on the mantle (a shelf-like structure) in the entry way of our house. So again, confused, because, “what do you mean a piece of furniture is my calling, God?” I also felt like I hadn’t been hearing the Lord talk much in those few passing months of 2025. But, during the conference (the whole 4-hours), I was asking God to speak; to break the silence. And in one small moment at the end, finally I heard something. And all I could think to myself after the fact was, “what’s a mantle?”
From that day on, I began my research on mantles, because, seek and you will find (Matthew 7:7), always seeking first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). As I am researching, I find a surprising amount of data on mantles; a sermon specifically about healing mantles, another article about the healing mantle, which then led me to a book, Mantles Past and Present: What Mantles Are and How They Work. I later realized that these were all products of the same person, Roberts Liardon, and the dots had finally connected. Liardon’s book, Mantles Past and Present: What Mantles Are and How They Work, talks specifically about the healing mantle that has been prevalent and passed down in America. This particularly peaked my interest, because of the specifics of what God spoke to me.
I want to pause here and emphasize that I’m not saying I carry the great healing mantle in America, nor am I calling myself a prophet, a pastor, a preacher, or anything of that degree. In full transparency, those titles come with the type of heavy spiritual warfare that I don’t even want to know anything about right now. So, all that I am explaining here, is what I believe God spoke to me about what He has placed on my life and what I came to understand about mantles. By no means am I an expert in anything that I am writing, so as always, take it all back to the Lord in your prayer time, as you see fit.
So, let’s get into what I learned about mantles. What are they actually? In my handy dandy research, it all circled back to the book of 1 Kings, where Elijah’s prophetic mantle was spoken about. In verse 19:19, under the paragraph titled “The Call of Elisha”, whom God commanded Elijah to anoint as his prophetic successor, the verse says,
“So Elijah went and found Elisha son of Shaphat plowing a field. There were twelve teams of oxen in the field, and Elisha was plowing with the twelfth team. Elijah walked by him and threw his mantle over him. Elisha left the oxen, ran to follow Elijah, and said “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.”
This specific mantle was symbolic of the divine calling on Elijah’s life. Elijah is often remembered as one of the greatest prophets of his time, with one of his famous acts being calling down fire from heaven to glorify the Lord’s name. His mantle was both a spiritual covering and gifting from the Lord, but in the physical it was an outer cloak or garment that was typically worn to protect people from the outside elements, such as weather.
In the Harrison House article, What Are Mantles? How to Recognize the Transfer of God’s Anointing, by Roberts Liardon, which the Holy Spirit led me to during my research,Liardon describes the mantle as a “supernatural ‘cloak´ that God places on a person of His choosing to accomplish a task of significant importance” and when the mantle is passed from one person to the next, it is described as “the transfer of God’s anointing”.
Although a mantle is described as a physical piece of clothing, the divine transfer of it happens in the spirit realm and is more closely understood as the passing of a divine assignment from one chosen person to the next. In 2 Kings Chapter 2, the time is coming where Elijah’s work on the earth will be complete and he will allow Elisha to take over his prophetic position in his place, as God commanded. So, Elisha, after following Elijah for several years, asks Elijah in 2 Kings 2:9 “Please, let me inherit two shares of your spirit.” A few verses later, Elijah is taken up into heaven by God. Then, in 2 Kings 2:13, it says “When [Elisha] could see [Elijah] no longer, he took hold of his own clothes, tore them in two, and picked up the mantle that had fallen off Elijah,” meaning that he assumed the role that Elijah had left behind. Liardon describes what happened with Elijah, Elisha, and this transferring of the mantle as “simply a natural manifestation of a spiritual reality” (What Are Mantles? How to Recognize the Transfer of God’s Anointing, by Roberts Liardon).
I like to believe that God had that encounter described in detail, not so that we could all be running around looking for a magic prophetic coat, but instead so that we could actually conceptualize and understand the transfer of a mantle. It’s also important to note here, that in 1 Kings, God told Elijah that Elisha would be his successor, but it was not instant. Some estimate that the time between Elijah initially throwing his mantle on Elisha and Elisha actually picking up Elijah’s mantle after he had been taken up into Heaven, to be about 10 years. And to be more clear, that was about 10 years of Elisha choosing to follow Elijah; to learn from him, to understand how to steward the mantle, and to learn how to actively pursue it, by asking for it in the form of receiving a double portion of Elijah’s spirit when he departed.
One way that Liardon described the mantle was as “a loose, sleeveless garment, cloak, or shawl similar to a cape or a wrap, that a person wears to protect from the outside elements” (What Are Mantles? How to Recognize the Transfer of God’s Anointing, by Roberts Liardon). I have often seen Elijah’s mantle depicted as a red cape like garment in paintings. However, upon more research I have also seen it described as a large, loose fitting, outer-garment made with materials like heavy wool, coarse animal hair, or sheepskin—which made a lot of sense to me, given that it was typically worn to protect from outside elements and for warmth in colder weather.
You might be asking why this understanding of the physical description of a mantle was so fascinating to me, given that its symbolism is more spiritual than anything. So, here’s how God tied it all into GUBA. Yeah, we’re back to the weird name.
Clearly, GUBA sounded like nothing but baby babble when I made it up. But, as God would have it, about a month ago, I got a nudge from the Holy Spirit to look up what GUBA means. I came across different definitions, from geographic regions, to meals, to non-profit organizations, but one stopped me. On family search.org it showed Guba as a surname derived from the “Hungarian (and Slovak dialect) guba ‘overcoat made of coarse cloth¨” (Guba Family History | Family Search). Now you just know, when I saw that matching up with what I had discovered about mantles, I kept digging. I found more books and articles about the traditional Hungarian Guba worn by shepherds and craftsmen long ago, and then I found pictures! You might laugh (I know I did), because when I typed in GUBA in terms of a coat, to look at google images, this is what came up:
After a good laugh, I began to notice the details. The wool, the sleeveless overcoat, the surroundings, the sheep. Then I started to recognize that this man is probably a shepherd of his flock and the coat he has on is what he is wearing in the harsh field conditions for protection. In other words, this man is wearing a mantle, also known as a Guba (or Suba in different coat variations).
As you can imagine, I’m a little mind blown by this point. When I first had the idea for GUBA, there was something of substance that I wanted to get out of it, but the coat didn’t quite fit in that season, and it wasn’t tailored for the person I was at that time. But now, years later, God is revealing more to me about this mantle He has placed on my life for healing. And no, I still don’t know what that is fully. I don’t know if He’s talking physical healing, emotional healing, or both. I can only imagine that He wants to both heal me personally and also use me as a vessel to help lead others back to Him for deep healing.
For me, the point is that if I understand what I read from the story of Elijah and Elisha, then I know that, even though God spoke it, I myself must still be willing and ready to pursue it actively; not just passively wait for it to come to me. And because I know that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), then as I meditate on the word that God spoke, I must also cultivate my faith in believing His word, by actively working to seek Him, seek the purpose He has for me, and allow Him the space in my life to bring forth the fruit from the seeds that He has planted in me long ago, which are only starting to sprout just now.
In this season, I have a greater understanding that even back when GUBA was a wild, one-off idea, God was planting a seed for what He would later reveal to me as a mantle, carrying healing. This would eventually become Working While Wounded, the platform used to steward the mantle’s intended purpose. All the while, in the waiting, I, the person behind it, was being shaped, refined, and prepared in my spirit, through development of my faith and character, to help see the mantle through, but more importantly, to be willing and ready to pick it up when the time is right.
Three years ago, I couldn’t exactly see what God was doing, but through the continuous pursuit of Him, He gave me eyes to see. This whole time, He was intricately weaving together this coat, this mantle, this garment of protection for me to wear, as I carried out His purpose to help shepherd His flock back home to Him. I am in awe every single time I think about this, because it’s not a light task, nor am I worthy of the calling. It feels like a heavy burden of trust, yet it’s one I am excited to surrender to Him so that His power can do all of its work through me.
Two things we know:
1. God loves an underdog.
2. God knit us together in our mothers’ womb (Psalms 139:19).
When I think of the first point, I think that when GUBA plopped into my head, it was specific. The word that came to mind wasn’t Suba, which is the other version of the Hungarian fur coat, that has nice embroidery on one side and fur on the other, often worn during festivals (Suba | MetMuseum). What strategically was placed into my head was GUBA, the coat of straight matted wool, worn primarily by workers and shepherds of the field; the poorer kind, the ones filled with humility and integrity. This reminds me of King David. God anointed David, who was not only a shepherd boy, but also the youngest of all of his brothers, to become King in place of Saul (1 Samuel 16). The bible says that God specifically described David, even with his many transgressions years later into his life, as “a man after [God’s] own heart, who will carry out all [of God’s] will” (Acts 13:22). So yes, God loves the underdog, the humble worker, the one everybody counted out.
Jesus says in Matthew 9:27 that the “harvest is great [which is in reference to people coming back to Christ], but the workers are few.” So, how rich is it to be given something that symbolizes work in the Lord’s great field, for His great harvest? And as for the second point, God knit us together knowing His plans for us before we even breathed our first breath.
So for me, this tasking from God wasn’t a happy accident that I stumbled upon, even though it felt random at the time it was revealed. What I thought the Lord had just started knitting together three years ago, He had actually been knitting together since before time even existed for me. And the same is true for you.
Maybe you don’t know if God has something for you, but I believe He has a plan for every single one of His children, and maybe He is just waiting for them to ask what that is. Remember, I was praying for purpose and to be used as a vessel for years before He actually said anything about it. It didn’t make my purpose any less real, just because it hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe there’s something you’ve been scared to ask the Lord about in regard to what He has in store for your life or if He has anything in store for you at all. I’m here to tell you don’t be scared, because all of us who exist today, were created for such a time as this (Esther 4:14). So, if there’s any time to starting seeking your “why” for being here, it’s now.
I hope you enjoy this take on GUBA, Mantles, and how it all led up to the formation of Working While Wounded. I pray that a seed was planted on the good soil of your heart today through this message—that you receive a deep knowing, that God has a plan for you, a plan to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). I pray that as you seek Him in that plan, He will not only reveal all things to you in their time, but will accomplish them quickly in their time (Isaiah 60:22). I encourage you all to never stop seeking Him and His kingdom. To God be the glory.
Sincerely,
Keliz • W|W|W
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