God,

Help us learn the spiritual gift of packing light; filling our physical and proverbial suitcases with lightheartedness and joy and not overstuffing them with things we don’t need for the journey, like resentment, anger, and frustration at the world.

Please recall us to Julia’s mission and inspiration so we can effectively turn the church towards a better and brighter future; for it is easy to get lost in the politics and structure of our church and reconciliation and justice are in the hands of our generation and the generations to come

Remind us of those less fortunate than ourselves and inspire us to serve in a way that makes those hardships less of a burden on their souls. For no matter what we have in the bank, or what we carry in our hearts, there is always something left to give of ourselves to better one another.

The women of the church have a special place in your heart dear God; you demonstrated this exceptional love with Mary Magdalene and all your other women witnesses in the world, including Julia. Help our women continue to get into good trouble for the sake of your name, fighting for the marginalized and oppressed, and being an example of Christ’s love in the face of fear, loneliness, and scarcity.

Keep us humble and grace-filled, you, our Creator, our mentor, our support, and our voice of reason. For you are not a distant being, unreachable in the faraway sky, you are right here with us. You are the solemn tears of Mary Magdalene, the aged hands of Julia Chester Emery, the bleeding hearts of justice warriors; you are the ship and its captain, the train and its conductor, the suitcase and its contents, the little blue box and the penny. You are our whole world and everything existing within it.

Amen.