This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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Here is the true story, the one worth remembering: You are a gift.
Children are not meant to carry crowns. They are not meant to rule. The burden crushes them in slow, invisible ways.
We need redemption, and we receive it in our church community through God’s Word.
Paradoxes hold everything together, not just in Inception’s plot, but in your life and mine.
Wisdom and strength require bootstrap-pulling and the placing of noses to grindstones.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
This is the second installment in the 1517 articles series, “What Makes a Saint?”
So Christ is risen, but what now?
In Christ, you are bound. Bound to mercy. Bound to grace. Bound to a God who won’t let you go. And because of that, you are free—gloriously, joyfully free.
Forgiveness from Jesus is always surprising to us.
The Fourth in the fire is Jesus.
News of Kilmer's death hit me like a freight train because his Doc Holliday stirred something in me about friendship—both the earthly kind and the divine.