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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Christian peace is not the absence of problems, but it is the presence of God amid our pain and sorrows.
As Simeon sang, you might lead your hearers in a song of defiant and hopeful confidence to close out a year characterized by death and despair.
The way through loneliness will lie in the blessing of solitude and the care of God.
Advent is not a call to prepare to engage in a transaction with God.
The well-meaning advice “time heals all wounds” is offensively false when we confront the overwhelming evidence that the constants in our lives are death, taxes, and suffering.
At the center of this gospel reading is a conversation. It was of the memorable variety. It involved a peasant girl from a small town and a mighty messenger from God.
This is Christmas. It is Jesus becoming all sin from generation to generation.
He assumed the weakest form to do his greatest work.
Whatever else may come, however worse it may get, the light has come and will come again.
"Come to me, all you who are weary of being you, and simply be mine."
On this day in the year 1093, Anselm was consecrated as the archbishop of Canterbury.
Jesus does not seek out Peter to condemn, but to restore his precious lost sheep, His dearly loved prodigal son.