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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They were incapable of covering their shame. They knew what they'd done was evil, but since they were only "like" God, there was no way for them to go back and replace evil with good.
Read your life like a Hebrew, from the end to the beginning, and you will see that the last is first. The dead are alive, the cursed are blessed, the humble are exalted.
You became, for a time, ritually unclean. Not sinful. Not immoral. To be unclean meant you bore in your own body the effects of a creation in bondage to decay.
All our little laws reveal that we are, by nature, trying to justify ourselves before others, and before God, based on what we do and who we are.
We see someone driving a fancy car, owning a big home, having healthy children and an attractive spouse. Instantly, almost without a second's thought, we assume they are successful. Life is good for them.
No, that is not a typo. I am telling you to put your trust in this Old Testament prophet. I want you to look at him and be assured of God’s love for you.
If you know me in the least, then you know of my fondness for the 2010 film Inception.
The flower of youth, as lovely as it is, cannot withstand the hot winds of time. There is a beauty, however, that remains.
In happiness, we dare never forget that it is Christ, and Christ alone, who has restored our joy.
Although I was too young to have mastered the skill of lying, I also knew that I couldn’t tell this woman the truth.
Today, I almost died several times.
When we explain away God’s Word, we jettison the reality of our ominous diagnosis in the “Thou shall/shall nots” of the law, and with it the sweet cure in the, “This is My body/blood” of the Gospel.