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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No matter how stringent one's "regulations" — "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (Col. 2:21) — the sinful nature that resides in everyone's heart is untamable by self-effort alone.
God’s people get the warm feast of victory, while God’s meal is prepared cold.
Sometimes the old story is the one we need to hear again and again.
Lent isn't simply a season. It's the Christian life in microcosm.
Jesus satisfies, fills, and saves because he is the Son of God, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns forever.
Apart from the confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God who suffered and died for the forgiveness of sins and rose again to justify the ungodly, there is no Christian faith.
We are called to believe in the church even when we don’t believe in the church.
The great lie of addiction is that suffering must be fled, must be numbed, must be drowned out by any means necessary.
Is there a significant difference between changing your mind and doing penance? Absolutely.
You cannot sever the saint from the sinner. Christians remain both simultaneously.
Despite the mathematical incongruity, the church confesses that Christ is one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine.
Luther’s final thoughts were not meant to bum you out or lead you to despair.