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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I grew up with a great deal of guilt. It still keeps me up at night. For one reason or another, I was convinced I hadn’t done enough to be loved by God.
Are our resolutions righteous? Is our commitment to self-improvement a selfless act motivated by love for the neighbor?
Can one still find a church that teaches that Christianity, and the Christian life, can be summed up as: "We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone?"
God coming to us at Christmas encapsulates the essence of Christian faith: we don't make ourselves strong and then work our way up to a strong God.
So it is with my little garden as well; dead, so it would seem. Nothing. Barren.
Have you ever grown despondent from trying so hard to stop behaving in certain destructive ways, but always failing?
The devil is effective with this attack because it calls out all the things a Christian sinner experiences as simultaneous sinner and saint.
This time of year, Christmas time, the world isn't so much Christ-expectant as it is Christ-haunted.
If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
Old Adam's works are good because he says they're good. End of conversation.
A while ago I ran across a great comedy routine. In it Brian Regan riffs on those who he calls Me Monsters. This is a person who must be at the center of every conversation.
My husband and I just adopted Duke, a very cute beagle mix, from a nearby shelter. He is about three years old and was found wandering in a park several months ago.