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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Jesus’s followers aren’t ostriches who bury their heads in the sand. That’s not helpful or hopeful for anyone. Resting from life’s trials and troubles comes in the remembrance of the One who is with you in the middle of all of them.
How we feel is so often conditioned upon what we are experiencing. Faith grabs hold of something outside our experience, something objective and true that is not changed by circumstance.
Jesus sees His disciples facing future uncertainty and responds not with details about dates and times and procedures to follow, but with His promise and His presence.
There is a question often raised by Christians and even some theologians that is unanswerable: Why are some saved, and others are lost? While it might seem to be a good question, it is not. Let’s examine it more closely.
The true miracle of springtime isn't simply its beauty, but in the way it foreshadows the sprigs of life that spring forth when God creates faith from the fallow ground of dead sinners.
God doesn't help those who help themselves. He saves those who can't do anything for themselves.
We have one thing which will never change. We have a shepherd who knows us by name and who promises to speak to us in all of life’s situations.
Elisabeth Cruciger is the first female Lutheran hymn writer. In fact, her hymn was included in the very first evangelical hymnal, published in 1524. With her life and her hymn, she becomes a witness, an example, and a proclaimer of the gospel to us almost 500 years later.
This gospel is not like all other human acts of gift-giving. It doesn’t come with the expectation of a gift in return. His mercy is an unreturned gift.
The forgiveness of sin in Jesus' name changes the way we move, and live, and exist.
When we are invited to cast all our cares on God's shoulders, he means all of them — every single one of them.
"As we stare down another day, the struggles and joys that it will bring, take a deep breath. In spite of all the failures, floundering, and “that-should-have-been-something’s” flying in our faces, there is peace and redemption in Jesus." Tara Flattley