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’ve found that most people struggle to agree with God that we are fully forgiven, redeemed and justified by pure grace alone, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone.
The first course is always humble pie because, at the table, there are just two seats: from humiliation to exaltation.
Jesus is in the business of proclaiming such a beautiful redundancy.
God is the God of failures, for He became one for you. There is no failure of ours that is bigger than Jesus’ cross, no sin of ours that can overshadow the cross.
He always puts our life and salvation first. He’ll never accept our defeat. He’ll never quit on us. He’ll never leave us fallen and alone.
What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with God? And what words, then, do I pray?
Mordor’s bleak existence and the successful salvific mission of Frodo and Samwise is what makes Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings such a psychologically enjoyable epic.
Assurance of salvation may be the single greatest struggle people have confessed to me. It isn't surprising.
The Church of Jesus Christ is and stays Jesus' Church whether we decide it is or not.
The miracle of Pentecost is not obvious; it is the miracle of faith created through the preaching of the word of the cross.
If we get past Sunday School moralizing what do we discover in the Old Testament?
There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.