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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The more I heard the song, the more I heard the heart of the Gospel in the song.
Who should we baptize and when? How old does the person have to be? What if we get it wrong? Will something terrible happen to us?
She wasn’t so much giving up on her husband as giving up on herself. She was giving up trying to be the person who changes another person. It was going to take more than her to reform the man she loved.
Whatever level of sin you're rummaging around in, forgiveness and grace is yours.
Kierkegaard attempts to take us through Abraham’s mind as the patriarch prepares to sacrifice his son, his only son, his son whom he loves.
Today, people often bemoan the loss of children in the church.
But when God's Word of Law and Gospel are tuned up, when they're properly distinguished, then Jesus' words rain down on us like thunderbolts.
Yes, how good it is for you to have enemies, for without them, when would you ever have the opportunity to fulfill, joyfully and willingly, the law of Christian love?
Last year, a friend I follow tweeted, “Calling yourself a sinner is spitting on all the work that Jesus did to make you a saint.”
When it comes to faith, God runs all the verbs. God's Spirit calls us by the Gospel. He enlightens us with His gifts.
He barely wakes to find himself nearly dead; even so, he can’t feel a thing.
Salvation starts in being a sinner and knowing it because that's where God starts salvation, in making "Him to be Sin who knew no sin."