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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What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with God? And what words, then, do I pray?
Jonah is not who you'd want to speak to an evangelism committee. In fact, it's arguable that he's the Bible's worst missionary.
Exemplified here are two misunderstandings about the forgiveness and graciousness of God among some Christians.
Our crucified Lord makes it clear that the widow’s worthless giving was far greater than a million dollars because she gave all she had.
There were pictures of her bathed in the sun of South Padre, sand between her toes, arm-in-arm with beautiful friends
When it comes to this world, our beds are most often a mess even when we do our best to make them in the morning.
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.
I don’t know about you, but I am perpetually of the mind that God is disappointed in me.
For most of my Christian experience I was taught and I taught others that church was primarily a place to go to serve, to use your gifts, to bless others.
In Martin Luther's Small Catechism he borrows a line from St. Augustine about what defines a "god."
Whatever we call “god,” how we act out our “religion,” what we call “living,” if its name isn’t Jesus, it’s a sham.
We are called to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of the Answer incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in love respond to the questions that inevitably arise against it.