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 unbeliever will search for relief from temptations in worldly prescriptions and pleasures. The believer searches for answers in the promises of the One who can bring true lasting peace in mind, body, and soul.
I will continue to cling to the only hope I’ve ever truly had: that Jesus is my Lord and yours.
Even as children of God, we have down days. That’s just a fact of being sinful and living in an evil world.
When you don’t know whom to thank, you start thanking yourself. Praise turns inward. This is a double bondage. When you have only yourself to thank, you end up having only yourself to depend upon.
God does not take us out of a world of evils of various kinds, but He does stand beside us and accompany us, as a shepherd accompanies his sheep, through valleys of shadows of all kinds.
Two things are ultimately certain in life, and they are not death and taxes. It is Jesus’ return and the preservation of His people until that day.
We have been reconciled to the King by the King because of the King so we may be for the King—not when it is convenient and more tasteful and fashionable, but as a bold and confident proclamation.
Isaiah first reminds the people of who they are and then tells them why they are who they are; to bring the teachings and promises of the LORD to all people.
Saying the words of the prayer together meant that if my voice became too weak or shaky, other voices would be around to support and continue the message.
As we live as the children of the Father of lights, the giver God, he will keep on pouring out his gifts, and they will overwhelm us more and more.
Dürer's first significant work to be published was a woodcut which served as the title page for a volume of St. Jerome’s Letters in August of 1492.
How does God feel about us sinners? God loves us so much that His stomach aches. His insides hurt. He refuses to let our sins separate us from Him. He refuses to let us die.