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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Ultimately, however, I fell in love with traditions—and specifically, traditional worship—for a single, overarching reason: its components, to varying degrees, are all in the service of the Gospel.
Because I do care now, and will care even after I’m with the Lord, here are some things I hope and pray are not said at my funeral. I care about those who will be there, about what they will hear.
You think the sower sowed his seed in you because he saw such good soil, such a good, generous, noble person.
Seeing, we do not see. Our eyes are busy deceiving us 24/7, like two liars sunk into our faces, calling black white and white black. To see God's work in our world, our eyes must retire and our ears labor overtime.
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.
I’ve come to realize at the tender age of 47 that sometimes church doesn’t work.
Why is it that we are so afraid to give the message of grace to our little ones? We bombard their ears with law on a constant basis.
Sinner: I see. I see for the first time. It’s clear to me. You died for me and for my sin. You took my verdict. God: I did.
Mr. Jones didn’t see fit to return the greeting. Or the smile. He stopped a few paces away and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What do y’all want?”
What is most remarkable about this tale is not how clever it is, but that the original storyteller was just as greedy as the three fictional young men were.
On that day the mourners were shocked to discover that behind the veneer of her bright smile lurked a fathomless darkness, whose depths she made manifest only when she despaired of life in this world.
I lack the wisdom, and the experience, to counsel those who have been hurt so deeply. There is no pain like the pain of being mistreated by those who, above all others, you expect to love you unconditionally.