Refuge Counseling

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Stromsburg, NE
Refuge Counseling

We provide Christian counseling services in Nebraska for individuals and couples. Additional providers will be available in the future.

Tailor Kappers, LIMHP currently provides services in Stromsburg, Shelby, York, and online.

05/03/2022

“How would you respond to someone you love?”
It’s a powerful question to ask when we find ourselves stuck in patterns of crippling self criticism. We often say things to ourselves we would never imagine repeating to someone we love.

Christ promised us His grace is sufficient for us. We often say with our mouths and minds that we believe in God’s grace, but it can fail to permeate our hearts.

A lack of grace creeps in slowly, but can overwhelm us. It can tell us our worth is defined outside of Christ’s sufficient work.

May we be a people marked by grace and set free from self condemnation.

02/07/2022

Praise the Lord we aren’t called to rely on ourselves. The attitude of self-reliance spits in the face of the one who says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened” (Mt 11:28). It robs us of a peace that surpasses all understanding. A peace that the Lord longs to extend to us.

When we come to the Lord weary and broken, he responds in kindness. He gives us rest. May we give up on the project of self for the good gift of His presence.

09/29/2021

Pressured positive thinking and sugarcoating our faults can leave us weary. Sometimes we need space to feel the lack of silver linings in our suffering. We need community where we feel safe to come in humility confessing our faults and shortcomings. A place where we can openly acknowledge brokenness.

There is sweet freedom in being able to say, “this hurts and I’m not sure when it won’t anymore” or “I was wrong.” We can face suffering and our own brokenness more honestly when we rest in the hope that we are fully loved in the mess.

Christ is never surprised by the mess. His love does not grow distant or cold because we are “too much” or our circumstances too complicated. Let us be people that respond to the suffering and brokenness of others with the gift of no more silver linings and the room to be wrong.

09/03/2021

We move and never stop. We check one thing off the to-do list for there to always be something else to do. Sometimes we cannot keep doing because we are so worn down, burnt out, and desperately in need of rest.

This can look like physical symptoms, strained relationships, spiritual disconnect or minds that simply cannot think with the clarity we need.

Some of us try to fix our weary souls with isolating ourselves from others and trying to avoid the endless list in our mind of things we should be doing. Others of us seek to will ourselves through the weary with living our lives over-caffeinated (guilty 🙋🏼‍♀️), irritable, and simply a lesser version of who we are called to be.

Jesus offers us something much better. He offers us real rest in him. It’s important to remind ourselves He isn’t waiting for us to fix ourselves enough to then receive His rest. He calls us to come to him weary and burdened.

What would it look like to 🛑 stop and rest in the truth that you are loved and wanted by Him no matter how productive you are?
Let us rest our weary souls in finding communion with Him.

07/08/2021

We want to know we can trust those we love to be accessible, responsive, and engaged. When we experience our loved one as distracted, dismissive, or disinterested we feel disconnected.
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When we feel disconnected we can often communicate in unhealthy ways that further the very disconnection we want so desperately to avoid. This can cause our loved one to move away from us.
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Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, writes,
“From the cradle to the grave, humans desire a certain someone who will look out for them, notice and value them, soothe their wounds, reassure them in life’s difficult places, and hold them in the dark.”
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We want to feel secure and loved. Marriage and family relationships can offer a taste of this kind of love— when we are able to communicate well with one another. As believers, we know perfect and steadfast love can ultimately be found in the Lord. Despite the imperfect nature of human relationships, we believe God does desire for us to experience secure and safe love in our marriages and families.
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If you feel stuck in a cycle of disconnection in your marriage or as a family, recognize God does not desire to leave you in that place and reach out for help.

07/02/2021

“A sign hangs on the wall in a New Monastic Christian community house: ‘Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes’. I was, and remain, a Christian who longs for revolution, for things to be made new and whole in beautiful and big ways. But what I am slowly seeing is that you can’t get to the revolution without learning to do the dishes. The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive, and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith—the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.”
—Liturgy of the Ordinary

06/30/2021

Raise your hand if you are guilty of not always communicating your wants and needs clearly? 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

It is much easier to get irritated and go with our favorite flavor of expressing our annoyance.

Proverbs 12 tells us, “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Our rash words don’t always come in the form of yelling insults. It can be in sarcastic remarks, passive aggressive retorts, or a LOUD silence that communicates our frustration. 📢📢📢

It can feel much harder to pause and share what is really fueling our fiery 🔥 feelings towards one another. When we pause to seek godly wisdom our words can bring healing to our relationships.

If you are feeling stuck in the hamster 🐹 wheel of rash and hurtful communication, seek out support to help you move towards understanding that brings healing.

06/14/2021

Emotional regulation is the ability to exert control over one’s own emotional state. It is often HARD, but essential to coping with the stressors of daily life.
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Sometimes we are prone to fall into one of 2 ditches around emotions:

Ditch #1: Emotions are “bad”.

We can operate as if emotions are pesky problems to stuff, suppress, or avoid. Emotions are viewed as *only* part of being a fallen human and something to overcome. Emotions have no real value in relationships with others or God.

Ditch #2: Emotions are in charge!

We can operate as if our emotions are the only factor to weigh when it comes to decisions, conflict, or even our faith. Emotions are given supreme ability to justify our bad behaviors or unwillingness to deal with hard things in our past or present. Our emotions overrule our beliefs, principles, or even the emotions of others.

Effective emotional regulation offers another way. It validates that we were created with emotions, but acknowledges they are not infallible or unchangeable. Emotions can move us to healthy places if we are willing.

05/18/2021

No matter the season of life you are in right now you have inherent value. God does not measure your worth based on your success or what you can produce.
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God draws near to us not based on what we can offer Him, but based on His glorious goodness (Romans 5:8).
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We can come up with all sorts of measuring sticks to define our worth that can lead us down a path of pride or false humility. These measuring sticks of our own creation do not honor God. He desires us to live in worship to Him, but this does not earn his love. It is not holy to view God’s image bearers, ourselves included, as worthless.
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Instead, the hopeful reality of the Gospel should encourage us to view ourselves and others in light of God’s great love.

Address

1356 126th Road
Stromsburg, NE
68666

Telephone

+14026031002

Website

https://refugecounselingcom.wordpress.com/

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