If we’re honest with ourselves, most parents have experienced moments of resentment or bitterness toward their children. Maybe it’s the tenth night in a row of disrupted sleep or the fact that no one has uttered a “thank you” all day long after making messes left for mom to manage.

Claire Brosius experienced a taste of that unique frustration when she served as a retreat center housekeeper.

“In those moments you encounter not only the choice to love others or resent them, but also the choice to love or resent yourself,” says Brosius.

In an effort to choose love, Brosius and her fellow staff members began to work together to create opportunities for rest for one another. While young children cannot be expected to make such moments for their parents, spouses and friends can collaborate and find ways to give each other space from thankless work. In doing so, they may just find that the work begins to have a healing and strengthening effect rather than a depleting one.

That was certainly the case for Brosius. “What might have turned into a summer of begrudging work and deepening resentment became a daily discipline in loving,” she writes. May the same be true in our hearts and homes.