On Seasons of Service (and Knowing When to Rest)
Author’s note: I’m writing this during a time of real and ongoing harm in my country. Innocent people are being targeted, displaced, injured, and killed. That reality weighs on every conversation we have about service, advocacy, capacity, and rest. The words that follow do not advocate for turning away from care or responsibility. They are a reflection on how to tend the kind of steadiness that allows service to be steady and rooted in love rather than fear, obligation, or exhaustion.
The past year brought a great deal of change for our family, layered on top of wider instability and uncertainty in our country. Over the course of the year, the number of people I was tending to, the volunteer roles I held, my regular responsibilities, and the emotional labor of being a mother, a partner, and a person who cares deeply about our community, our country, the earth, and the wider world all grew steadily. Taken together, that growing weight exceeded what I could carry.
I began the season with good intentions and a plan. My boys joined the local swim team, and at first, their practices felt like a gift. I had two hours outdoors every weekday morning to read, journal, think, plan, and even swim laps myself. But as the weeks passed and the overall load of my commitments didn’t ease, something in me began to shift.
By the time their swim team practices ended halfway through summer break, I could feel the resentment building like a callous. It was a slow, quiet hardening at first. But by fall, it had grown heavier. The first weeks of school felt like the end of a marathon, and even small parenting tasks beyond getting the kids to and from school felt overwhelming. I kept going, but not generously. I moved through the days heavy with strained effort.
Eventually, and slowly, I found my footing again. Some balance returned. Some space opened. With a bit of distance, I could finally see what I couldn’t name at the time: my capacity had changed, and I didn’t want to admit it.
I believed generosity was proven through endurance.
If I could keep saying yes, keep showing up, keep carrying one more responsibility, then I was doing it “right.” I thought service was measured by consistency, by reliability, by how much I could hold without complaint.
What I’m learning now is that service has seasons.
There are times when giving feels spacious, when volunteering adds energy instead of draining it, when offering your time feels like a natural extension of who you are and what you love. Those seasons are a gift, and I’ve been grateful to live inside many of them.
And then there are seasons when capacity quietly shifts.
Not because the work stops mattering. But because life changes, energy narrows, and the same commitments begin to cost more than they once did. When that happens, continuing out of habit or obligation doesn’t deepen service. It wears us down, leads us towards inevitable burnout, and in moments of collective strain, it can also dull our discernment.
I began to recognize this shift in myself when resentment reared its ugly head.
I told myself the strain was temporary. That pushing through was faithfulness. But underneath those explanations, resentment was doing its quiet work. That was the signal I needed to listen to.
Resentment isn’t a moral failure. It’s information. It tells us when generosity has slipped into depletion, when giving has outpaced replenishment.
Listening to that signal has been uncomfortable. It asks for honesty instead of heroics. It asks for limits instead of perseverance. It asks for trust that stepping back doesn’t negate the good that has been given, or future good that may be done.
This winter, I’m recognizing that, for me, this is a season for less volunteer work.
That choice comes with both peace and sadness. I love serving my community. I’ve given a great deal of time and care there. But stepping back now is a natural transition point. There is an opening to do so, and I’m choosing to take it.
At first, this decision felt like relief. Stepping back, though, raised harder questions about why we serve, how we measure faithfulness, and what sustains care for our communities over the long haul.
Rest, I’m learning, isn’t just about comfort. It’s about discernment.
Volunteerism is not the same as kindness. Giving from anything other than genuine abundance carries risk. When service is sustained by obligation rather than generosity, it can slide quietly into ego, into the belief that we are indispensable, that things will fall apart without us, that others owe us something in return. That is not the kind of service I want to practice, especially in times when harm and fear are already distorting our sense of responsibility to one another.
This year, I’m choosing to admit, to myself and to the communities I care deeply about, that this is not the right season for the kind of volunteerism I’ve done in the past. Not because service doesn’t matter to me, but because it does. I want to return to it in a way that is careful, sustainable, and oriented toward long-term impact rather than immediate output.
Letting go, in this case, isn’t withdrawal. It’s discernment. It’s choosing sustainability over spectacle, presence over performance.
It’s trusting that my worth is not measured by how much I can carry at once. It’s believing that rest is not the opposite of service, but one of its necessary conditions, especially when long-term care, attention, and courage are required.
I’m learning that a counter-cultural life doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like quiet decisions no one else sees. Like stepping back before bitterness takes root. Like admitting that this is a year for less movement, and more preparation for long-term action.
There will be time again for abundance. For showing up widely. For offering more than feels easy.
For now, I’m practicing the discipline of rest, not to disengage, but to remain capable of showing up with clarity and care when it matters most.
Until next time,
May you discern, with care and honesty, the direction of your heart in the places where you serve.
May you respect the limits of your capacity without shame or self-judgment.
May you release what it’s time to release. And may you do so gently, so that your rest may take root and new forms of care for your community may grow and flourish in its place.
With love,
Sarah K
If we haven’t met, I’m Sarah K., an artist and writer based in Richmond, VA. From my sunroom studio, I create hand-built ceramics, linocut prints, and written blessings, shaped by quiet mornings and the rhythm of daily practice. My work centers on rest, stillness, and the beauty of everyday rituals.
