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There are a number of short sayings that my wife and I have adopted as reminders to help us choose the right frame of mind for a particular situation. We call them “scripts” as we have picked up that term from some of the training we have sought out in our fostering journey.

This weekend I had to put one of those scripts to the test.

It’s an important one that I have even found on a couple of t-shirts along the way (from the great people at Goods and Better – a very special organization that supports kids and families involved in foster care).

It’s pretty simple:

Love does hard things.

We’ve been enduring a remodel project at my house that has been in some state of disarray since last spring. In the process of the remodel most of the insulation in the attic over the bathroom had been lost. So most of that part of the house has been especially cold as late.

With the forecast for an unusual cold blast coming through in the next few days, I knew it could make a huge difference for our comfort and our plumbing to have at least some insulation in that room. So I had to make my way through the attic entry at one end of the house all the way through that horribly dusty, dark place dragging insulation down to the far end.

The first 2/3 of the journey was no big deal really. It’s tall enough to stand upright—so long as you stand ON the joists and not BETWEEN THEM. But the final third requires a crawling, scrambling process that was far more taxing and uncomfortable than I had anticipated. I’ll spare you the technical details.

As I was lying on a plank trying to scoot my way through this unpleasant space, I had a swell of anxiety that almost stopped me in my tracks.

I quickly considered who I might hire to do this chore as I was clearly out of my comfort zone. But I am not really employed at the moment so cutting costs is a high priority. But more importantly, it is going to be really cold the next few days and to put this chore off to be done by someone else will likely bring a good deal of discomfort to my beloved (and myself) and will ratchet up the anxiety by the cost.

But then that script comes to mind and I begin to recite it to myself.

“Love does hard things.”

This small but important job was much harder than I expected.

“But love does hard things.”

It is hard to see and keep your wits about you in such a gross, dusty place.

“But love does hard things.”

It is hard to breathe with a dust mask on my face and crawling along on my belly and fighting off the anxiety.

“But love does hard things.”

It’s hard to dodge the wiring and stay on the joists and keep sliding the plank along underneath me.

“But love does hard things.”

This is a dusty, unpleasant example. But the fact is that most every day we are faced with things that we would rather not do because they are not easy or comfortable or pleasant.

But love does hard things.

That’s not a new thought. In fact, I think that’s really right there in the middle of that most concentrated discourse on love in the entire scope of the Scriptures:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13.4-8

Look at all of the things that Paul taught us that love does (how love chooses to act). Love is patient and kind. That is hard a lot of the time. Love chooses not to envy or boast. That is a hard choice to continue to make. Love chooses selflessly. That is so often a hard way to live.

Love chooses not to let things irritate and chooses to cast off resentment. It chooses to let go of wrongs and cling to what is true and right and good. It chooses to put up with stuff no matter what and believe no matter what and endure no matter what. Love keeps on keeping on. These are all very, very hard things much of the time.

Love does hard things.

This weekend it looked like stepping (or crawling) into a place I didn’t want to be and doing something I didn’t want to do. But love does hard things.

But what about you? What are the hard things that love requires of you today? If you love, you’ll do the hard things.