Nobody lists “remembers birthdays” on a ministry resume, and yet I have come to believe it is one of the most quietly powerful things I do all year. A text on the anniversary of a miscarriage. A message on the day a friend’s father passed. A note on the birthday of a woman who does not have family nearby to remember it for her.
Paul’s instruction to look not only to our own interests but to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4) is often applied to big sacrifices. I think it starts smaller than that — in the discipline of actually noticing and remembering the details of someone else’s life closely enough to mark them. It costs almost nothing and it tells a woman, more clearly than a sermon could, that she is seen.