Tim Chan's Blog, page 12

The Day I Realized I Was a Bigot

“There are two types of friends: friends of the road and friends of the heart.” I heard someone refer to this African concept in a talk once and thought it was a very perceptive way of describing friendships. As I think about the friends in my own life, I would have to agree. Most of [...]

How I Fought With My In-Laws (and Won)

[This is an excerpt of our book, "Then Came The Baby", about the time I fought with my in-laws shortly after Allie was born.] Before Allie was one week old, I had a big fight with Olive’s parents. They were so angry they wanted to cancel Christmas. Well, technically no one could cancel Christmas. But [...]

Dear Bride-to-be, It’s Not (Just) About You

“It’s your big day, you deserve for it to be perfect – the way you’d always dreamed for it to be.” So goes the common sentiment when it comes to brides. This line of thinking might be good business for wedding magazines and bridal shows, but in reality, it’s untrue. If I could write a [...]

Reasons My Daughter is Crying

“Why is your daughter crying?” is a question that I have been asked hundreds of times – and I’ve only been a dad for 1.5 years. Inspired by this dad, Olive and I decided to start writing down the reasons why Allie cried. To give other soon-to-be parents a more realistic view of life with [...]

Courage Is: Being a Mother to a Child with Special Needs

["Courage Is"is a guest post series of readers sharing their personal stories of courage and what it means to live courageously. This is Marcela De Vivo's story.] When I was only 36 weeks pregnant, I was told that my son wouldn’t survive birth and that if he did, he would likely quickly die after birth [...]

Claiming Your 20′s as a Christian

Recently, I watched this provoking TED talk called, “Why 30 is not the new 20.” In it, clinical psychologist Meg Jay challenges people in their 20′s to re-evaluate how they are spending their time and challenges the notion that one’s 20′s is a throwaway decade. She encourages young people to “claim” their 20′s by investing [...]

We’re Giving Away Candy for our Baby’s First Flight!

When Allie was 5 months old, we took her on her first trip. That road trip to Seattle was a disaster. It’s taken me a whole year to muster up the courage to travel with her again, but this time, we’ll be flying. I think the fact that she can now walk, eat regular food, [...]

Marriage: Little Things Add Up

[This is a guest post by Neal Black, who together with his wife June, helped us with premarital counselling to prepare Olive and I for marriage.] The other day the headlines read “Gold prices set record high”. I am all for investment when it gets me what I want. But if you are like me [...]

How Children Succeed: IQ vs Grit

How do children succeed in life? After I became a parent, I started to ask myself this question. What can my wife and I do to help my daughter succeed in life? What is “success” and what does it look like? As I’ve started reading about this subject, I’ve come across a few insights that [...]

How to Divide the Housework in Marriage (Without Killing Each Other)

Housework can be a source of conflict in a relationship, whether it’s with your spouse, siblings, roommate, or whoever you’re living with. When my wife and I got married and started living together, one of the things we had to decide was how to divide the housework. Who would do what? And how would we decide? Though it was fun, playing rock-paper-scissors for who would cook dinner didn’t seem like a long-term solution.

If you’ve living on your own you’ll agree that there is a seemingly endles...