RADIO CLIPS

Keith Stevens talks with Leigh Anne Tuohy from the true life story that inspired the film “The Blind Side” and author of In a Heartbeat

Donna Cruz continues talking with Leigh Anne Tuohy, whose family took in a homeless teenager who became a star in the NFL and inspired the Oscar-nominated film “The Blind Side”

On Prayer:

DC: I’m Donna Cruz and it’s great to have Leigh Anne Tuohy here. Leigh Anne, as you may know, was the real-life inspiration for Sandra Bullock’s role in the movie, The Blind Side. Leigh Anne, we saw your character pray often in the movie, but it wasn’t just an act. Prayer really is important to you, isn’t it?

LAT: Well prayer moves mountains. Prayer to me is the most powerful tool that we don’t go to enough. So many of us really don’t think “Well if I pray about it, it will really happen” or, you know, the Bible says to pray for the desires of your heart. I pray for things all the time; I pray to Jesus “lost and found,” I pray for a parking space. You know, one of my kids the other day was going “You’re really praying for a parking space?” I said “Yeah! The Bible says…I want a good parking space!” And I’ll turn the corner and lo and behold! And _____ will just shake his head and go “wow.” And I know that seems a little frivolous but, you know what, it says pray for the desires of your heart and if you desire a good parking space or whatever it may be. Now, you know, I’m not gonna lie, I sit there a lot of times and I feel guilty praying for the Baltimore Ravens to win their football game but no less I still every Sunday pray that, you know, we’ll have a victory. And I say that kind of “tongue-in-cheek” because I don’t really think that God pulls the winner out of the game but, you know, we don’t use prayer enough. Prayer is a powerful thing and constantly people will say to me “Well we’re praying for ya” and I said “Do it more.” And interesting enough, in the movie world, you know, The Blind Side came out and Hollywood never expected or anticipated it to do what it did and continues to do, you know, what it’s doing. And they’re scratching their heads trying to figure it out. They have gone to slapping crosses on leading ladies. They have added prayer into movies. It’s just so funny. They’ve dissected it, they’ve homogenized it, pasteurized it; they’ve tried to figure out, you know, why this movie has been so successful. And we kind of laugh because we just believe that it’s one-hundred percent God-driven.

Story:

Q: Hey if you’ve seen Sandra Bullock’s powerful performance in the movie The Blind Side, you may be familiar with the name Leigh Anne Tuohy. It was her family’s story of adopting a fatherless, lonely boy named Michael Oher who went on to become a star in the NFL. Leigh Anne, how has God blessed your family in the way that your story has become so well-known?

LAT: Well I think that God used the Tuohy family because he wanted everyone to know that we’re just ordinary people. We are just like every one of you that are listening to me right this minute. There’s nothing special about us, there was no agenda, there was no plan, there was, you know, no smoking gun. We are simply an average, American, ordinary family and God chose to use our story to send a message. And I think that God, since time in the beginning, has used ordinary people to tell a story. And, you know, he takes those simple people and he says, “Hey look, this is what I want you to learn, this is what I want you to do.” But don’t, you know, just sit there and think, “Oh, well my story’s not interesting.” All of our stories are interesting. Your story is unique to you and it is interesting so, you know, rock it, use it in a powerful way.