7 Quotes by Theresa Thomas

I was amazed at how easily those words came to me, but I was disappointed that my love for my daughter was not coming as easily. Why couldn’t I love her the way she is? Why couldn’t I be as happy about her as my younger sons were? I simply told them that they had a sister and her name was Grace. They went bananas, jumping up and down. “It’s a girl, it’s a girl!” they yelled. Lord, help me to love like these little ones, I prayed.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

A recent event in our family showed us even more how fleeting physical perfection is. Our oldest son had a brain aneurism rupture two days before his high-school graduation. For nineteen days, my son, who planned to attend the Naval Academy, clung to life in a neuro-intensive care unit. Thankfully, he recovered. During his recovery, after waking from a coma, we asked him if there was anything he wanted us to bring him from home. “Just bring Grace,” he said.

This book is a like a glorious block party with warm, wise families who are all earnestly endeavoring to live a life of joy and grace. You will come away with a bigger heart for having read it.

Big Hearted offers a glimpse into the lives of large families of all sorts: blended, biological, foster, adoptive, and inter-generational. These families may lack designer clothing, but they are blessed with a superabundance of people to love.

An uncle continued to pay the fees for Calvin to attend school, but it was a long walk from his hut to St. Patrick’s Elementary School. Since he rarely had dinner the night before, his feet felt heavy as he trudged along. “If only I could go to school in the United States,” Calvin often thought on these long walks. And again, he prayed. When Calvin revealed his prayer to his older brother and an aunt, they laughed.

The holes in her heart had been repaired. When she came home from the hospital, she began to emerge as the heart of our family, and the holes in our hearts were also repaired. Her little personality began to captivate us, and all the boys fell deeply in love with their little sister.