A woman saw a piano in the rubble of a church wrecked by a tornado. So she played it to cheer people up.
When Tracy Lynn Coats saw a grand piano in the wreckage of a church hit by the Easter Sunday tornado that ripped through Chattanooga, Tennessee, she felt drawn to play it.
Faith Community Wesleyan Church is on the way to her father’s house, which was spared by a powerful EF-3 tornado that tore through the community and killed at least three people. It was one of dozens of tornadoes spawned by a storm system that stretched from Texas to South Carolina over the Easter weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
The church was completely destroyed except for the stage that had a piano on it. Coats said — ‘ It just needed to be played.”
When she hit the first notes she found that it played and was almost in tune.
Coats is a middle school band teacher and said many of her students lost their homes in the tornado.
She wanted to share a video of her playing the piano because she thought it might be comforting to the students and to members of her church family.
Coats said the first song she played was the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,” because it had been going through her head since the storm.
She said two longtime members of the church drove up while she was playing.
They asked her to play other hymns, and they all sang together in the wreckage.
She called the impromptu worship ”sweet unity” adding “We just had a little praise and worship service right in the middle of the whole thing. It was really cool.”