It Seemed Like A Normal Week!....UNTIL........

It seemed like a normal week upcoming after Easter!   We had a large crowd of family at my house, kids and adults hunting eggs, laughing, playing, eating good food, just enjoying the fellowship. 
Brenda, my daughter, and her son from the Nashville area came down.  It was so good to have everyone together.
Flowers were blooming, all was well.
Then, on Wednesday night, the tornado came our little town and county, along with many states even suffering the same thing, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia (our state), NC, Virginia and I am sure many others.
It was a night of crouching in my bathroom thru the worst of it, cell phone in hand, tvs glaring in the other parts of the house, trying to keep up with where the storm was heading.....calling my children, texting my grandchildren,  calling my best friend in Athens, TN, whose tv satallite had gone out, and she was crouched in a closet, waiting and praying as she had no way of keeping up with the direction of the storm.
It swept thru our area about 6 miles south of me.  My daughter and family, who live in my subdivision were in their basement.
We were  blessed, in that it only hailed here with high winds, and all is well, praise the Lord!  But the little city of Ringgold has been hit very hard.  Many businesses are flattened.  My brother's store was totally ruined, my nephew's CPA firm had the roof torn off, and much damage there, like beyond repair.
I work about 2 blocks north of where it hit, and our company is ok, except the power is still off.  They have checkpoints that you have to go thru, as they have been very strict about who can get past the checkpoints, and not go farther into the little town, where the devastation is.  It went up the valley and totally obliterated homes on it's path.  In our little town, there were about 9 confirmed dead, and many many more injured.
I appreciate the prayers of all our blogging friends who were alerted to pray by my daughter, Valerie's blog post and I thank you all for your kind words to her in our behalf.
God is good, and His mercy is everlasting.  We do not know why these things happen, but the community has come forward to help from all over the state.  My daughter, Karen, helped with my sister's best friend last night to try to help to retreive belongings from their flattened brick home.  I atm unable to go and help due to my constant back trouble, so I was so heartened that she and her children were able to go.
God bless all those who were affected by this tragic storm and especially those who lost loved ones, and the injured.