Flooded out, he was gathering toys for his kids – then sat down at the piano to play

A dad went back to his flooded Friendswood home on Wednesday to get his kids’ favorite stuffed animals and sat down at his piano to play — in knee-deep water.

The soulful tune grabbed the heart of the internet after Aric Harding posted it on Instagram, and seemed to capture a moment in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

“This will be etched on my heart when I remember Harvey,” wrote commenter jenbrown925. “Sorrow and hope ...”

“This is SO beautiful, Aric. Brought me to actual tears,” commenter mellowcellist wrote.

“I think it’s finally sinking in a little,” Harding wrote in the post. “What we used to have going as a city is gone. I really think God is going to do something completely new here. I am excited to see the new beauty in the suffering.”

Harding describes himself in his Instagram profile as a husband, father, singer, writer and pastor. He’s also a Baylor graduate, he told the Star-Telegram in a message.

Taking a cue from his pastor’s Facebook Live session that morning, he quotes from Romans 8: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

But the image of Harding seated at his piano might be as powerful a message of hope as any in this painful time.

Harding said in a message that the waters receded Wednesday morning and that he and a team from his church, Clear Creek Community, began cleaning up and hauling stuff out of his house to dry.

“The whole town is buzzing with people helping each other,” he wrote.

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 9:11 AM with the headline "Flooded out, he was gathering toys for his kids – then sat down at the piano to play."