RIPPLEMEAD -- In Sunday morning's worship service at Riverview Baptist Church, Joyce Bryant described the indescribable and made real the unimaginable.

To a chorus of sniffles from teary-eyed listeners, Bryant talked publicly for the first time about the night six of her nine children died in an explosion that destroyed a sister's house in Michigan during the Labor Day weekend.

Following her husband, Mark Bryant, the thin, brown-haired mother came to the podium to address a sanctuary filled with the hundreds of men, women and children Mark Bryant had called "family."

"While Mark and I share the same loss, we do not share the same experiences," Joyce Bryant said in a soft voice that quoted from the Bible's book of Second Samuel:

"As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried; he is a buckler to all them that trust in him. For who is god, save the Lord? And who is a rock, save our God? God is my strength and power, and he maketh my way perfect."

"For a long time before this accident, that's the verse the Lord wouldn't let me get away from," she explained. "I am the mother of nine beautiful children. I knew I could not be a godly mother without the grace of God."

Gently, Joyce Bryant described the night of Sept. 3 when she first learned of the tragedy that claimed six of her eight children who were at the Michigan house. Her ninth child, Kameron, was still at home in Giles County with her father at the time. The two had planned to meet the rest of the family in Michigan the following day.

Joyce Bryant and her sister, Laurie, had left the house Saturday evening to visit another sister nearby.

"I was leaving my sister's house and the phone rang," she said, explaining that she recalled making a light-hearted remark at the sound of the ring. "Oh, that's my children, wondering where I am."

Joyce Bryant and her sisters had been visiting for less than an hour when the explosion happened. The news came with the phone call just as she was leaving to return to her children.

As she and her sisters made the 12-minute drive to the scene of the accident -- caused by a propane gas leak -- Joyce Bryant described it as "the longest 12 minutes of my life." Her sister had managed to tell her there was a fire, but she did not know the extent of the tragedy until she arrived.

"When we got to the scene, there was no house," she said as a photo of the destroyed house flashed on a screen behind her. "There were cars everywhere. We couldn't get through."

Joyce Bryant described her panic as she desperately tried to find out what happened to her children. As she was questioning people at the scene, her 14-year-old son, Caleb, was brought out on a stretcher.

"He was screaming," she said. "I hear a lot of screams in my days -- I'm a mother. But nothing was like that sound. I got up in his face, and I said, 'Caleb, it's Mom. I'm here. It's Mom.'"

As paramedics prepared Caleb for transport, Joyce Bryant said she began running to find out what had happened to her other children.

"I saw just darkness. There was no house. There was nothing. I ran to my sister. I said, 'How many of the children survived? How many? I have to know.' She held up two fingers."

"In that very moment when I had the reality of knowing that six of my children were gone, God did something very precious," Joyce Bryant told the congregation. She stepped to her left where she lifted a corner of a cloth to reveal part of a picture by Thomas Kinkade called "The Garden of Prayer."

"God began to roll back and let me see a picture of who he is," she said.

"The first thing that God brought to my heart was Job," she said. "Job lost all of his children in a day. But God was very merciful. He did not take all of my children."

The Bryants' 6-year-old daughter, Sarah, also survived. She and Caleb were later airlifted to Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich., and are now back at home in Giles County with Kameron. Caleb suffered second-degree burns on his face and legs and Sarah suffered several broken bones.

In his speech to the congregation, Mark Bryant praised God for their progress.

"Caleb is here," he said. "He has healing to do, but he's doing well. Sarah is here. She's getting around on her crutches."

Mark and Joyce Bryant both said they know where their six deceased children are, too.

They can see 19-year-old Rebekah, 10-year-old Joseph, 9-year-old Nehemiah, 7-year-old Martina, 4-year-old David and 2-year-old Jackson in heaven.

"Our six babies are with Jesus now," Mark Bryant said, recalling how Martina loved people and the church.

"Martina often wondered, 'If it's so much better there, why stay here?' "

Joyce Bryant asked the parishoners to read John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." The well-known verse, she noted, is one she couldn't begin to comprehend until now.

"I have lost four beautiful boys, four incredible little men," she said. "Bows and arrows, camouflage and dirt, dirt, dirt! I now have only one son and ... having walked the road I've walked, I wouldn't want to give Caleb up for anything because he's the only son I've got. I don't think I will ever read this verse the same again."

Her children's deaths, she stressed, were not in vain. As in Hebrews, she said she feels called to offer up the sacrifice of praise.

"I am praising the Lord that my children are safe. I can lift up a voice of praise until I meet my maker one day face to face."