Dolly Parton gets up early to speak to God

The 74-year-old country music superstar has a very strong faith and she revealed she likes to rise “in the wee hours” to pray before she gets busy.

Speaking to Guideposts magazine, she said: “‘How can you use me?’ I ask God. ‘What can I do today?’ I’m a light sleeper, and I get up in the wee hours of the morning. That’s my prayer time, the easiest time to reach out to God, in the quiet and calm before everybody has woken up and phones start buzzing and e-mails ding.

“I’m alone with God and can ask for his direction. Dreams flood in, dreams so big they seem unattainable. How can I do that? How is that possible? I’ve learned over the years to trust the dreams to God. No telling what will happen. And it will happen if it’s supposed to happen.”

Dolly has created her own theme park, Dollywood, in Tennessee and her favourite place in the whole amusement park is the Robert F. Thomas Chapel, which was named after the mountain doctor and preacher who delivered her as a baby.

She explained: “Can you guess what one of my favourite places in the park is? It’s a little country church we named for the mountain doctor and preacher who delivered me. We moved pieces of it, like the windows and doors that date to the late 1800s, from the hills of Sevier County, my home county, to Dollywood and built the Robert F. Thomas Chapel.

“To my mind, it is the heart of Dollywood. People can come in to write down their prayer requests. They can have some quiet and make sure their prayers are as big as their dreams and most of all to make God a partner in them. I couldn’t have done anything good in my life without God by my side.

“It’s been a while since Dr. Thomas brought me into this world, but the dreams don’t stop and neither do the prayers. That’s what keeps me going. To dream big, pray big.” Musicnews