Della Reese

Della Reese: In the event you haven't observed yet about me as a small child, I've always been an all or nothing kind of person. When I was three years old I was pronounced gravely ill with rheumatic fever. Of course that was over sixty years ago. Without all the medical advances that have been made since then, rheumatic fever was a very scary thing back then. Rheumatic fever is an infection that first attacks the joints. In it's most severe form it affects the heart and can do permanent damage. The systoms tend to recur and recurring attacks tend to weaken the heart. The doctors told my mother that I had the worst case possible. They were very pessimistic. The illness would damage my circulatory system, and I would never walk again. Of course my mother didn't fear it. She said that there was no way she was going to accept their prognosis. My mother told me that I was going to be well soon and that the illness was not coming back, and the reason why was because she had prayed and God was taking care of it. My mother took me to see her faith healer whose name was sister Kenny and when my mother's faith healer told her that God was taking care of it and he did. After I was healed I rarely ever got sick again. My mother was a strong believer in prayer and believed that God would answer all her prayers and he did.

Della Reese: My parents were my angels who taught me the lessons of self reliance and to belief in myself. At the same time they also taught me that God would always be there to help me with whatever I couldn't handle on my own. This is called faith. I learned that my father was practical and my mother who was a dreamer. I learned it by looking at a man who had nothing but who provided everything. I also learned it from listening to a woman who told me, that God will find a way out, and with me I couldn't argue with success.

Della Reese: I am so very blessed to have entered this world through my mother and to have spent my formative years in her love, tenderness and tutoring in the basic principles of my life. I am also so very blessed to have received from my father and my mother the groundwork which gave me the strength to weather the life situation and challenges I've had to face on the road out of the slums to the top of the mountain, where I now reside in the greatest of comfort. I didn't suspect my parents envisioned where I would come to, but that wasn't important. The important principle that they taught me was to live successfully where I was, not to strive for another better day to be happier but to make the best of the present.