Speaking with Mrs. Delilah Marrow was a true pleasure, and her love for Jesus pours out of every word she shares.
Delilah currently attends South Henderson Pentecostal Holiness Church in Henderson, North Carolina, with her family. At South Henderson, she is part of outreach ministries, which includes prison ministries off and on for the last 38 years. Currently, Delilah helps other foster and adoptive parents. For twenty-three years, she also served the community as a teacher and bus driver until she retired in 2014.
Mrs. Delilah Marrow with her family
Her love for the Lord is paramount, and while she was baptized in a Baptist church, Delilah came to a personal relationship with Jesus at 30. She surrendered her life to the Lord in her bedroom after listening to a Jimmy Swaggart cassette tape, titled “All Satan’s Apples Have Worms,” that a lady gifted her. Delilah joyfully described how the Holy Spirit convicted her while she was in her pajamas and her hair in rollers: “He met me at the well where I was and gave me water that I’d never thirst again.”
Afterwards, she was so excited to tell everyone what had happened to her, but her family was not receptive. They thought she’d “lost her mind.” The change within her frightened her family, but Delilah knows that God shielded her from their reaction, and in turn, the controversy pushed her closer to the Lord. She knew that she had finally received genuine redemption because she had repented, asking God to forgive her and cleansing her of all unrighteousness.
Delilah’s experience with the Lord and other situations early in her life have also made her specially equipped to be a foster and adoptive parent. Regardless of the trauma she experienced, Delilah shares, “I don’t wear it. God delivered me from it,” and she truly feels compassion for what the kids are going through.
Even with her magnificent heart, fostering was not something Delilah originally saw herself doing. It was in 1966 when her friend, Esther, prophesied that Delilah would help children, but it wasn’t until 2004 that another friend offered her the opportunity to buy a home that would be large enough to foster multiple children. God provided, and a year later, Delilah became a licensed foster parent. In her tenure, she has helped forty-five children. One of her adopted daughters is a junior in college, and Delilah recalled their early time together:
“She was failing and struggling academically, and the school wanted to hold her back, but I prayed and prayed, and we took her to a charter school. By the time she graduated, she was on the honor roll! Then, during her first year of college, a professor shared how impressed they were with her writing.”
As a foster parent, she believes in practicing prayer and modeling a relationship with the Lord for the children in her home. Of the three children currently in her home, Delilah and her husband are in the process of adopting two of them.
Delilah, her husband, and their three foster children
Delilah is considering writing a book; her life circumstances have not been easy, but she wants to remind everyone of God’s faithfulness and that His timing is always right, like her favorite scripture shares: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 KJV).
