"Your Husband is Coming" (Guest Post by Anika Lillicrap
'Where is My Husband?'
Like thousands of listeners, I’ve been loving bouncing along with Raye in her lyrical search for her lover. Her global hit, Where is my husband?, is the first UK Number 1 single of 2026, going viral on TikTok - and bringing amusement to my son and me on the school run, especially as husbands responded to a radio-phone-in explaining where, in fact, they were.
Kezia Martin over at the LICC blog calls it "The husband comeback", reflecting on the phenomenon and connecting the sentiment with the loneliness of millennials and Gen Z, suffering from “the flip side of individualism…isolation.”
The Longing Beneath the Joke
Martin especially puts her finger on a deep longing: the longing for relational commitment and faithful intimacy. Raye herself points to the inspiration of her parents’ marriage, which showed her “how beautiful love can look.” There is timely exhortation here for husbands and men: to love, and aspire to love, in a way that reflects the sacrificial, steadfast love of Jesus.
And yet there is more.
Yes, the yearning Raye’s song expresses connects with a here-and-now reality in this life. That yearning can be met in a faithful marriage.
But only partially.
And many will find their own anguish echoed in Raye’s line, “where the hell is my husband?” for deeply painful reasons.
A Yearning Human Marriage Can’t Fully Satisfy
For all of us - whether marriage comes or not, and whether that marriage is happy or not - this kind of yearning points beyond itself, towards a deeper and greater satisfaction.
The cry “Where is my husband?” isn’t just for 2026. Nor is it just for women.
It echoes a cry that has rung from human hearts through the ages.
Humanity once knew safe, shame-free, secure intimacy. We enjoyed God and each other in Eden, but since the opening pages of the Bible (Genesis 3) there has been unfaithfulness. We allowed our hearts to be seduced by counterfeit gods, and the result was distance - and yearning.
Psalm 63 also expresses it:
“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
It resonates with Raye’s line: “how my heart yearns for him.”
Your Maker is your Husband
But through the prophet Isaiah, God comforts his people with striking language:
"For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called."
This redeemer is Jesus.
He is our heavenly bridegroom. We, the church, are his bride. Yet we wait for the promised wedding of Revelation 19:
"Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready."
The waiting is hard. We ache like a fasting stomach (Matthew 9) and perhaps we wonder, what’s taking him so long?
The Bridegroom Who Hasn't Forgotten
But God’s words through Peter assure us that he hasn’t forgotten us:
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Nor is he reluctant.
We, young and old, male and female, married and single, long for the restoration of all things: for every tear to be wiped away, for there to be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for a secure relational intimacy that is the home humanity was made for.
With the Spirit, we the bride say “Come!” (Rev 22:17) and our Lord replies “Yes, I am coming soon.” (Rev 22:20)
Or in Raye’s grandmother’s words:
“Your husband is coming!”
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This guest post is written by Anika Lillicrap. Anika works as a pastoral counsellor, a tutor for Biblical Counselling UK and has almost finished her studies in child and adolescent psychotherapeutic counselling. She’s married to Matt, CEO of UCCF, and they have six children and a chocolate labrador.