When God writes the love story: my supernatural marriage setup

I grew up hearing stories of supernatural, divine marriage set-ups. I had read the story of Isaac and Rebekah more times than I could count, had received numerous prophetic words speaking about my husband… yet I remained single. In 2024 I was 38, and I had just lived through ten years from hell.

I’d been chronically ill, living with my parents, needing a wheelchair to leave the house. Then, I had been a witness in a traumatising spiritual abuse investigation, which had triggered my resulting, horrendous PTSD. Dating felt so far from my reality or possibility, and my life had, in every sense, fallen apart.

In the throes of attempting to recover, God mercifully and supernaturally healed my body, in one moment. With the help of a therapist, I began the long journey to regain some semblance of ‘normalcy’ and recover from the PTSD. But still, my deepest longing, to be married, could not have felt further away.

I’d tried all the things I could think to do, heard far too many painful sermons on dating, been on my fair share of terrible dates and here I was, with no answers or explanation, having spent almost all of my 38 years single.

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I lived in the middle of nowhere, in the Yorkshire Dales, surrounded by more sheep than people, and was caring for a close relative with cancer. I knew God had sent me there, but I had no time or energy to ‘get out there’ and nowhere to go where I could meet people.

I remember one day, walking in the hills, and realising that, honestly, I didn’t know if I had faith for my relationship status to ever change.

I remember one day, walking in the hills, and realising that, honestly, I didn’t know if I had faith for my relationship status to ever change. In all the things I had seen God do, I had never seen this. The perpetual ‘unanswered’ prayer.

So, I told God, ‘I need you to do something supernatural and I need you to give me the gift of faith. I need a supernatural marriage setup, natural human effort has just not worked. I’ve tried everything I know to do, and I need a miracle.’

Little did I know… God was already at work. I worked in a remote retreat centre, and by divine coincidence an American friend and former mentor, who I hadn’t seen for over ten years, came to visit me to pray together for the centre.

She had just been on a mission in India, and had felt God tell her to stop off to pray in England on her way home. She ‘randomly’ added me to her email list, I ‘randomly’ felt to invite her to visit to pray. So she flew back from India, to Oregon, via a detour to the Yorkshire Dales(!).

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While together, we had a helpful conversation about life, calling and my recovery from this painful season. I mentioned an unshakeable sense that I was called to mission and evangelism, that didn’t seem to make much sense with my present life at all. She turned to me and said with great enthusiasm… ‘Do you remember Richard? You should go to Africa with Richard!’

I didn’t know him, but I did remember his name, Richard Larcombe. We had both lived in the same small town in California, for the same three years until 2014. We shared over 100 mutual friends, the same mentors, and I had even met and prayed for his mother, Jennifer Rees Larcombe, when she was visiting him and our church there. But Richard and I had never met.

Richard (who is British) and my friend Crystal (who is American) had just a month or so earlier, bumped into each other in a remote small Oregon airport. Her name was called over the tannoy, and ten years after being on the same California church staff team, they were catching up in Medford Airport, only to then find they were seated behind each other on both of their flights across the US and the Atlantic. Bizarre! Both of them were travelling as missionaries, her to India, and him to Kenya. It was a divine meeting and encouragement, and they kept in touch to pray for each other’s trips.

As they were meeting on the plane, I was in Yorkshire, asking God to do something supernatural, wondering at my own lack of faith, yet totally unaware that God was already moving! So Crystal connected us to talk about evangelism. A few months later, after one very unsuspecting zoom call entirely focussed on mission and calling, I was in Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, meeting Richard and the rest of our team to go to Kenya together to preach the gospel.

READ MORE: I waited for a husband and God answered my prayer when I was 44

From that first meeting, it was, quite frankly, bizarre. We found an extraordinary litany of shared history, aligned values and sense of calling. We found we had both been in the same rooms during various moments of Holy Spirit moving in England and America, we had both done the same evangelists training which had shaped and changed our lives in similar ways. The coincidences became so uncanny they were almost laughable!

It was as if God had been setting us up, aligning our stories, for years.

It was as if God had been setting us up, aligning our stories, for years. But the most extraordinary thing is, we had both seen many valleys and unexpected trials in that time. Richard had been through a painful, unwanted divorce. I had been through terrible spiritual abuse and sickness. Amidst the mystery and suffering, unknown to us both, God had been writing a redeeming story. Just after the trip (September) we went on our first date, and were engaged by January, and married within ten months of meeting!

We found our shared joys went far beyond ministry, but also our gifts and personalities aligned perfectly for us to do together what God has called us to. During my season in Yorkshire, when I was asking God for faith and a miracle… my sister in law had been in a 24-7 prayer room. She wrote down a prayer, put it in an envelope, to open in a year. The prayer was: ‘I don’t know how this would happen, but I pray that Philly would be married within a year’.

The date of our wedding was, by chance, the same week, exactly a year after that prayer. It was as if, from that first flight booking, to the day of our wedding, God had perfectly aligned our stories and lives, to his timeline and his plan. God perfectly knew what we needed and answers prayers. And he didn’t mind at all that I didn’t feel I had faith, he was ready to supernaturally demonstrate, that he is the one that fulfils His promises!