When I was in college, the school offered a course entitled “Sociology of Marriage.” The professor joked that anyone who stayed married for 50 years could petition to have their grade changed to an “A.”

While in jest, his point was simple: There’s far more to marriage than you could ever learn in a class. Part of learning how to be married is in the marriage itself. I suppose this is why, in part, I don’t dispense a great deal of marriage advice, particularly from the pulpit. If I’m honest, I’m still learning.

That being said, today Joy and I are officially halfway to earning an “A.” Yes, that’s right: Today is our 25th wedding anniversary.

In celebration, I’ll share a little of what I’ve learned about marriage so far. None of this is groundbreaking. It is, however, what I needed 25 years ago. Maybe it will help someone else today.

*****

For most of human history, there have been two primary ways of thinking about marriage. The first envisioned women as little more than property; wives were often sold and treated as purchased goods of sorts. The second is far more egalitarian, focusing on the joy and pleasure in the match; words like “soulmate” might be used in describing this more self-actualized version of matrimony. This is usually the more modern, Western conception of marriage. It is far superior to viewing women as property.

Neither of these, however, is the marriage Joy and I have had—at least not for most of our twenty-five years.

If I’m honest, we have had both of the types of marriages described above at times. Sadly, there have been times where I have treated Joy like little more than property. I am not proud of that confession, but to avoid confessing it would be dishonest. At other times, we have been soulmates of sorts—laughing and encouraging one another along the way. Those times have been more recent. We are in that sort of a season now, and it is fantastic.

But much of our marriage has been like neither of these. Instead, it has been a marriage where our respective weaknesses have been on display.

Each of us have weaknesses we bring into our marriage. Mine are legion, and they began to show themselves early on in our life together. In our first years of marriage, I would often lose my temper, exploding with a volcanic anger. I couldn’t explain why I was angry, but, boy was I angry. I would often find myself regularly gripped with fear—fear that Joy would leave because of my unpredictable anger. To make matters worse, wounds from my past would sometimes show up and lead me to a deep fear. That fear would come over me at night, settling on me like a shadow as we would lie in bed. I would start sobbing for reasons I could not explain. There are still times when an inexplicable sadness overcomes me. in those days I would think to myself, “Am I crazy?” Other times I would ask Joy directly, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I crying?” She would hold me as I would shake and sob. As she would embrace me, I would think, “She’s surely going to leave. Who can put up with this?”

I had other issues, as well. I would shoot off sarcastic comments. I would be too harsh with the boys. I would complain a great deal. I would make rash decisions. In premarital counseling, I like to tell couples that there are five main areas couples fight about: money, kids, family, communication, and sex. I’m proud to say that Joy and I have hit all five.

I could keep going. You get the point.

And I haven’t even talked about the stresses of parenting, ministry, or heart failure along the way.

Let me make it plain: Life has been hard much of our marriage, and I often made our lives harder because I was hard to live with for much of our marriage.

I have spent many hours in prayer, many hours in counseling, many hours with godly men, and many hours reading my Bible. And to be sure, each of those has helped me change—slowly but surely—into a different man.

But along the way there was one constant that changed me in ways I never could have foreseen—Joy never stopped loving me.

I’m sure that there were times when she wondered if I was worth the trouble. For the record, she’s never said that to my face, but I’m sure she wondered it. I would have wondered it if I would have been in her shoes. And yet she just kept loving me day after day as I grew and matured and slowly became more and more the man that I should have been all along.

She did that because we had a very specific vision of marriage in mind on April 10, 1999—a vision that is different from the other two visions of marriage I discussed earlier. The vision of marriage she believed in was the Christian vision of marriage—learning to love one person the way that Jesus loves them. The Christian vision of marriage is built on vows—solemn promises—in which a man and a woman decree before God that they will love one another until one of them dies, for better or worse.

Joy took those vows seriously. She loved me like Jesus did, and that constant, boundless love gave me the space to heal and grow. Her love is probably the greatest gift I have ever been given.

Joy is a woman of prayer. She loves Jesus fiercely. When I was at my weakest and my wonkiest, she loved me relentlessly. The Spirit filled her and shone through her. I felt the love of God in the way she loved me. I don’t think it is a coincidence that my own personal spiritual reawakening came after we had been married a short time, because her love finally made it possible for me to understand the unconditional love of God.

That sort of love—a dogged, persistent, I’m-going-to-love-you-even-though-you-are-an-absolute-pain sort of love is what has made our marriage possible.

That sort of love allows you to serve without being served, to bring your best when your spouse isn’t. It allows that because it flows from Jesus—the bottomless well of life. That is how Joy loved me—because she loved Jesus first.

*****

You’ve probably noticed I’ve said nothing about Joy’s weaknesses thus far. Those aren’t mine to tell. I’ll simply say that yes, she has them. I’ll also say that her constancy in love gave me (and still gives me) the courage to love her in the same way she loved me.

Over the last twenty-five years, we have had some enormous fights. Over the last twenty-five years, we have grown up a great deal. I am in many ways quite literally a different person than I was when we got married. Joy is, as well. Despite the conflict, despite the changes, we have always been able to move forward because of one central reason: we promised to keep loving each other. And on those days when one of us didn’t feel like loving the other, we just kept doing it, anyway.

Christian faith centers on a cross; it reminds us that the love of God is cruciform. God shows his love by giving of himself when the only thing to gain is friendship with someone who would, of his or her own choice, reject him. Much like the compost pile that brings life to the garden soil through death, the self-giving love of the cross shows us how we might bring life into marriage. If only one spouse brings love, there are any number of ways things may play out. But if both will do so, the combined love can create enough compost to bring life from the most dead of soils. That is the love that Christians are called to model. And that’s the love I’ve been learning from both Jesus and Joy for the last twenty-five years. I love learning it, and I hope to keep learning it for twenty-five more.

In summary, my advice is simple: Keep loving others like Jesus loves you. It is more powerful than any argument you might win. It is where you will find life.

*****

P.S. After Joy read this, she said, “I think you were way too hard on yourself.” That may be true. I don’t want to act like I have no positive qualities. It’s not that at all. This isn’t a post of self-loathing. This is a post of gratitude. I truly believe that we made it because Joy showed me how to love.

Joy, thank you for loving me when I have not been easy to love. I have learned more about Jesus while watching you love me than I have from every book I’ve ever read. I promise to keep trying to love you the same way, although I believe you’ll always be one step ahead of me.