“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:8.

Jill Kelly has been married to Buffalo Bills’ legendary quarterback Jim Kelly for nearly three decades. And after all this time, her message about their marriage focuses on one thing, faith.

“Sorry, Jim,” Jill said with a small laugh on The Immeasurably More podcast. “You were never meant to be my everything. Only Jesus can carry the weight of being my savior, my source, my security, my hope. He needs to fill my cup so that I can pour into the lives of the people I love and not expect so much from them. So, if I sit there and I have all these expectations of you instead of looking to Jesus to be my everything, then that’s just going to drain you.

“So, I have learned over the 30 years to just keep going to Jesus. Keep going to Jesus. And in doing that, he has taught me to let you off the hook, so to speak, and to let you be you and to love you for who he created you to be, and that you’re not meant to be everything to me. You’re really not. I think people go into marriage thinking like, ‘Okay, my husband or my wife is going to be make me whole.’ And Jesus is the only one who can make us whole. I think that he puts us together so that we find that out.”

Jill and Jim Kelly tied the knot in 1996. Since then, she has written openly about what that journey has looked like. In her book Without a Word, Jill describes finding reminders of other women in Jim’s closets and drawers within months of their wedding, and how Jim’s own confession and spiritual rebirth became the turning point that saved a marriage that was nearly destroyed.

The Kellys have walked through loss, no family should ever have to face. Their son, Hunter Kelly, was born on his father’s birthday and Valentine’s Day in 1997. At just four months, he was diagnosed with Krabbe disease, a rare and fatal nervous system disorder. Doctors told the Kellys that he wouldn’t live past fourteen months. Hunter fought for eight and a half years, relying on respirators, feeding tubes, and the constant support and faith of his parents.

Meanwhile, their daughter Erin battled Lyme disease for years. Even their grandson, Beau Hunter Bean, spent 38 days at a pediatric care center with unforeseen medical complications last July before he finally went home with his parents in August. At the time, Jim and Jill had penned a heartfelt message on Instagram asking for prayers for little Bean, adding, “Most days, it feels like our prayers just hit the walls and fall to the floor.”

Jill even stood by Jim’s side through the multiple cancer battles he fought all the way until 2025, when he finally got cleared by the doctors. And after everything the couple has been through, Jim is grateful for Jill’s presence.

“For me, personally, we’ve both been through so much,” Jim said on the podcast. “Not just both of us as far as marriage, but with our kids, with Hunter growing up and watching what he had to go through. And then Erin with Lyme disease and so many other things, and then Camryn getting older and going through college and graduating, and what’s next with her.”

The couple’s marriage wasn’t perfect, but Jill’s faith gave her a place to put the weight her husband was never meant to carry alone. As Jill perfectly captures it with her podcast’s description:

“This isn’t a conversation between two people who have all the answers. It’s simply an honest look at a marriage that has been tested, strengthened, and carried by the faithfulness of God.”