Since 2020, Amy Grant has endured a harrowing list of health problems, including open heart surgery, a brain injury, and neck and shoulder surgery.

“It was just one thing after another,” husband Vince Gill tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with the couple for this week’s issue.

Through every recovery, Grant never doubted that she could rely on the unwavering support of her country star husband of nearly 25 years.

“Vince is just stable,” says the 64-year-old Christian pop icon. “I don’t know how I can lean on him. I’m not even aware of it because it’s second nature.”

Grant’s first health crisis came as a complete shock to the couple: Gill was the one who sought a medical check-up in 2020 after suffering shortness of breath while climbing stairs. Grant was with Gill when the cardiologist delivered the results.

“He said, ‘Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your heart is amazing.’ “You’re just fat and out of shape,” Gill, 67, recalls, laughing. “And I said, ‘It’s not a joke, doctor. You’re a genius.’”

But then, Gill says, the doctor turned to Grant and suggested similar tests. She accepted the problem. She said she felt good. The doctor pressed, pointing out that heart problems ran in her family, and she relented. Tests soon revealed she was suffering from PAPVR (partial anomalous pulmonary venous return), a rare congenital defect that affects blood flow to the heart.

Gill remembers the doctor warning that without care it would end “eventually catastrophically,” so Grant successfully underwent surgery in June 2020.

With the COVID-19 quarantine at its peak, Gill’s hospital visits were severely limited. “I couldn’t be there for the operation and had to go home,” he remembers, “and that was hard.”

He finally received permission to visit his wife in her room, and he remembers the sweet relief of that moment.

“She wasn’t under anesthesia yet, and when I saw her there was just the most beautiful and peaceful thing on her face,” he says, knowing: “She’s fine.”

With his calendar already empty due to the pandemic, Gill was able to easily devote himself to caring for his wife. He says he was impressed by her spirit every time she needed to recover.

“Everything she had to deal with, she just did it with kindness and grace and said, ‘Okay, we can do this, we can do this,'” Gill says. “She’s pretty strong.”

In July 2022, Grant, now fully recovered from surgery, was cycling when she hit a pothole and fell heavily. Despite wearing a helmet, she became unconscious and suffered cuts, bruises and a serious brain injury that required hospitalization.

Gill rushed to his wife’s side and canceled his three concerts scheduled for the following weekend. The next week he was able to complete a four-day stint at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, not far from the couple’s home, but he was clearly thinking about his wife and her recovery.

During a concert, he told the audience that Grant was “getting better every day,” and then introduced their 21-year-old daughter, Corrina, to perform the tribute he had written to his wife, “When My Amy Prays,” The song that had won him a Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance the year before. (Corrina aptly changed the lyrics to “When My Mama Prayers.”)

Grant was forced to postpone all of her fall tour dates, and in a January 2023 PEOPLE interview, she confirmed that her recovery from the brain injury had been arduous.

“It was really depressing,” she said. “Everything got canceled and I just said, ‘What if I never come back?'”

She shared that her husband gave them some comforting advice: “He said, ‘Every day things happen to people and you just have to take it one day at a time and then here we are and I love you.’ And that kind of made every day of the trip okay.”

Still, there were still challenges: The following year, Grant had to have a cyst removed in her neck, forcing her to relearn how to sing, and she told PEOPLE that she also needed shoulder surgery afterward.

Today, Grant only has the scars to remind her of her surgeries, but it’s also clear that she still struggles with some memory loss from the bike accident.

During PEOPLE’s recent interview with the couple, Grant was asked to recall the early days of their marriage and she had to admit, “My details are all a little fuzzy.”

Gill quickly jumped in. “She had a little bike accident not long ago,” he explained, before answering the question himself.

“Tag team,” he said to his grateful wife. “We’re going to be like championship wrestling.”

This consistency is obviously an essential part of a marriage that will turn 25 years old next March. And the couple say Grant’s health scares have given them more confidence than ever that their love will carry them through whatever life throws their way.

Grant likes to recount how, in a quiet and vulnerable moment during one of her convalescences, Gill felt the need to ask herself aloud: Would she be okay “if we were ever just here”? Would she be okay with everything else being taken away?

Grant’s memory of what Gill said next is crystal clear: “We’d be fine.”

She also remembers her answer well: “Yes, we would. We would be fine.”

For more from Amy Grant and Vince Gill, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.