I’ll never forget the day I stumbled on that verse. It was late evening, and I was alone in my grandmother’s attic, searching through boxes of old family Bibles. The musty scent of aging paper mixed with the hush of a quiet house. I don’t know why I opened that particular book. It was bound in cracked, deep brown leather, the corners soft from decades of turning pages.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular—just a distraction from my own questions about love and whether age really mattered in a relationship. My own heart was tangled in a secret I hadn’t dared to share. I had fallen in love with someone fifteen years older than me. The judgment in other people’s eyes weighed on me every single day.

The Bible lay open in my lap, and my thumb flicked through Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes, before I settled in the Song of Solomon. I started reading verses I’d skimmed a hundred times before, about love as strong as death and desire as unyielding as the grave. But something new struck me: nowhere did it mention that love must be measured by the numbers of a birth certificate.

As I read on, I felt a strange calm pour over me. I saw again and again the emphasis on character, kindness, faithfulness—traits that never came with an age tag. Ruth loved Boaz despite the years between them. Sarah and Abraham lived as partners through decades of challenges. The scriptures talked about shared purpose, respect, and trust. Not once did it say love could be invalid simply because one person had been alive longer.

I closed the Bible and just sat there, thinking about all the people who had told me I was naive or misguided. They quoted statistics and offered warnings: “People at different stages of life can’t stay together,” “One of you will always feel left behind.” And yet, what I felt wasn’t fear. It was peace.

When I finally went downstairs, my grandmother was sitting in her armchair, knitting. She looked up and smiled, as if she had been expecting me to come to some conclusion on my own.

“Did you find what you needed?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. “There’s no rule about how many years should be between two people who love each other.”

She nodded slowly. “People forget that love isn’t measured in birthdays. It’s measured in how you walk through life together. Do you lift each other up? Do you protect each other’s hearts? That’s what matters.”

That night, I realized the age difference wasn’t the burden I thought it was. It was simply another detail in a bigger story—our story.

So when someone asks me whether the Bible says anything about the right age gap, I tell them this: The Bible says love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not proud. It rejoices in the truth. And if you can build that kind of love, it doesn’t matter if you’re five, ten, or twenty years apart.

Because in the end, the years between you mean nothing compared to the faith you share and the life you create together.