The Guardian of Airways

Your voice box is an amazing organ located at the top of your windpipe. It is a hollow, tubular structure that creates sounds and prevents food from entering your airways. On the upper part of your voice box is a flap called the epiglottis. When you swallow, your voice box rises and your epiglottis forms a lid over its opening. This blocks the passageway to your respiratory tract and prevents food and other foreign substances from entering where they don’t belong. Inside your voice box (or larynx) there are two bands of tissue that form your vocal cords. When you speak or sing, muscles pull these cords together. The air passing through the cords makes them vibrate. You hear these vibrations as sounds. The shorter your vocal cords are and the faster they vibrate, the higher the pitch you produce.

In both girls and boys, the voice box and vocal cords grow during puberty and cause their voices to deepen. In girls, this change can be hardly noticeable with their voices dropping by just a couple of tones. But boys’ voice boxes grow considerably. They also tilt to a different angle in the neck and can start to stick out as a prominent “Adam’s apple.” Boys’ voices can drop by as much as an octave.

A man once brought his son to Jesus’ disciples because the boy could not speak. When Jesus spoke with the father, He said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23). The father “found his voice” and blurted out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24). Then Jesus healed the boy, who now had a voice.

Though you also have a voice, you might not always use it to speak in faith. When we believe in God’s Word, we will find the voice of our faith growing stronger. Doubt sometimes blocks our voices from speaking truth. We need a “spiritual epiglottis” to guard the airways of our souls. Speak in faith and you will find your true voice.

Key Bible Texts

Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion. (Isaiah 52:8 KJV)