The Power of His Voice

I had a handful of cousins growing up. Our ages ranged like stair steps, and we loved each other like brothers and sisters. One day John, a teenage cousin of ours, made an awful decision. He decided to ride along with a group of his peers in a stolen car! Needless to say, they were pulled over by the police a few short joyrides later.

At the time, my oldest brother was a deputy sheriff. This worked out in Cousin John’s favor. Along with the fact that he had no prior criminal record, he was released into the custody of my brother. My house was the closest to the scene therefore, that’s where most of us cousins gathered to have words with John. Needless to say, tempers escalated quickly. John was trying to explain his side of the story, yet none of us wanted to hear his excuses. It was borderline chaotic in the living room that evening, with what seemed to be no end in sight. Luckily, something did happen to bring an end to the uproar. Something no one, including me, ever expected to happen! My son, who may have been 6 or 7 yrs old at the time, came out of his room and into the living room. He walked to the middle of the floor and shouted, “Wait, wait maybe Cousin John has something to say!” His words brought our state of disorder to a screeching halt. For about ten seconds you could hear a pin drop. Then something amazing happened. We All Laughed! We laughed so hard we all were in tears.

All it took was the voice of the youngest individual present, who rarely spoke, to put an end to our dysfunction. To this day, if one of us says that phrase to the other, there’s instant laughter. I’ll always remember that day as the day HIS voice and HIS words were the calm to our storm.  PS Cousin John has never been in any trouble since!!