Paper Tigers

[Dr. Shane]

Outwardly paper tigers look fearful but they are unable to do harm. They cannot stand up to neither wind nor rain. In our lives we often face unreasonable fears that are really nothing more than paper tigers.

Recently my wife Sofía and I took a vacation to Monterrey, Mexico and Cola de Caballo (Horse Tail Falls) with our two children. After visiting the waterfall we decided to precede up the mountain only to have the minivan overheat causing the radiator to blowout. Sitting at the top of a Mexican mountain we had no working cell phone, AAA doesn’t help us in Mexico, we couldn’t run the engine without coolant and I feared the brakes overheating if I used them to coast down the mountain. On top of that we only had about $100 and the ATM card hadn’t been working.

I silently prayed to God and told Him, I didn’t know how He was going to work things out but certainly He didn’t bring me so far to leave me like this. We turned the van around, put it in neutral and with no power steering or power brakes slowly coasted down the mountain side taking frequent rests to prevent the brakes from burning up and failing. The road was narrow, steep and scary. A few miles down the mountain we came across a “backyard” mechanic. One that works out of the shed next to his house.

We went with the mechanic from part stores to radiator shops and junk yards until after three hours we found the radiator for our old van. The radiator cost us $50. The mechanic charged us $30 and that left us $18 for gas and exactly the 24 pesos to pay the toll on the bridge to get back into the US. Paper tigers can be scary but they don’t stand up to neither wind nor rain.