Last spring my husband decided that he was going to finally get the trailer of his dreams. It was amazing to me how quickly it came to us once he finally got clear on what it was that he wanted. And, it is the trailer of his dreams. It has everything that he could possibly want. Room for his off-road toys, plenty of space for the kids - including friends, bay windows, fuel station, large fuel capacity, and the piez de resistance, an Onan 5000 gold generator.
Now this generator is the stuff campers’ dreams are made of. It runs quietly, it is fuel efficient, it can power a small house!! This is his pride and joy. Several months ago, we ran out of gas on the generator. I know, bad. You’re not supposed to let a generator sit for any length of time without running it. Things in the carburetor get gummed up, and the generator won’t run. One of the benefits of this particular generator is that it is supposed to be able to store for a long period of time without this happening. We finally got fuel, and the generator wasn’t running. We actually found this out the first time while we were camping in the back yard, so it wasn’t the end of the world, we just plugged the trailer into the house.
“There is something wrong with the fuel supply,” hubby told me. He fiddled with it. He got frustrated with it. He added fuel to it. He ran it on starter fluid. It wasn’t the generator, it could run. He decided that the fuel tanks on the trailer had been switched. This explained the problem. There just wasn’t any fuel getting to it. He had an impression to ask a friend what might have happened, but he ignored that. He is a mechanic after all. He didn’t need help with this. So, he ignored that prompting. He could do it on his own.
We went camping a few weeks ago out at Valley of Fire state park. Talk about beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. God truly is an artist, and it is evident everywhere out there. It was, however, quite chilly. Okay, I’d venture to say cold by my Vegas standards. We had fueled up the tanks on the way out, Ken knowing that this would solve the problem with the generator and we would be fine for energy while out. Beings that we were dry camping.
Guess what?! That wasn’t the problem. We were very blessed that we had a battery that was able to run the fan on the heater for part of the night, and then we fired it back up in the morning before everyone got out of bed. The problem was, there was no rhyme nor reason to why the generator wasn’t working. Maybe it was the fuel filter. That had to be it. So, when we got back home, we went out and purchased a fuel filter. The filter was changed, nothing. It still wasn’t working, and there was no indication that there was a problem with fuel supply.
SO, we went down to Camping World to find out what it would take to have the generator serviced. Surely that would fix it. When we told them what was going on, they insisted that it had to be a carburetor jet issue, and the carburetor would have to be replaced at a cost of a minimum of $600. Blessedly, my husband is not one to just have blind faith in a mechanic. He was a mechanic for too long. He knows how that can work. So, he finally gave in and asked his friend - you remember, the one he was impressed to ask months ago - what he should do. The friend said that it was probably a float issue and that if he would gently tap it with a hammer, it would most likely start right up. Guess what?! It did. Tap, tap, and it was all over.
Turns out that when we took the trailer out the first time, it had come unhitched and fallen. The force of that impact had actually gotten the float stuck. It was just a coincidence that we had run out of fuel just before that. We would have replaced the whole carburetor, when all that needed to happen was that something needed to be put back into alignment.
Now I have learned a few things from this. The first thing is that if we will listen to the promptings that come and not rely on our own wisdom, we can avoid a lot of heartache. Many times we are too close to a situation to see it objectively and so we don’t realize that we know the answer. Once he heard it, he realized that that was the obvious solution. He was so emotionally involved that he missed the obvious answer.
The second thing is that we are a lot like this generator. When everything is in balance, we can run efficiently. But if even one part gets stuck, it can make it impossible to perform our proper function in this world. And, it was simple. Just tap on it and it’ll fix.
If you’re not familiar with tapping, it is a phenomenal tool that I discovered that has made a huge difference in my life. Visit http://www.emofree.com to discover more about tapping and this revolutionary new technique that is changing the lives of millions.
There may not be a need to do a complete overhaul. You might just need to tap on the problem and you’ll find that things go back into alignment and you are soon running again like a well-oiled machine.