Propagation, Potatoes, and Human Purpose

 

If you’d been on our property on Sunday, you might have felt concerned. 

There I was, seven months pregnant (SO pregnant!) shoveling mulch, digging dirt, and pulling a wheelbarrow up and down our hills.

If you were concerned and perhaps tried to take the shovel or wheelbarrow because you’re uncomfortable watching an extremely pregnant woman doing manual labor, I would have assured you that this is a normal thing for me to do, even at seven months pregnant. (Also, I only fill the shovel part of the way.)

 Why all the digging? 

We were planting potatoes!

We’ve planted a few tubs of potatoes every year for the past few years. We never get much of a crop (probably because I don’t really know the best ways to plant potatoes), but it’s usually fun for the children to watch the leafy green plants grow and dig their little hands into the cool, dark soil to find the new potatoes.

                In a few months, we’ll have new potatoes sitting in our pantry to cure, and then the children will enjoy them roasted with butter.

                I am always grateful and amazed at how plants make more plants. Potatoes make more potatoes, succulents make more succulents, irises make more irises, sunflower seeds make more sunflowers which make more sunflowers- and so on. Under the right circumstances, plants can’t help propagating as long as they’re healthy and cared for and pollinated.

                Humans, when given the opportunity, tend to be the same way. I still remember holding my firstborn son as a newborn. All those childhood years of carrying around baby dolls and trying to cuddle with unwilling (and cranky!) cats and dogs suddenly made sense. All those maternal instincts were all just leading up to this: holding my son.      

At 29 years old, that was the first moment in my life that I honestly thought, “I can die happy now. My purpose has been fulfilled. Jesus, life was good. You can take me home at any time.”

I still feel that way. The idea of dying doesn’t particularly bother me. Life has been good, and I feel certain of being with Jesus when I die. Something about having a baby made me feel that I had fulfilled my biological purpose on this planet. I imagine it’s a little bit like that for the sprouting potatoes I planted on Sunday. If they survive, they will put down roots, send out shoots, and ultimately disintegrate into the earth once the plant they’ve started becomes established. They become fertilizer for the new plant. Their deaths don’t make them sad- they are fulfilling the purpose for which they were created.

  Humans are created for many different purposes. Even if we never have children, we create in different ways. I believe this is part of what it means to be made in God’s image. He is infinitely creative, and we are, too. We humans are happiest when we are holding our babies, writing stories, singing songs, making food or blankets or furniture with our hands, building rock walls, shoveling mulch into wheelbarrows, and soaking in the warmth of the sunshine as we build loving families.

Kind of like potatoes.