If you start a Google search with the words, “why are” the very first suggested search is “Why are eggs so expensive?”
At five dollars a dozen or more, the current price is quite a contrast from just a few short years ago when we could frequently find them on sale for as little as 99 cents per dozen.
It’s egg-flation gone wild.
The primary target for blame in all of this is avian influenza or, in common parlance, bird flu. Although wild birds are virtually immune to it, domestic chickens are very susceptible to the disease, it’s highly contagious, and the only way to deal with it is to cull (destroy) an infected flock. Millions of birds were eliminated last year in an effort to control the disease.
In addition, higher feed costs and the increased cost of heating and diesel fuel contribute to the problem. As long as I can remember, eggs have always gone up during periods of sub-zero temps.
Still, even with the much higher prices, a dozen Grade A Large eggs by law must weigh a minimum of 24 ounces, so five-dollar eggs work out to about $3.33 a pound or 42 cents per egg. That higher cost has curbed demand, but it’s not so expensive that I can’t have a couple of eggs with my Sunday morning breakfast. And I’ve never liked eggnog, so the situation really isn’t life-altering.
All of this egg-talk does make me think of my dearly-beloved grandmother. Grandma Susie raised chickens during the Great Depression, when the price of eggs dropped from 50 cents per dozen to about 13 cents a dozen. Still, she told me that it was “egg money” that kept the farmstead and her family afloat during those hard, hard times. (Note: 13 cents in 1933 equals $2.98 in today’s dollars.)
In Grandma’s words, eggs were “very dear” back then. And by “dear,” she meant precious, rare, valuable.
And Grandma always treated me like I was dear. No matter how badly I tried to run my life into the ground, I always knew I was precious, rare, and valuable to her. Even when it looked like I was beyond saving, I never doubted that Grandma still loved me and was praying for me.
Grandma modeled Jesus to me better than anyone else in all my life. This lady who saved her family from poverty with eggs worth just barely a penny apiece loved me in such a way that I never, ever doubted it –even when I didn’t earn it or deserve it.
Each and every one of us is precious, rare, and valuable to the One who gave His life for us. But it wasn’t eggs that He gave to save us. It was His own life, poured out on a cross that bought us our salvation.
I am rare, I am precious, I am valuable to the God who made the universe and everything in it. And so are you.
Some of us are fragile. Some of us are hard-boiled. Some of us are a little cracked. But we are all loved and valued beyond our ability to think or imagine –and that should totally and radically change how we look at and treat each other.
Let’s be the good eggs He designed us to be
Today’s Praise
James 2:5
“Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?” (NLT)