When Rudolph's red nose hit the screens in homes across the nation in 1964 via Rankin & Bass' holiday movie special entitled Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, viewers fell in love with this glowy-snouted oddball.

When the outcast saved Christmas by guiding Santa's sleigh through a stormy Christmas Eve, the world cheered as his eccentricity became the source of his triumph. But when the film ended without redemption for those many exiled toys he met on the Island of Misfits, public outcry was so strong that the original ending was pulled and replaced to include a resolution for these banished playthings. Deep down, each of us relate to those who do not fit in, and, it is each of our deep-seated desire to see this fixed.

By leaving the toys behind, the statement made was that such oddballs deserved to be left behind—and people were allowing no such standard to be raised. Many of us have an inner misfit: a lonely or out-of-place individual who we often keep hidden. Behind the veil of success, wealth, charm, charisma, humor, I've-got-it-together-isms, and many other types of fronts, hides segments of ourselves that we often keep out of view of others.

The result is a deep type of isolation and separation from our communities, our families, friends, and sometimes even the Body of Christ and our God-ordained calling. We hide our true selves because we fear we are the only ones who feel the way we do. But this is a lie, designed to keep us from reaching our potential in many ways.

What can we learn from the outcasts: The Charlie in the Box, the spotted elephant, the seemingly unblemished Dolly for Sue, a square-wheeled caboose, the squirt gun that only shoots jelly, or the other exiles? The answer is quite enlightening, and, when pursued to its fullest, could lead to a life of connection with family, peers and church. It could empower us to find our God-ordained calling; to see ourselves with new, grace-filled eyes, and even unleash us to embrace our destiny.