"Little Miss Sunshine" is one of my favorite movies. It's one of the few movies that made me laugh out loud and cry my eyes out. Unfortunately, it's full of foul language and unsavory characters. But, if you can get beyond that, you'll see a story that hilariously illustrates that sometimes the only way to get beyond our own sad circumstances is to put everything we have into helping someone else.

The movie opens with a little girl (Olive) watching a Miss America contest. She stands there enraptured, oblivious to the sad contrast of the contestants' perfect bodies and her own plump body with her unmistakably rounded belly. It  is Olive's dream to be a contestant in a beauty contest.

Each of the characters in this film has a dream and as the movie unfolds we see all of their dreams shattered. I know it sounds like the furthest thing from hilarity, but you just have to trust me on this one.

When Olive gets a phone call letting her know she's been selected (by default) to be a contestant in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, she literally runs through the house screaming at the top of her lungs.

The logistics of actually getting Olive are not in her favor, but remarkably enough, the family rises to the challenge and they pull out all the stops to get her there. The disasters they encounter along the way keep us laughing and wondering if our sweet Olive will ever make it.

The family arrives with seconds to spare. They are visibly horrified when they see the freakish, mannequin-like little contestants prancing around in all their exquisite finery. (Jon-Bonet Ramsey comes to mind).

Their elaborate hair and make-up make Olive look pitifully out of place, completely out of her league. The family's own problems are forgotten as each one tries in vain to keep Olive from the humiliation of performing along side these ultra-talented little caricatures of beauty pageant contestants.

However, Olive perseveres and the family is forced to sit agonizingly through one amazingly perfect performance after another. Finally, it is Olive's turn to perform and she shyly dedicates her performance to her grandfather.

Apparently Olive's chaotic home life had left her largely to her own devices. As it turns out, only her heroine addicted grandfather had been available to teach her a dance routine. As the chords to Rick James' "Superfreak" begin, it becomes obvious that her "dance" is nothing short of a sexy strip tease act. They sit in stunned silence as she provocatively tears off her pants and saucily tosses her top hat at the appalled announcer. She's blissfully oblivious to the scorn, shock and outrage breaking out around her. One by one, like mother hens protecting their chick, each family member joins her on the stage, dancing with her and shielding her from the onslaught of the increasingly hostile crowd.

I see parallels in Olive's family and our Christian family. We all have shattered dreams of some sort. We all have our funny quirks and various "issues," yet we desperately need each other. It's only through helping each other along the journey that we find our own joy and purpose.