A few months ago I was thinking about joy and how to get it. It went completely out of my mind (as many things do) and I only rediscovered the original blog post about it the other day. But I was so glad I did.

"I haven't been thinking about it, but with all the reading and thinking I've done this year on other stuff, I've figured it out anyway," I thought to myself. "I 'get' joy now."

I probably don't still completely understand it, but I'm a lot closer than I was, so here are my discoveries about joy, six months down the track.

You get joy by being thankful. Practicing gratitude for small and large things on a daily basis brings you into the present more fully and joy begins to well up.

You get joy by being connected to people in honest, open relationships. 

You get joy by taking time in your life to understand yourself.

You get joy by doing things you enjoy.

You get joy by being aware of how much the world is broken and how little you can do about it and the size and shape of what God has done through Christ.