Bloglovin Profile

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hey guys, I'd really appreciate a follow on Bloglovin. It's an easy way to keep up with all your blog reading, instead of having to memorize tens of blog addresses, so I love using it, I'm sure you will too!

Thanks & Blessings!

Bloglovin Profile

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hey guys, I'd really appreciate a follow on Bloglovin. It's an easy way to keep up with all your blog reading, instead of having to memorize tens of blog addresses, so I love using it, I'm sure you will too!

Thanks & Blessings!

Moving on Up!

Hey There, 

Thanks to all your love and support, I finally gathered enough momentum to move this blog to a website! I'm super thankful to all you who faithfully drop by and leave sweet encouraging comments. I'm not exporting this blog so I'll leave it up for a while for History's sake at least until I have a significant number of posts on the new site, but all regular posting will now be going on at 

joannefuraha.com

I really hope to see you there, I've been working hard on the site and refining the look of it, the writing and delivery style and I hope you come by and see it.

Don't forget, http://joannefuraha.com

You can also follow me on 

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

 

New Blog Reveal :: Treasured

It's a little hard to a blog reveal when it's already revealed the minute you click on here! However, I still have to do this post to kiss my 1st blog, Raha and Life goodbye. It's served me well the past few years but I really felt like a change was necessary.

To remind you of what it looked like, 

 This is the before shot, and...

This is the after shot.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

2 Corinthians 4:7

I was praying asking God for a name for this new blog and for whatever ministry I'll start and this morning, treasured just flew into my mind. One of the songs that really impacted my life this year was Jesus Culture's "Sing my Love" 

"Words could never say the way He says my name He calls me lovely // No one ever sees the way He looks at me He sees me holy // Words could never hold this love that burn my soul Heaven holds me, oh heaven holds me //
You would not believe the way He touches me He burns right through me // And i could not forget every word He said He always knew me // The earth could never hold this love that burns my soul Heaven holds me oh heaven holds me"

This song spoke directly to me. I'd never imagined that God could look at me and call me lovely or see me as holy or love me ferociously or tell me that He's always known me. Then coming across these 2 verses in Deuteronomy. In case I ever doubted it, here it is in black and white, we not only have treasure in our hearts; but He calls us His own treasure. We are treasure in and out. We are treasured people. So this is what I want this blog to be about. To be a reminder of all these things. To re-teach my heart what it means to live like I'm loved and to share my lessons along the way.

I hope you like the new site, can't wait to interact with you all more.

Follow Me on Bloglovin

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hey everybody! I just finished updating my About Me page, so be sure to click on the link above and check it out. I am still planning a big "New Blog Name Reveal" this coming week, so be sure to check it out :-)

Speaking of changes, I wanna invite you guys to keep up with me via bloglovin. As you know Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st and those of you who follow my posts via that will miss out. I might also not be able to update every new post on Facebook and Twitter; however there's a great alternative which is bloglovin. So, just click on the link above or on my right sidebar and I'll see you there :-)

(P.S I'm Joanne Furaha on everything, so I'm easy to find)

Have a feel-good weekend!

 

52 Weeks of Bloggin with a Purpose: Who I am

It's difficult to be faced with that question. At 23, a college graduate, working in an office job, I should have it figured out by now but I don't. Truth is most days it feels like I'm living in the "Who I'll be one day" phase rather than the "Who I Am Now".

Who I'll be one day is wife to an amazing man of God, mother to adorable kids. A daughter, a sister and an aunt. A sister-in-law, a daughter-in-law and a friend. Pastor in an amazing Church.

Who am I now? That's a tough one.

Well, I'm a writer and a blog designer. This is a newly-formed passion of mine. I've written all y life. In High school I was the annoying girl who did extra essays, compositions and book reports for my English teacher to grade. At some point I thought of that lady as my best friend! Yeah, I'm that girl who scribbled in her journal about boys and God and my future in somewhat equal measure.

I'm a singer and learner and lover of music. I sing at my Church worship team and I love it and it's something I want to pursue.

I'm daughter to an amazing mom, sister to an amazing sister and auntie to a bunch of amazing kids

I'm friend to amazing friends and I love each of them dearly.

I'm many things, but mostly I'm a daughter of God. Beloved, treasured, fought for and won, delivered, redeemed, restored and all those many words that mean, God, creator of the universe loves me and gave Himself for me and for my freedom. His love and grace overwhelms me.

I'm a person learning what it means to walk forgiven and what it means to be redeemed. I'm many things but one thing. Does that make sense?

How To Tuesdays: How to Remove the Space Where the Navbar Used to Be

You can move the header up to cover over the area where the nav-bar was by adding a CSS rule to your template in the normal way.

The rule to add is:

#navbar { height: 0px; visibility: hidden; display: none;}

Apply that, and the space that the nav-bar was in will simply close up, so the rest of the content is a little closer to the top of the screen.

Hope this helps!

xx
Jo

How To Tuesdays: Option 6 - How To Remove The "Showing posts with label" / "No posts were found which match your query" Message on Blogger

That is a looong title!

Well, this tutorial is aboout Labels. On my blog, the different tabs up top are actually search results from the labels, but when you clivked on them, it always displayed that pesky message "Showing posts with label 'abc'" which just showed the world what a beginner blog designer I am.

This simple CSS Code saved me from aforementioned public embarassment, hope it does the same for you.

Again,
First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"
Step 4: Paste

.status-msg-wrap{
display: none;
}

Hope it works out for you.

xx

Jo

How To Tuesdays: Option 5 - How To Center Your Post Title, Date and Gadget Headers on Blogger

Disclaimer: Always keep in mind, I am not a licensed blog developer so make sure you save your HTML before you add any new stuff, not just from me but from anyone. Your blog is way too important to mess around with :-)

Again,
First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"

This menu is about to be your best friend :-)

Option 5 - How To Center Your Post Title, Date and Gadget Headers on Blogger

This is pretty easy, continuing from above,

Step 4: In case you have any other CSS codes added, press enter to skip a line and to make sure you don't mess up any of your coding.

Step 5: To center your Post & Date Titles

.post-title {
text-align:center;
}
.date-header {
text-align:center;

}

Step 6: Check it out

Step 7: to center your Gadget Headers in Blogger:

.widget {

  text-align: center;

}

 Step 8: Check it out

How To Tuesdays: Option 4 - How To Change The Font of Your Blog Description on Blogger

It's easy to change the font of your Blog Title, you just go to Layout > Advanced > Blog Title. But there's no option for that for your Blog Description.

I did a little research and found this code:

Again,
First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"

This menu is about to be your best friend :-)

 Option 4 - How To Change The Font of Your Blog Description on Blogger

This is pretty easy, continuing from above,

Step 4: In case you have any other CSS codes added, press enter to skip a line and to make sure you don't mess up any of your coding.

Step 5: Find a blogger font you like - I went under Layout>Advanced>Blog Title and picked the same font my blog title has which is the "Dancing Script"

Step 6: Paste the following -

.description{
font-family: Dancing Script;
}

Step 7: Replace my font choice "Dancing Script" with your font choice e.g Arial

Step 8: Check it out


xx

How To Tuesdays: Option 3 - How To Center Your Pages / Links Tabs on Blogger

Last time we saw How To Center Your Blog Title and Description on Blogger.

For todays lesson, again,

First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"

This menu is about to be your best friend :-)

 Option 3 - How To Center Your Pages / Links Tabs on Blogger

 For my blog, the tabs on the tops aren't pages, they're links. I've never really understood the concept of Pages and I've found that links work better for my blog.

Continuing from above, 

FOR PAGES
Step 4: In case you have any other CSS codes added, press enter to skip a line and to make sure you don't mess up any of your coding.
Step 5: Add the following code

.PageList {text-align:center !important;}
.PageList li {display:inline !important; float:none !important;}

FOR LINK TABS
Step 4: In case you have any other CSS codes added, press enter to skip a line and to make sure you don't mess up any of your coding.
Step 5: Add the following code

.LinkList {text-align:center !important;}
.LinkList li {display:inline !important; float:none !important;}

How To Tuesdays: Option 2 - How To Center Your Blog Title and Description on Blogger

Last time we saw How to Add a Signature to Your Blogposts, today we learn How To Center Your log Title and Description.

Again,
First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"

This menu is about to be your best friend :-)

 Option 2 - How To Center Your Blog Title and Description.

This is pretty easy, continuing from above,

Step 4: In case you have any other CSS codes added, press enter to skip a line and to make sure you don't mess up any of your coding.

Step 5: Paste the following - 

#header-inner {text-align: center ;}

Step 6: Yup, that's it, check it out :-)

There are other options of aligning your header center and your description right or left or vice versa but I wasn't really feeling that for my blog. However you can google them and check it out.

xx

How To Tuesdays: Option 1 - How to Add A Signature to Your Blogposts on Blogger

I've been doing a lot of research in improving the look of this blog and I thought I'd share some stuff I've learnt along the way.

First thing you need to know is this:

Step 1: Got to Layout on the Blogger Home page
Step 2: Click Advanced
Step 3: Go to "Add CSS"

This menu is about to be your best friend :-)

Option 1: How to Add A Signature to Your Blogposts

Step 1: Create a signature on Paint/Picasa/Photoshop or whatever other app you have that can add text to picture. (I simply went to Windows Paint, made a white background rectangle and uploaded that to Pic Monkey for their wide selection of fonts to add the words "God Bless, Jo" and the heart.)

Step 2: Upload this "signature" to Picasa or flicker or other web based album.

Step 3:  Copy this code to "Add CSS"

.entry-content:after {
content: url(YOUR IMAGE URL);
margin-left: 5px;
}

Step 4: Right click on the picture you've uploaded and select "Copy Image URL"

Step 5: Paste the URL where it says, "YOUR IMAGE URL"

Step 6: Check it out :-)

Your welcome :-)

Next time, we'll check out, How To Center Your log Title and Description.

xx

Blogs I'm Loving

I talked in my last post about new blogs I'm reading and how they inspired me to change the direction of my writing...thought I'd highlight them here in case any of you wanna check them out.

Sitting In The House of God :: this was last updated 2 years ago, but I like it because He talks a lot about the ups and the downs of life and His relationship with God.

Outrageously Good :: this is definitely my top 2 because this guy takes amazing pictures and talks about life in Redding and on missions, he interned with Jonathan David and Melissa Helser and I love their music.

In Essence :: this is the other in my top 2. His writing is amazing, He reminds me of the old classical writers. Check it out too.

Kissed By Glory :: I don't know what her name is, but again, lots of pictures from around the world because she's involved in a lot of missions work.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm headed to school to keep dealing with the bureaucratic mess that's standing between me and graduation, but I have faith it'll work out this week. Pray for me!!!!!!!

xx
Jo

Happy New Year!

Last years’ theme for my blog was Awake and Alive. That’s actually a Skillet song that I thought would be catchy and cute, it turned out to be exactly what the year turned into. 

January: Enjoyed all the benefits of being single and not searching for the first time in a long time. Transferred to City Campus.

February: Discovered the Jesus Culture Band and a new love for worship.

March: Experienced God’s love in a tangible way for the 1^sttime

April: Heard about Worship auditions

May: Turned 22 and realized my life needs to take a different direction.

June: Auditioned and joined worship team

July: Passed my CPA exams

August: Finished probation and became an official member of WT. Made a couple of mistakes that were quickly rectified.

September: Decided to dream big and reawaken myself to the possibilities I believed in in High School

October: Discovered Mark Driscoll and learnt a lot

November: On stage for the 1^st time

December: No matter how much I run and hide, He tracks me down.  Also, started sending in my applications. Also finally closed a door that I’ve left open far too long.

These are the general themes that ran through each month, but what I can’t put into words is the small moments that marked every single day this year. I can honestly say, this has been the best year of my life. The friends I’ve made, the places I’ve gone, the experiences I’ve had, the mistakes I’ve made, the conversations I’ve had, the love I’ve felt and the ability to enjoy and appreciate every moment. 

My favorite song of the year has to be Bethel Worship’s “This is What You Do”. The chorus goes like. “This is what you do, you make me come alive” and this is definitely how I’ve felt this year.

A new year brings new things and a new theme that I hope at the end of the year will accurately describe how the year has gone.

I’ll explain the meaning tomorrow.

For now, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

xx

Jo

Hello, Goodbye

I know I haven't been posting much recently, but that's becasue I've been setting up my diet & fitness blog slash, the blog that attempts to keep me accoutnable to my weight loss and fitness goals, say HELLO to;

Clean, Lean, Mean, Happy Raha

Please feel free to head over there to check it out :-)

Other than that, I'm good, reading a lot, learning a lot, got my hair done. Now I have long curly locks, with a little bit of bbrown highlights, I love it. Pictures soon.

We opened school this week, classes start on Monday, really I have no idea how I'm going to say GOODBYE to these two:

via

via

 

 

Please don't judge me, but, I am so addicted to these two! I'd even consider take evening classes so I don't miss them, no lie! Especially Pasion de Gavilanes, seriously, I would take that DVD instead of an engagement ring j/k. Seriously, I don't even watch TV, let alone Telenovelas, but these two are CLASSICS!

Apart from that, I'm good. More updates later. Hope your all OK.

xx
Jo

I Love Blogging! It Gets Better...

I know I always say this, but I don't feel like people get it! I love blogging, I dont know what I would do without this blog. I've been feeling pretty low lately, which I 100% attribute to some crazy PMS, because really, in the grand scheme of things, I have nothing to be sad about! *_* anyway, I got on here and went to that "Labels" section on my blog and clicked on one, and it led me to all these posts I wrote last year, and man, looking back between now and then, it's like a memory miracle log.

Source: bloghackz.com via Sheila on Pinterest

It just reminds me of two things;

• If I keep on keeping on and doing what I'm doing, God willing, this time next year, I'll look back on this years posts and think the exact same thing!!! How that year will be better than the last and so on and so forth #itgetsbetter

Source: faithhopeandcharityshopping.blogspot.com via FinCon on Pinterest

• Every single day of my life, waking up, dancing, singing, laughing, this is the miracle I prayed for and every day I wake up, dance, sing, laugh, is a miracle...despite how I feel, despite what my mind tells me to complain or be sad about, the fact remains, God changed my life this year and He's changing it in one way or another every day...being clay in the Potters hand, being molded hurts, but nobody thinks that when they see the end result.

Source: crushculdesac.tumblr.com via Anneliese on Pinterest

I know, I'm corny, you'll get used to it.

Source: lovelindseykay.tumblr.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

xx
Raha

M.I.A

I can't believe I haven't posted for a week, and I was getting so good at posting daily! Apparently, that's been going around in the bloggy-verse and it finally caught up with me.

I hope you stick around though and check back for updates starting tomorrow, for now, be sure to check out my archives for some good stories.

Love you guys!


xx
Jo

How To Add A Rolling List For Your Blog Buttons

I saw this rolling list of buttons on Lissa's blog, {Through The Looking Glass} and loved it so I Googled it and came across this jenieshell.blogspot.com who gave a tutorial here. So, this is just a way for me to remember how I did it and you guys can use it too, it'd be awesme if you'd add me to your roll *wink* *wink*.

200" onmouseover="this.stop()" scrollamount="5" onmouseout="this.start()" height="400" align="center"> THIS IS WHERE YOU ADD THE HTML CODES FOR YOUR FAVORITE BUTTONS! (You can add as many as you like!)

• The colors in red are the dimensions you want your widget to be
• The number 5 in yellow adjusts the speed of how quickly the buttons will scroll; the higher the number the faster they will go. *I used 3, mine were going a little too fast for people to admire your awesome buttons*

Thanks jenieshell.blogspot.com!

xx
Jo