Pamela Sue Raynor was born December 15th, 1954 in West Virginia

Of Lynch Alexander Curran and Annie Dale Curran and her Brother David Glen Curran after her.

She was married to and then widowed by Allan Bradley Raynor

Her children are Allan Bradley Raynor Jr., Jason Aaron Raynor, and Rebecka Anne Raynor

Her son Jason married Nicole Marie Raynor and Nana’s grandchildren are Cloie Marie Raynor and Riley Grace Raynor

My mother’s childhood was simple. Even though she was born in West Virginia, she grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago where she developed a mix between a Chicago and Wisconsin accent. She lived with her parents and her brother in a very small apartment, but she had a happy childhood with family around her. Her family had a dog named Penny and my mom liked Shirley Temple and old movies with actors like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. She would still watch them even when I was a child. Growing up she used to ice skate and toboggan, which is why she used to make sure to take us sledding as kids. She would play Twister with her brother and other friends. As she got older, she used to like sleepovers with her girlfriends and she had the 45's with the portable record player on which she would play the Beetles.

My mother really liked going out and doing things out of the house. Whether it was a visit to the park, a day trip to Six Flags, a weekend at Mawmaw and Pawpaw’s, a week long vacation to Washington Island, Wisconsin Dells, or our family trip to Disney World. I realized that I got to experience a lot of things growing up and this grew a desire to make memories with my own children. I remember that my mother would want to pay attention to us and what we had going on. What gave her the most joy that I remember was us playing and doing various things. She wanted to hear about our adventures and what was going on with us.

I got to see this with my own children. My mom would have full attention on my girls and she would laugh the hardest at the cute things they would say and do.

As all of you know, my mom faced many health challenges when it came to her heart. My mom experienced heart disease and eventually had to have a pacemaker and an artificial heart valve. If you listened closely you could hear a ticking sound coming from her. I would joke that she was the crock that swallowed the clock from Peter Pan… she did not like that.

During my younger years, our family experienced a lot of difficulty. My dad still had to work and get us food. My dad would take advantage of a happy meal Thursday deal where he would buy us food for the week from Mc Donalds. I did not get to see my mom much and she was very weak when she saw us.

It was during this time that we learned to overcome hardship as a family and to make do with what we had. God used these moments of tragedy to teach us how we could get along with very little and the importance of appreciating the time we have with the people we love. In hindsight I can see how God was using this to learn to depend on him when challenging times come.

My wife Nicole would see that I was calm and collected when facing challenging times, because I realized that often there is nothing I could do but to see what happens. Later, I realized why things eventually worked out - God was making the plan for our good. God showed his strength through my Mom and my family's weakness.

Gospel Presentation

My mother’s dream job was to become a nurse, and so by getting her Associates Degree from the College of Lake County in 1983 was able to become a Nurse in the Emergency Room for various hospitals including Saint Therese Hospital, Lake Forest Hospital, and Vista Medical Center for over 35 years. She always worked third shift and treated some of the worst trauma victims, from car accidents to gunshot wounds.

The field of nursing became the mission that God gave my mother to help other people made in the image of God. She felt it was her calling to help people who were hurt and needing help. I knew this heart for her calling came from the Lord.

It is God’s character to reach out to us and bandage us who are hurt by this world. As my uncle read in Ezekiel 34:16, God searches for those who have a need for him and will make them strong, not of their own power, but in the power that God gives to them.

This is coupled by a warning against those who stand upon other people to make themselves strong and fat off of this world. A king who had the greatest empire the world had ever known at the time was punished for saying “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?” God will humble the proud.

And who is proud? All of us. Who had done wrong? All of us. It is an important step for us to look at our lives and realize that we are not good. There is no good person. Even Jesus, when a man came up to him and said “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”,

answered that man “Why do you call me good? “No one is good—except God alone.” Jesus, God, the maker of heaven and earth, knowing that man and all of us have a need to give up everything and follow him so that he can be the bandager of our wounds.

If you ask God to forgive you and trust in what Jesus did on the cross, that he died, was raised on the third day, and is now with the Father in heaven, if you give your everything to Jesus, he will save you from being smashed like little bugs. The Father, who plans the end from the beginning, sent Jesus and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to pull on your heart to show you your need for the great physician. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

When you become a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will come and live inside of you and give you the direction you need.

My mother and father both cared for those who were in need and had no place to go. People would live in our house who were broken and had no place to go. Even though my mom was a broken person and full of faults, through her decision to follow Jesus with a fellow coworker, she showed God’s character in this too.

As my uncle read in Luke 3:10-11, John the Baptist challenged people to do right in God’s sight by telling them to give to people who do not have. This was not to make themselves feel better about giving, but to do what made themselves feel uncomfortable to commit themselves to God. Serving Jesus does not feel comfortable, it is often hard, but the purpose that comes from it makes it way better than anything else the world has to offer.

My mother was a very giving person. She often did not consider what was in her bank account for the joy of giving to others. Even though it was often at the last minute; anyone who knows my mom knows that she would be at the store overspending on presents because she had great joy in giving. In the same way, God has great joy in giving his children super awesome stuff. In this world too, yes, but more than that, he gives life that will never end, even after we die. I am in full confidence that my mother is in heaven embracing the God she loved who forgave her of every wrongdoing.

My mother, the great lover, but not such a great singer, of Jesus music is able to praise God with her whole heart. Time does not permit and words fail me to express how much joy that gives me.

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