Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What do you do when the bottom drops out and life breaks in ways you never imagined? Charlie and Jill LeBlanc have walked that road, and through their personal story of loss, they’ve discovered the sustaining power of God's presence. In this podcast, they offer heartfelt conversations, Scripture-based encouragement, and the kind of hope that only comes from experience. Whether you're grieving, struggling, or searching for peace in the middle of chaos, this space is for you.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of finding hope, Getting Through What You Never Asked For. Yes, we've been doing this podcast now for a year. This is our one year anniversary. Can you believe that? We're just so blessed that we've had the privilege of sharing this message that God had put on our hearts so heavily and we pray that it has continued to help you.
Charlie LeBlanc:We've heard so many good reports and, we have so many listeners and people liking our podcast. We're very encouraged by that. Thank you so much for listening. Today we have a special, video that we want to show you. Actually Jill and I were guests at, Caris Bible College about a year ago.
Charlie LeBlanc:And they asked us to speak in the chapel service, which is all the different students from all the different streams at Caris Bible College. And so it was a real privilege and a real honor that Andrew would have us do this and address the people because this message is not a normal message that, Bible College students hear every day. You know, they hear about faith, hear about love, they hear about, you know, all the attributes of Christian living and ends, but not a lot of people discuss, what happens when you lose a loved one and the pain that happens in that arena. And as you know, Jill and I have been addressing this for many years now and we were so honored to do that. So, we're gonna take you right into this video if you don't mind.
Charlie LeBlanc:We didn't edit anything. It's a little sloppy at times from my part. And, but, we'll start with an intro by the director of the college, Taylor Clark, and, and he will, introduce us. And then, we'll just go on and share our hearts. And Joe shares her heart.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then, at the end, the tailor comes up and receives an offering for us and talks about partnership and things like that. So we just thought we'd just let it all be in there. And then at the end of the video, I'm gonna come back and have some final closing remarks. So God bless you. Thank you.
Charlie LeBlanc:And just really pray that you enjoy this time of teaching. God bless.
Taylor Clark:All right. Good morning, Charis. How are you guys doing? Good. If everybody could find their seats, that would be awesome.
Taylor Clark:Well, before we start, we are livestreaming this. Can you guys welcome our livestream audience here? Praise the Lord. Well, for those of you who don't know me watching, my name is Taylor Clark. I'm the senior director of faculty and curriculum here at Carus Bible College.
Taylor Clark:And it is a blessing to work here and a blessing to serve you all in this capacity. This morning, we have an awesome opportunity to hear from Charlie and Jill LeBlanc. How many of you have heard of Charlie and Jill? Probably most of you. Actually, I just asked her this before this started, how many years they've been associated and linked with this ministry, serving this ministry, and they said forty years.
Taylor Clark:So forty years they've been assisting Andrew, primarily through conferences. They've led praise and worship at his Gospel Truth conferences. How many of you have seen them serving there? Awesome. They are a tremendous blessing.
Taylor Clark:A little bit about them. Again, they've been in the music ministry for forty plus years, and their heart is to encourage and empower people through music ministry and teaching as well. So, I believe you guys are going to be teaching this morning, right? Amen. Awesome.
Taylor Clark:And yes, something else I didn't really realize is they also help or have helped Joyce Meyer Ministries with her conferences as well. So anyways, you guys are about to be tremendously blessed by them and I just want to let you know that at the end of this hour, we are going to be receiving an offering. So please be asking the Lord how you can partner with them in this ministry. Alright? So please welcome them.
Taylor Clark:Thank you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Thank you. Wow, thank you so much. What a what a blessing to be here. It's been a long time since we have been able to address the entire student body. Third year is here, right?
Charlie LeBlanc:Third year. Is the music school here from third year? We've been having a great time all week teaching in the music classes and just having a great time. But we're honored to be with you as a whole. We have a burden on our heart, a message we want to share this morning.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's maybe not something that you hear every day, but but we believe it's something that's very important, something that we believe all of you need. There's forgot his name. Forgive me. Taylor, forgive me. As Taylor mentioned, and you know, we've been in music ministry for all these years.
Charlie LeBlanc:We actually met. We moved. We graduated from Rama and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. And we heard Andrew on the radio in 1980. And we said, Wow, he's good.
Charlie LeBlanc:We like him. And so he came to Phoenix in the end part of 'eighty, and we went to hear him minister. And so from that point on, we began to minister with Andrew for little things and little things, then bigger things and bigger things. And before we knew it, we were doing his GTCs a regular basis. We've been to England and other places in other countries with him for many years.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it's just an honor and a privilege to be serving Andrew in any way. And Jamie, they're a sweet couple. And we just are honored to to be a part. As many of you know, he just stopped the GTCs. How many know that?
Charlie LeBlanc:He stopped both. So we're like going, woah, Okay, praise the Lord. But but the Lord has brought us into a whole new season of ministry. And so we're going to be sharing a little bit about that today.
Jill LeBlanc:And it's not about music necessarily. We're not necessarily going to be speaking about praise and worship today, although worship is a part of our lives, right? It's part of all of our lives, worshiping God every day, right? We connect with our Father every day in worship and in prayer. So that's just a part of all of our lives all the time.
Jill LeBlanc:But we want to speak today about something that happened to us sixteen years ago and how the Lord has taken what the enemy meant to destroy us with and has turned it so that we can help other people. Our son, he was 23 years old and he passed away from cancer. I'll just get straight to it. Passed away from cancer sixteen years ago. We stood and believed and fought in the spirit, in the word of God.
Jill LeBlanc:We did everything we knew to do. And yet his life slipped through our fingers. And we were left with pain. We were left with trauma and anguish that we can't even describe. It was like our world fell apart.
Jill LeBlanc:We were very close with our son and our two daughters. We were just a very close family. But thank God, after several years of just being in recovery mode, the Lord began to give us things to help other people that are going through this. Because when you're going through this, hopefully, I won't won't have to be when for you but if. For some, it'll be when, for some, it'll be if.
Jill LeBlanc:You're walking through this and people don't want to you don't want to talk about it to others because you don't want to be judged. You don't want to be corrected and fixed. You just want to be loved, but you don't know who really gets that. And so us in this environment, we just kind of kept a lot of it to ourselves until we came across someone else that was maybe suffering from a loss. And then we were able to share things with them that the Lord had been helping us with along the way.
Jill LeBlanc:So we want to share some of these things with you today.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, she just could keep going. Praise God. Yes. So so as Jill said, we faced something we never expected to have to face. And as she said, the pain and the heartache and y'all pray for me because this is a hard message to share and I'm already shaking.
Charlie LeBlanc:Give me my guitar and I'll be okay. Right. But this is this is was something that we never expected, and we never understood the kind of pain that can happen when you lose someone you really love. And I'll venture to say that there are many here in this room that have lost a dear friend, a brother, a sister, a mother, maybe even a child. And you understand what we're addressing today.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you're probably going, yes, go for it, Sharon. Because we get that all the time. In fact, I had a brother, Benjamin, he's here somewhere. He just ran up to me just before we started. And he said, Charlie, he said, we lost our mother.
Charlie LeBlanc:We stood in faith. We believed God and she died. And he said, we were broken. And my dad got a hold of your book, which Jill didn't mention yet. But we put out a book called When Loss Comes Close to Home.
Charlie LeBlanc:And this is where we pour out everything that we had in our hearts about this issue. And I don't know if they have it on the screen, but anyway. And then he said they got a hold of the book and their dad just got so helped. And he began to share the concepts and the things that we got through with with the whole family that he got through with. Anyway, I know I'm stumbling, but anyway, the good news is that they they were blessed and helped and they're doing so much better today.
Charlie LeBlanc:Can somebody praise the Lord for that? Amen. So we're grateful. We are grateful for for being able to finally get all this. As Jill mentioned, sixteen years ago, our our son passed in 2009.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and so it took us a while to put this all together, as you can imagine. Joyce Meyer put a forward in it, as well as Andrew Momek. They both said, yes, we would love to to encourage you and to to boost the book as much as we can. So going through this pain, brothers and sisters, it's like I said, it's more than anyone could could ever imagine. And we learned so many things about God and his love and his help.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, I sing a song all the time called God is my refuge that I wrote many, many years ago. It's one of Andrew's favorites. And it says, God is my refuge and my strength, a present help in time of need. And I wrote that before I lost my son. And I'll tell you what, it's more real to me now than it has ever has been.
Charlie LeBlanc:It says he is my fortress, my deliverer, my father and my friend indeed. And how many know that God is a comforter? Amen. I want some more amens on that one. Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:So it says in second Corinthians one, verse three and four, Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Can you say amen to that? The God of all comfort. I didn't see God as a God of all comfort. I saw him as this awesome God who did miracles, who healed the sick, who didn't, you know, did all these amazing things.
Charlie LeBlanc:Part of the Red Sea, you know, manna in the wilderness. But I didn't see him as a comforter because I didn't need him in that way. But, man, when I needed him, praise God, I pressed in and said, God, you got to help me. I the Lord spoke to me, Charlie, where else can where else can you go? I have the words of eternal life.
Charlie LeBlanc:I said, you're right, Lord. I want to run. You know, when you're hurting, you want to run. I wanted to run and hide. But I said, Lord, where else can I go?
Charlie LeBlanc:And God comforted me. He began to to minister to me. I said, Lord, I remember you said you are the healer of broken hearts. You comfort those who mourn. Isn't that right?
Charlie LeBlanc:So I began to realize that Jesus himself had a ministry of healing broken hearts. He quoted Isaiah sixty one and two, and he said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to bring healing to the brokenhearted. And if you go over there to Isaiah 61, it includes comforting those who mourn. How many are grateful for that? Thank God he comforts us when we're hearts are broken.
Charlie LeBlanc:Psalm one hundred forty seven three. And I know you use the Bible school, so I'm going be quoting a lot of scriptures, Okay, as fast as I can. Psalm one hundred forty seven three. He heals the broken hearted and he binds up their wounds. Psalm thirty four eighteen.
Charlie LeBlanc:The Lord is close to the broken hearted. Come on now. When your heart is broken, sometimes we we get guilty. Sometimes we feel condemned because we're grieving or hurting over the loss of a loved one or even the loss of a divorce or the loss of of a situation, a job or somewhere. We have sadness, we have grief, we have sorrow hit us.
Charlie LeBlanc:And sometimes we've I rebuke that in the name of Jesus. Well, no, there's a time for mourning. There's a time for weeping. Have anybody read Ecclesiastes three? Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:There's a time for these things, and we have to respect and honor these moments in people's lives. And I'm going to get into that some more here because not only do we like to minister to people to comfort them in their in their difficulty, but we like to teach and share about what helped us and what didn't. Okay? Because there's a lot of things like, oh, praise the Lord, brother. He's in heaven.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, yeah, he's in heaven. But you don't know what it feels like when he's not here with you. The 23 year old son that you saw as an amazing man of God, as as an amazing musician, my only son, the one who is going to take our ministry forward prophetically even. And and so, you know, praise God, he's in heaven. Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:Praise God. He is in heaven. But that's not really good words of counsel, by the way, to to someone who's lost. It's not words of comfort. I'm jumping all over my nose, so this could be pretty dangerous.
Charlie LeBlanc:But, you know, Job had a terrible situation. I know Job don't talk about Job around here. You know, you know, Job had a terrible situation and and there's an incredible scripture that jumped out of the praise to me. You know, Job's friends came at first and they were had the right heart. They saw him grieving.
Charlie LeBlanc:They sat down with him. They said his pain was so difficult that they couldn't even speak. So they sat down next to Job and didn't say a word for seven days. You know, sometimes it's better not to say anything if you don't have something good to say. And again, I'm bouncing all over, so I hope I get it all in.
Jill LeBlanc:And not just to not say anything, but be there and maybe don't say something. Not just don't show up because that's hurtful too. But show up. And as one preacher said it, show up and shut up. So
Charlie LeBlanc:so, yeah, Job, you know, Job's friends at first started off really good and many of us made sort of really good, too. But then later, his friends started trying to figure out why, why, why. And they started accusing him because of this. It's because of this. It's because of this.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we have a tendency when someone passes in our midst to go, Oh, yeah, well, they were blah blah or they were. I just want to encourage you to be careful with that, because that's judging someone's heart and someone who's in the presence of the Lord as well. And so it's not really a healthy thing to do to go, Oh, but they didn't and they didn't, you know. Anyway, that's a little side note. But Job said this, he answered his friends and he says, I have heard many such things.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, miserable comforters are you all. And that just jumped out of the page to me because I said, oh my gosh, that's where we all have been. We've been miserable comforters. Jill and I have been to funerals before we lost our son, and we would go and say, oh, praise God. He feed us to heaven.
Charlie LeBlanc:And they go, yeah, thank you. You know what I mean? And there's other things like that that we say that are unnecessary. But the message today that I really want to put across and like I said, I could teach for a long time about the importance of allowing yourself to grieve, the importance of allowing yourself to to cry, to weep. Great men of God all over scripture.
Charlie LeBlanc:Do your own study or else I'll quote them as fast as I can. Godly men buried Stephen and mourn deeply for him. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. And you we won't get into that right now. Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hebrew. Well, let me go into here. Paul, he said, certainly Epaphroditus was sick even unto death. But not only him, but God had mercy on him, but not only him, but also on me that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. Paul is admitting this would have really, really been difficult for me if Aphrodite would have died.
Charlie LeBlanc:In Romans nine, Paul said, My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people. Second Corinthians two:four, For with many tears I write to you, the Weymouth translation says of Paul, and in suffering and depression of spirit. Philippians three eighteen, For many of whom I have told you often, and now I'm telling you, even weeping. See, people think, oh, crying, that's that's a sin. Oh, it's ungodly.
Charlie LeBlanc:No. There is a time for everything under heaven. Right? There's a time to mourn. There's a time to cry.
Jill LeBlanc:And I just want to add to the men, it's okay to cry because it's easy for us women, right? But sometimes men have a shield up and they don't want to go there. They don't want to let themselves experience that emotion, but God gives us tears to help. It's like a vent. You know, we have all this grief and sorrow building up and we a lot of men suppress that and don't let it out.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm telling you, if you don't let it out, it'll come and visit you later with a vengeance. But men, don't be afraid to grieve if you need to grieve, if you need to mourn. I know men have lost wives, they've lost children, they've lost maybe a career, maybe they've been through divorce, and all this is women too, but a lot of men, I just want to give a little word, don't suppress it. And there's a time maybe you have, you want to go away to a secret place, but do whatever you have to do, but let it out because it will help you. It'll bring refreshment.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. In fact, Joseph, when he wept for his brothers, he when he saw them all, he said he looked for somewhere to weep, you know, and he went into his chamber and he wept there just seeing his brothers that he hadn't seen for so long. Joseph wept over his father, Jacob's death. Joseph wept over Joseph. I'm talking Jacob wept over Joseph when he thought he was dead, but he wasn't.
Charlie LeBlanc:But he still wept. He had that feeling of loss. David's mighty men, when their wives and children were captured, you know, in Ziglag, I think it was. It says that they wept until they could weep no more. These are mighty men of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:Come on now. But they wept until they could weep no more. It's okay to cry, people in the right circumstances. It's okay to cry. Rachel wept mourning and weeping for her children that were killed.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, someone says, Charlie, you don't have to cry. Well, listen, all over scriptures, they're talking about great men of God that wept. And I'll be honest with you, I couldn't control it. And I'm a man of God. I'm just going to say that boldly.
Charlie LeBlanc:We had led worship all of our life. We had been with Joyce Meyer and Andrew Womack from 1980s. And here we are in 2009 and this tragedy happens. And I was like, Oh my God, what is going on here? What's wrong?
Charlie LeBlanc:I went to my doctor. I said, I can't stop crying. Will you help me? He said, Charlie, he says, some doctors will give you medicine or antidepressants. But he said, What you're going through is normal.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, just hang in there, buddy. Hang in there and God will help you. God will minister to you as a Christian doctor. Thank God. I want to leave this section.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, the Bible says that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes when we get to heaven. Hallelujah. Revelation twenty four twenty one four and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death nor sorrow nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. So don't expect all this to be perfect here on earth. Okay. But when we get to heaven, thank God, there'll be no more tears, the Bible says. And I just want to say one last word to those who are grieving and maybe have gone through a difficult time.
Charlie LeBlanc:This is an important scripture that jumped out at me in the in the passion translation, Proverbs fourteen ten. I love the way it says it here. Don't expect anyone else to fully understand both the bitterness and the joys of all you experience in life. Don't expect everyone to understand. Listen, no one could understand.
Charlie LeBlanc:Most people could not understand what we had been through. And, you know, and that's Okay, Because before I lost a son, I didn't understand either. But to those of you, as I said, who want to be not a miserable comforter, but a blessed comforter. Amen. You want to be a helpful comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc:You want to be someone that loves and helps. Can I hear an amen there? I better hear an amen. Scripture says in Galatians six twenty, bear one another's burdens. Don't try to fix one another.
Charlie LeBlanc:Don't try to correct one another, but bear one another's burdens. So I'm going to tell a quick story of what God spoke to me. It was about a year and a half after Bo had passed, and we were in The UK doing a conference with Andrew and we went down into the dining hall and Wendell Parr was there eating and he said, y'all sit with me. So we sat with Wendell. We've known Wendell back when he was pastoring.
Charlie LeBlanc:We used to sing in his church, known him for ages. So we sat to visit and he goes, Did you hear what happened to Jerry and Clifton Coulter? We said, No, what? He said, Their son, Kelly, was killed in a tractor accident. This was a year and a half after Bowie passed.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I mean to tell you, when we hear things like this, I'm telling you what, it breaks our heart because we understand that kind of pain. And so we sat there. I tried to be courteous. Jill said, I'm sorry, I have to go up to the room. She just put her napkin down and went up.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I sat there and visited with Wendell for a few more moments. And I said, Wendell, you're going to have to excuse us. We just want to go to the room and try to call them and pray. And he said, of course. So we went up, we prayed, we cried.
Charlie LeBlanc:Then we got through to Clifton and Jerry, we called them and we comforted them, we loved on them. And and they said, would you guys come and minister for us and help us? So we were able to as soon as we got home from England to schedule ourselves to just that following weekend to be at their church, to minister in song and to preach. And it was about an hour away south of St. Louis, where we were from at the time.
Charlie LeBlanc:We live in Jacksonville, Florida now. Amen. So it's cold up here. No. So we're we're going we're driving down there.
Charlie LeBlanc:And as I'm driving, I'm praying in the spirit and I'm going, Oh, no, what have I committed to? I know how tender my heart still is for Beau. How am I going to go down there and say anything that's going to help him? I'm just going to get in the pulpit and begin to cry like I have a tendency to do. And and so I'm just saying, God, you got to help me.
Charlie LeBlanc:I don't know what to say. He wanted me to preach and sing. So I'm praying in the spirit, and I'm telling you, this was a gift from God. The spirit of God just fell on me as I was driving and said simply this. And I'm going to tell you the way I heard him say it.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, Charlie, tell the people you do the loving and I'll do the fixing. Amen. I'm going say that one more time. He said, tell the people you do the loving and I'll do the fixing. And he said it with that little kind of funny southern, you know, loving and a fixing.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we were going down South South, South Missouri in a country area. And these and Jerry and Clifton were, you know, more country folks at the time. But I just began to meditate on that. It was such a profound I mean, the anointing hit me. I began to pray in the spirit even more.
Charlie LeBlanc:And the whole message came to me of how to minister to that church body on behalf of Jerry and Clifton Coulter. And I just wanted to encourage you with that, that the Lord said what's most important for us to do is to love people when they're hurting. There's nothing greater. What does it say in First Corinthians 12? You can have all knowledge.
Charlie LeBlanc:You can know all scriptures. You can have all the faith. You can even give all your money to the poor. You can do all this. But if you don't have love, you are nothing.
Charlie LeBlanc:Come on, Bible students. You know, we learn the word, the word, the word, the word. And so we've got our scriptures ready for those who have had losses. But trust me, as Theodore Roosevelt said, said, People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Did you hear that?
Charlie LeBlanc:People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Praise God. So my remission admonition to you, Jill and I, is to love one another. Love people who are mourning. In fact, what does Roman twelve fifteen say?
Charlie LeBlanc:Romans. I'm going too fast. It says, rejoice with those who rejoice. Hey, I just got saved. Hey, I just got a miracle.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hey, God just supplied all my needs. What do you do? Whoo. The place goes crazy with excitement because Romans twelve fifteen tells us to do that. Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:But then it goes on to say, but weep with those who weep. How many how many of us been doing that? Someone has lost a loved one. We we want to go encourage them and tell them, oh, don't worry, it's going be great. It's going to be, you know.
Charlie LeBlanc:But it says weep with those who weep. How many of you have hugged someone who have had a loss and literally allowed yourself to break down and cry. That is so powerful. It's so powerful. You see, you know, we read this before.
Charlie LeBlanc:Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. And many say, oh, he was weeping because of their unbelief. No, it says, see how they loved him. Jesus understood the pain of humanity. He felt he's touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Charlie LeBlanc:The Bible says, and I'm jumping all over the place again, but in Isaiah it says, when Israel suffered, God suffered. When we suffer, God suffers. When we're in pain, God's in pain because he loves us and because we are one with him. We're all part of the body. We're all part of each other and we're part one with him.
Charlie LeBlanc:And when we heard, God's not rebuking us. He's holding us. Can I hear an amen on that? Amen. Good word, God.
Charlie LeBlanc:Thank you. Weep with those who weep. We need to learn that. Amen. Weep with those who weep.
Charlie LeBlanc:I think about the Good Samaritan. You know, we've read the parables. You know, they walked by the the man who had been beaten and half dead. And then the Samaritan came, he felt compassion on him. And he and he took care of his wounds and with olive oil and wine and banished him.
Charlie LeBlanc:Then he put the man on his donkey and he took him to an inn where he took care of him. He said, if he has any other bill, I'll take care of it. This is someone going the extra mile saying, I see my friend hurting. My friend has lost her her husband. I'm going to go there and I'm going to be with them and I'm going to see what I can do to help her.
Charlie LeBlanc:I'm going to cut their grass, cut her grass. I'm going to I'm going to buy them groceries. I'm going to send them food. I'm going to I'm going to continue to bless them as long as I can. Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:The practical things and we experience that people that showed up and helped us. Andrew and Jamie, how precious they are. When Beau passed, them and a whole crew of elders or staff members from here drove down, some flew, some drove, and came and sat with us in our home just before our funeral. And they comforted us. They didn't have all the words.
Charlie LeBlanc:They didn't have all the words says no. They just sat with us and loved us, wept with us, held us along with other friends. And Andrew even said, Charlie and Jill, I can't imagine what you're going through. But he said, you take off as much time as you need to. Because we were doing conference after conference.
Charlie LeBlanc:This happened 01/14/2009. We had another conference in February, another conference in March to lead worship at. At the school. And teaching at the school as well. Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:And he told me, he said, you just take as much time off as you need. We'll support you. We'll help you. But he said, I want you to just do what you need to do. And I appreciate that.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it took us about three months before we had the heart to get back and to start leading worship again. Yes, we love God. Yes, we got our hearts tenderized before the Lord. But listen, we weren't ready to get in front of people and say, come on, let's rejoice because it still hurt. Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. It still hurt. And not that we didn't love God, but it hurts still the pain. We actually accepted the position in September 2009 here at Charis Bible College to begin the music school back in 2009. For one year, we did.
Charlie LeBlanc:We started the music school at Carus. And I can remember us driving into the parking lot and and stopping for ten minutes and just weeping, crying, remembering to feel the pain of of that mourning and grief that that was inside of us. And yet, you know what? God helped us. He got us through that and helped us to minister to these students.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we had a beautiful year. But after that year, we went home. Amen. Around our friends, around Bo's friends, around our church that loved us and understood us. So Paul even said Paul said, God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Paul said, we were comforted by God, by you, by the coming of Titus. Philippians said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul said, and he meant it. But he said, nevertheless, you have done well that you shared in my distress.
Charlie LeBlanc:You have done well. In fact, another translations and amplified says, it was right for you to share with me in my difficulties. He says, I can do it. I can make it. I will make it.
Charlie LeBlanc:But thank God for you for coming and helping me and standing with me. Even Jesus in the Garden Of Gethsemane, he said, come and sit and stand with me. And he went, he knelt down and he grieved and he cried and he and he and he wept before God. If you look that up in other translations, it's pretty amazing what he went through in the garden facing the sins of the world. But then he walked back and the disciples were sleeping and he said, Hey, dudes, couldn't you even just wait with me?
Charlie LeBlanc:He needed companionship at that time. Amen. Members should have members of the body should have same care for one another. And when one member suffers, all members suffer. Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:Come on. We're part of each other. Isaiah 40 verse one says comfort. Yes, comfort ye my people. Comfort my people.
Charlie LeBlanc:That is a word of the Lord for you. Comfort those who are hurting, especially in the area of losing a loved one. It's so important. Hallelujah. Psalms 86, go ahead, sorry.
Jill LeBlanc:No, you want to.
Charlie LeBlanc:Psalms 86 says, But you, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long suffering and abundant in mercy and truth. Praise the Lord.
Jill LeBlanc:Amen. Just this morning, I opened my Bible to spend some time with the Father before we were getting ready for this here today. And the Lord just gave me this beautiful scripture, it's in Hebrews six. If you have New Living up there, if you wanna put it up, that'd be great. Hebrews six from 10 to 12.
Jill LeBlanc:I thought this was so good. I've never seen this before in this context. Talking about helping the hurting. You all get points with God by helping the hurting. Listen here.
Jill LeBlanc:For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not listen. Then after doing that, you will not become spiritually dull or indifferent.
Jill LeBlanc:This helps keep us sharp in the spirit when we reach out and help hurting people. Isn't that awesome? Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and endurance. That is so powerful. God sees when we lay down our lives to help other people.
Jill LeBlanc:He he is so blessed when we step out beyond ourselves and maybe we don't know what to do. You know, the night that our son died, he died in the wee hours of the morning and so all during the day people were coming to our house and especially that evening our house was just packed with people. But there were close friends that didn't show up, that really hurt us because we thought of all people, we want to see some of our closer friends. But they were hurting so badly too. And they didn't know what to say to us.
Jill LeBlanc:And so they just kept their distance because they didn't want to be a downer to us. But I'm telling you what, show up for hurting people. It doesn't matter if you don't know what to say. Just hug them. Just be there.
Jill LeBlanc:And God sees that. He sees that sacrifice on your part and you will be honored in his sight for that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Well, sorry, we're running out of time and we just wanted to say we love you. We appreciated you. Appreciate you and appreciated you when I leave. About faith.
Charlie LeBlanc:If God continues to call me to preach, you got to pray for me that I can speak better, that I don't keep stumbling like this. We wanted to remind you about a couple of things. You saw our book,
Jill LeBlanc:which is in the bookstore, if you saw that on there. We don't have a table out in the back, but the book is in the bookstore where books belong. And our music is there too, for those of you that are interested in our recorded music. Some of it's in there. It's also on our website, charlieandjill.com.
Jill LeBlanc:Our book is available, as you see, also in audiobook and ebook. We are the ones that read for the audiobook. So some people say it just endeared us more to them or endeared them more to us when they heard us read it. So it was hard. Whew.
Jill LeBlanc:But praise God. So all that's you can get there through our website, charlieandjill.com, and you can get the book in the bookstore.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And another thing is
Charlie LeBlanc:very exciting for us. Just this week,
Charlie LeBlanc:we've released our first podcast and it's called Finding. Yeah. Thank you. We're very We've been praying about this stuff for a long time. And finally, it's come together.
Charlie LeBlanc:So Tuesday it was released. We're going to release a new one every week. And we have the famous some of you say, who's that? The famous John Tesh. Anybody know John Tesh?
Charlie LeBlanc:He's on our first podcast. In fact, he's interviewing us cause he's such an amazing interviewer. He's
Jill LeBlanc:actually on our first three podcasts.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, he is. That's right. So next week and week after he'll be on there. So our podcast, you can find it.
Jill LeBlanc:You can find it in all those places where you find podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we also put together a Spotify playlist of about I think it's 12 or 15 songs of songs that we felt would encourage people in hope. Finding hope, we called it actually. So you can go to Spotify and play our music. We got a ton of music on Spotify. So also
Jill LeBlanc:If you'd like to sign up on our mailing list.
Charlie LeBlanc:Thank you.
Jill LeBlanc:There we go. You can scan that QR code and that'll take you to a place where you can sign up and you will also receive a free guide. It's a beautiful PDF that you can download, Nine Steps for the Bereaved and Their Supporters. So it's basically a really good synopsis of what we spoke about here today. We encourage all of you to grab that.
Jill LeBlanc:You can also go to charlieandjill.com and sign up, can't you?
Charlie LeBlanc:I think so.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh no, it's charlieandjill.com welcome. Yeah, so Welcome. If you don't do QR codes, you can go to charlieandjill.com/welcome and sign up there and you can receive that
Charlie LeBlanc:See how polished we are
Jill LeBlanc:Really in nice download. We're getting there.
Charlie LeBlanc:Come back when we lead in worship, think we do a little better. Anyway, in fact, this summer, we will be leading worship in the evenings of the Summer Family Bible Conference with our band. Hallelujah. Miss Jamie will be with us, Lamont and Sharon, Raquel and Michael Hodge and all the group that we play with. It's just can't wait.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's been a while since we've got to play together. So yes, we encourage you to to to, you know, go on our mailing list and and and get this free download. You also get five free songs when you sign up on our mailing list. You get this download, which you'll set as a synopsis of what we've taught today. And please get our book.
Charlie LeBlanc:We believe it'll be a help to you. So, Charlie, I haven't lost anyone. Listen, it has a lot of education in there about how to be a better comforter because you don't wanna be a miserable comforter.
Jill LeBlanc:That's right.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Let me pray for you, okay? You okay? Did you have something
Jill LeBlanc:No, to we'll just Well, you know what, real quickly. If you are struggling because you've lost someone and you're still hurting on the inside, would you please stand? Because we're going to pray together, but we would like to especially pray for you. I appreciate you being bold. Know it's not easy.
Jill LeBlanc:Stand up if you're hurting from a loss. And maybe it's not a loss of loved one, but maybe a loss of something tragic that happened in your life. Please stand up and we're gonna pray together, but you all stretch out your hands toward these wonderful people. Go ahead. And Father, we thank you that you are the God of all comfort.
Jill LeBlanc:Lord Jesus, and you've called us to comfort those with the same comfort that we've received from you. So we pray for all these people standing especially Lord that they would sense you close. They would sense you holding them and carrying them when they can't walk in their hearts. Lord, you are so beautiful and you have a heart for the hurting. You are close to the brokenhearted.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank you, Jesus. You are doing a we just believe that you are gonna finish the work that you've started inside of them. And so we thank you for your grace on their lives. In Jesus name, Lord, you see when others don't see. You see what goes on in our inside of us.
Jill LeBlanc:And Father, I pray for everyone here that we would all live as Jesus representatives on this earth, that we would let you flow through us to help other hurting people, that we would learn to be more sensitive, not just say what we've heard from others, but to say what we are hearing from you. That we would never be a miserable comforter again, but that we would be an anointed comforter from your spirit. Thank you, father. Thank you for everything that you're doing in this group of people. And Lord, we just love you and we receive your help in Jesus name.
Jill LeBlanc:Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:God bless you, thank you so much.
Taylor Clark:All right, well thank you so much, what a blessing that was. Ushers, if you can go ahead and pass out the envelopes. I would ask, we have about three minutes till the bell rings, so if the bell rings before we get finished here, please remain seated until the bucket passes before you. While you guys were speaking, all that I could think about was, used to be in law enforcement for ten years. All the different calls that I went on of death notifications.
Taylor Clark:Of wives that woke up next to their husband that was dead. And what a powerful message this is, especially for first responders, but for anybody to be a blessed comforter. So thank you so much for sharing that. So anyway, if we can pass out the envelopes, I just encourage you all to please partner with this ministry by giving this morning this message. Does this message need to be shared?
Taylor Clark:Does it need to be shared to a lot of people? Absolutely. And so by you guys partnering with them, by sowing into them, guess what you're doing? You're sowing into the spread of this message. And I believe the Lord wants me to share with you that when you partner with kingdom business, when you partner with his business, guess what?
Taylor Clark:He gets involved in your business. Okay? So we're going to partner with their business. I'm going to partner with them today. I'm I'm giving and I'm going to pray over this.
Taylor Clark:Alright? Will you guys join me in this? Lord, we just thank you for this powerful message that was shared today. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you are here right now with us, the comforter, and you have called us to comfort others with that gift. And so we just thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give into this ministry, and we just believe that these seeds are gonna grow and produce fruit, an abundant harvest, Lord, for them, and also back on those giving.
Taylor Clark:In the name of Jesus, amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hi, so I hope that you got blessed by that teaching. We really felt God's presence. We really felt like people were really getting ministered to. As I mentioned in my teaching, a young man came up to me right before we started and shared about his mother's passing. Then at the end, we were able to talk with him a little bit more.
Charlie LeBlanc:But I was especially blessed at the end there where Taylor came up and shared the fact that he was in a policeman for, I think he said ten years and that he saw he had was called into the scene of people who had lost loved ones tragically even a woman waking up to her husband being dead next to her. I can't imagine that kind of trauma and I just appreciate Taylor's heart. He was touched by the message. He knew how important it was because he is a he was a first responder. So I just want to encourage you.
Charlie LeBlanc:He was talking about partnership. I just wanted to close this out and ask you if you would become a partner with our ministry. I'm just going to be that bold and just say we need your help because we want to get this message out around the world and we just need help. We need partners. We need what we call hope partners, people that will partner with us to bring hope to the hurting, to bring hope to people who are who are, you know, in pain.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, a lot of times when people are grieving, they're not in a place where they can give. They're not in a place where they want to be, you know, partnering with new ministries. But, know, if you've if you've received a lot and if you've been watching this for a while and you're at a place where maybe you're healthy enough and you say, Charlie, yes, I want to help others now. You're helping me or you've been helped by us and by other ministries, but now you're saying I want to be a part of helping others as well. Well, then we invite you to become a partner.
Charlie LeBlanc:You can go to our website at charlieandjill.com. It's that simple. Charlieandjill.com and just press on well, you can go forward slash donate or you can press on the donate button. That way you can come up, become a monthly partner or you can give a one time donation. Either way, we really could use your help right now as we press into this new season of helping people.
Charlie LeBlanc:So thank you so much for watching. We pray this blessed you. Give us a thumbs up and, and just let us know how we can help you even more in the comments below. Alright. So God bless you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Have a wonderful day, and we'll see you next Tuesday.