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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.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Finding Hope Podcast. My name is Charlie LeBlanc, and my wife and I normally do this together. Today, I'm gonna do it solo. The subtitle of our podcast, as many of you know, is is getting through what you never asked for. And, you know, I know that's a common thread in all of our lives that we have to get through difficult things in our life that we never dreamed would happen, difficult things that we never expected, especially as a younger person in our lives as we're dreaming and praying about our future, and we're looking to the Lord, loves us, and yet we run into a very, very tough part of our of our journey.
Charlie LeBlanc:I I remember slightly, that I was on a plane and sitting next to a lady who was a a counselor, and, and, she was just we were just chatting and brought up the fact that I had lost my son, Jill and I had lost our son, Bo. And she asked how old I was, and I told her. And she said, You know, most people, when they get into that latter ages, that things happen in their lives that they didn't expect. And I know for a lot of my friends, things happened when they were even younger in marriage. I have a close friend who lost his wife when they were in their forties.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I've got two or three friends, come to think of it. So, you know, life happens and pain happens. You know, scripture makes it very clear that we have an enemy that comes out to steal, to kill, and to destroy us, and that we should not be surprised by the attacks of the enemy. And yet we need to be ready. We need to be strengthened in our hearts for these terrible things that happen in our life.
Charlie LeBlanc:However, having said that, honestly, as I've shared many times on this podcast, I don't think Jill and I were ready for what we faced. It's really hard for all of you as well who have faced the loss of your loved one to ever be ready for that kind of a hit. You know, yes, we have financial hits. We maybe have disruptions with our children along the way of our path of our life. Maybe we have disruptions with jobs, dreams about our future with certain jobs, certain careers, certain ministry opportunities.
Charlie LeBlanc:Things have to be adjusted, and yes, we get discouraged, we get disillusioned. But man, I know that you could probably say a big amen that we never expected the loss of a loved one so close to us. That has a way of just totally destroying your heart, crushing your soul and your heart in a way that other things don't crush it quite as much. And you know, we talk about a lot of different kinds of losses on this podcast, and I don't want to belittle any of them because all of them are so difficult to get through. The loss of a child, loss of a husband or a wife, the loss of a brother or a sister, the loss of a mom or dad that you're very close with.
Charlie LeBlanc:These are just really, really, really, really tough things because they reverberate in your life for years and years and years because you miss them so much. If any of you have seen our more recent podcasts, we've interviewed several people that have had strategic and difficult losses. One was Nancy, and she had lost her sister, Sally, who we knew very well. And, you know, they were like two peas in a pod, and just that loss is just devastating for Nancy. And she thinks about her sister all the time.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then we have, you know, others, Jerry, we had on our podcast, Jerry Coulter, who lost not only a son like we did, but also her husband just a couple of years ago. You know, and that's so devastating because it affects your entire life. It affects your friendships. It affects your family, your children, your siblings. It's such a reverberating effect when you lose a loved one like this.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so I wanted to address something this morning about loss that I had in my heart this morning as I was praying. I was thinking about Jesus where it says in Psalms 23. I'm just going to pop it up here real quick and read it to you. This is the famous Psalms, Psalm 23. In fact, I wrote a song that has a lot of Psalm 23 in it.
Charlie LeBlanc:In fact, I wrote two songs that I used that in it, the words to Psalm 23. Because they're so precious and they're so powerful. The Psalmist David says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
Charlie LeBlanc:He restores my soul. I'm just going to stop there. The rest of it is just amazing, every part of it. When I thought about that, he restores my soul. That really something jumped inside of me because all of us who have had the losses of a loved one or difficult patches in our life, our soul can get so messed up.
Charlie LeBlanc:It can get so broken. And you know, David talks so much about his soul being shattered in different places. And you know, when we lose a loved one, I don't know about you, I'm sure like you, my soul was just distraught. I mean, I knew about heaven. I knew my loved one was in heaven.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, I knew God was good. People will say, Well, he's in heaven, praise the Lord. Or they may say, Oh, you have other children, stuff like this. But none of that is relevant because your soul is shattered. The pain inside of you when you lose a loved one is just hard to explain.
Charlie LeBlanc:I think that's the mystery that you and I, that have had these strategic losses, these difficult losses, this is the mystery that most people, they can't understand unless they have felt it themselves. And, you know, that's understandable. I think that's what gives us grace for people who say the wrong things and expect us to be better faster. They don't understand that your soul gets crushed. Your soul gets just shattered.
Charlie LeBlanc:There are many scriptures that talk about that, a shattered soul, a crushed soul, a bruised soul. In fact, reminds me of the scripture in Isaiah. It says, A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not put out. That's the truth of where we are at when we are, you know, dealing with loss. Our soul gets crushed.
Charlie LeBlanc:The pain is hard to describe. People will see us on the outside and they'll kind of go, Well, it's been a month, it's been two months, whatever. Let's start moving forward. Say the horrid words too often, Let's get over it. That's the thing that you guys who have had losses understand that that's just not relevant.
Charlie LeBlanc:You just don't get over the loss of a loved one. You get through it, you can move forward, you can get better, you can get healthier. But as far as moving on and leaving your loved one behind, you just don't do that because your heart is so attached to the loved one. And so, you know, this area of restoring the soul is so vitally important because our souls get crushed when we have losses like this, your soul, my soul, our souls. Here we are, we're seventeen years later, and I am just so grateful and shocked at how the Lord was able to take my broken heart and slowly begin to put it back together to do the mending and to do the healing that he promised he would do.
Charlie LeBlanc:He will heal the brokenhearts. He's close to the brokenhearted. In fact, that scripture, I want to see if I can find that and read it again. It says that I just quoted. It's out of Psalms 3four 18, The Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain.
Charlie LeBlanc:I'm going read that again. This is in the TPT version. The Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain, and he is always ready to restore the repentant one. He's always ready to restore. You see, this is the thing that I just wanted to talk a lot about this morning, is just the restoring power of Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:He restores us. We're a testimony of it seventeen years later that God has restored our soul. You know, I can be happy now. I can love. I can dream.
Charlie LeBlanc:I can preach, I can lead worship, I can worship Jesus, you know, and I wasn't able to do that at first. And if you're not able to do that wherever you are in your journey, it's okay. It's understandable. Like you, I cried buckets of tears. Jill and I cried buckets of tears.
Charlie LeBlanc:Our souls were shattered. And that's normal. That's okay. But I wanted to give you just a glimmer of hope today that there is hope for your future. God has a plan to pull you out of this depth of pain to heal your broken heart.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's just who he is. He is the healer of the broken hearts. Hallelujah. And he wants to give us hope for our future. I was talking to a widow about a year or so ago, and she said, Charlie, probably the hardest thing is hope.
Charlie LeBlanc:She said, I just lost all hope of my future. My husband's gone. He did everything. He ran the business. He was just the anchor of the home.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I can't see the forest for the trees. I can't see through it. I can't see my future. And my hope is gone. And I understand that we were in the same place.
Charlie LeBlanc:All hope was gone. In fact, that reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures. I say it here all the time, and that's in Lamentations three twenty-twenty three, where the prophet said, I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. He said, Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this, that the faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease.
Charlie LeBlanc:Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh every morning. You know, I love that because the prophet is so transparent in lamenting over this, over Israel, the loss of his homeland. He said, Yet I still dare to hope when I remember about the faithful love of the Lord never ending. And you know, is what is so needed in our hearts is to and what I'm trying to share with you today is to just hang in there and try to hang on to hope.
Charlie LeBlanc:Try to hang on to Jesus who restores hope in our life. I can remember three and a half years into our loss that I finally Something happened on the inside of me and I thought, Wow, I think I can dream again. I think I can believe again. I even wrote a blog and put out an email letter about this because it said, Don't stop the dream machine. I remember that I just had not been dreaming about my future much because I was in survival mode.
Charlie LeBlanc:That is totally understandable. That is totally acceptable to be in survival mode. I've often talked about the fact that when you get hit by a car and say you have an accident and you're in the hospital, you're just trying to survive. You're not trying to be victorious, you're just trying to survive. And then as you begin to heal, then you start thinking, Man, maybe I can run exercise again.
Charlie LeBlanc:Maybe I can do this again, what the doctors are saying you can't do. But that's the way it is with loss. I mean, you get so shattered, as you know, and the pain is so deep. And as I said earlier, people don't understand that unless they've experienced it. The pain is so deep that you don't know how to function with that degree of pain and hurt.
Charlie LeBlanc:But God is faithful. He will bring us through these difficult times. You just hang in there. Don't be discouraged by the pain. Don't be discouraged by the tears.
Charlie LeBlanc:They come in waves. It happens. Grief is an interesting thing, how your soul is mending, you miss your loved one, and your soul is starting to get better, but then all of a sudden a wave of grief will come. We've talked about that a lot on another podcast, waves of grief, man, they just hit you unexpectedly. That's normal.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's normal to go in and out of feeling well. In fact, a scripture I think we shared last week about how you can be rejoicing, when you're done laughing, grief comes back. There's a proverb about that. We experienced that so many times. Once we got strong enough to start singing again and leading worship again, there were times when we'd lead worship and have a beautiful time with Jesus, loving him, but we'd go back, sit down, and all of a sudden this grief would come back.
Charlie LeBlanc:We would feel the missing, the pain of the loss of our son Beau. That's normal people. I guess that's one of the big messages is to know that you're not crazy. I thought I was going crazy for a while. Your crying is not a mental problem.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's normal. As I've shared before, I went to my doctor, I said, You got to help me. I'm crying too much. And he said, Charlie, it's normal. He wasn't going to give me any kind of antidepressants, thank God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And he said, It's normal. It's something you just have to go through it. It's kind of like a baby being birthed. A baby has to go through that birth canal. That's kind of like us.
Charlie LeBlanc:We have to go through this birthing. And you know, for some it's not as hard as others. I mean, some, you know, some women have boom, the child is born and you know, boom, you know, but, and it's just like for the woman, it's like, you know, I've got to give birth to this baby. I want to give birth to this baby, but it hurts. But in some cases, boom.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's easy. And I've had people I've gone to people before, and I've said, man, I am so sorry for your loss. My heart's breaking with you. And they've looked at me and said, no. It's all good.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's all good. You know, we knew it was coming, it's fine. You know, we're gonna be fine, and our family's gonna be fine. And I've just gone, wow. Praise the Lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, I'm happy for you. You know? So everyone grieves differently. Everyone's situation in their life is different, and that's fine. It's all okay.
Charlie LeBlanc:But I just want to tell you, the reason Jill and I have started this whole ministry, the reason why we wrote this whole book, is because for us, it was hard, with a capital H. It was destructive. It was painful. It was very, very difficult. But God has brought us through and brought us to a new place.
Charlie LeBlanc:So the scripture says, He restores my soul. I just wanted to love on you today and just encourage you today that even when it doesn't feel like it, he is restoring your soul. Your soul will come back to life again. It has been beaten up. It's been hurt.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's been crushed. But your soul will come back. Your soul will rejoice again. Your soul will be at peace again. Your soul will rejoice in the Lord again.
Charlie LeBlanc:It will come, whether you even at this point can even see that, or whether you even want it. I think that there was a place when I first was going through my grief that I didn't even want it. I just didn't want anything to do with it. You know, I just didn't know what what I wanted. I I was hurting so bad.
Charlie LeBlanc:All I wanted was my son to come back. That's all I wanted. And that yet, that is not that did not happen, and that's not possible, after, you know, after a while. Obviously you can always pray for a resurrection from the very beginning. We did, and many others did.
Charlie LeBlanc:But if you don't get it, it don't happen, and you know they're gone, hey, then you have to deal with it. You have to deal with the pain. You have to deal with the heartache. You have to deal with the brokenness. You have to deal with a heart that needs restoration.
Charlie LeBlanc:But again, the good news is Jesus is in the restoring business. He has a business of restoring hope, restoring joy, restoring peace. No matter what we run into, no matter what happens in our life, he is in the business of restoring people's lives. Thank you, Jesus. He wants to restore our hearts, restore our lives, restore us back to a place of hope, a place of believing, a place of positive, being able to look at our future and expect good things.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, sometimes when bad things happen to us, it's hard for us to believe God for good things, you know, in the future because we're just a little bit afraid. But, hey, he can restore our hope for the future, and he will restore our hope for the future. If you just give him time, be patient with yourself, be patient with the process, be patient. The Lord is reaching out to you. His arm is not short that he cannot save.
Charlie LeBlanc:He's reaching out to you with loving arms. Paul said, If God be for me, who can be against me? He knew that even while he was in that Roman prison, and he was being beat, and he was being sentenced to death, he knew that if God that God was for him, and he thought it doesn't matter what they do to me, God is for me. God is on my side. No matter what comes my way, he said, I am more than a conqueror through his love.
Charlie LeBlanc:So I wanna encourage you. God is not done with you. You have a hope and a future, says the Lord. Jeremiah twenty nine eleven. You know, he's got a hope and a future for you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Don't be don't don't give up. Don't let go. Paul says, I forget the things that are behind and I press on to the things that are before me. He wasn't talking about forgetting your loved one. No way.
Charlie LeBlanc:He was talking about all of his righteousness, to be honest with you. He was talking about all of his being as a Jew, all the righteousness that he had. But the point is that he said, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me. Yes, you've had a pain that's hard to describe. Yes, you've been through hell.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, you've gone through something that no one should have to. But the truth is so many people do every day go through the death of a significant loved one, and it's so hard and painful. But he promises to pull us through to restore us to give us that hope in future and to never leave us and never forsake us I said never never never leave us never never never forsake us. He will restore your heart and your soul. He will trust me.
Charlie LeBlanc:Give it time. Pray. Keep your heart open before him. And I do want to encourage you to get in scripture. Stay in the word.
Charlie LeBlanc:Honestly, for me, I backed off of it for a while. It hurt too bad because I was so disappointed in my son not receiving his healing. I backed off the word because it was hurtful for me to see some of the positive scriptures. But eventually, as the Lord restored my soul, as he restored my hope, that eventually I began to hope again, and I began to look at the scriptures again, and I began to get help from the word of God, help from scripture. Psalm 7three 26 says, my heart and my flesh fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hallelujah. He is the strength of our hearts. He will restore our hearts. He will heal our broken hearts. He will restore our soul.
Charlie LeBlanc:Do you believe that? I'm telling you, trust me in that. He will do it. Give yourself time. Give give yourself patience.
Charlie LeBlanc:And just keep loving God. Keep praying. Praying in the Holy Ghost. Those of you who know how to pray in tongues and know how to pray in the Holy Ghost, pray that way. I did that a lot because I didn't know how to pray as I ought.
Charlie LeBlanc:The scripture says when you don't know how you pray as you ought, that the Holy Spirit will pray through you with groanings which cannot be uttered. I I would just pray in tongues a lot because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know what else to pray. I was so hurt. But I'd pray in tongues, and God would help me.
Charlie LeBlanc:Some of you don't pray in tongues. That's fine. Just let the Holy Spirit lead you. And like I said, with groanings, which cannot be uttered. When you cry, when you groan, when you just put your head down and go, oh God, I miss my loved ones so much.
Charlie LeBlanc:Listen, that's a prayer. That's a prayer of lament. And God hears that prayer, and he comes alongside of you to strengthen you and to help you through even those times. Let me say one last thing. Don't try to be so strong.
Charlie LeBlanc:Don't try to be, oh, I can make it. I'm gonna be strong through this. No, it's okay to be weak because the scripture says when we are weak, then we are strong. He says our strength is made perfect in weakness. And that's what Paul said.
Charlie LeBlanc:So Paul was hit with a lot of pain, lot of heartache, a lot of losses in his life. His fellow Christians were being beheaded and the pain of the loss. Paul one time said sorrow upon sorrow, as he described things that can happen to his loved ones. But but Paul never gave up. He continued to look to Jesus for what that's where his help came from, and I just wanna encourage you to continue to do that as well.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hallelujah. He loves you so much, and he wants to restore you, and he will. So God bless you today. Let me just pray. Father, I pray you are the restorer.
Charlie LeBlanc:You are the God of all comfort, Lord. And you will comfort my friends. You will restore their hearts. God, you will restore their soul. Lord, we know that you can't bring back our loved ones, Father.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's the ultimate desire that we have. But, Father, we know that we will see them again, and we will embrace them again. And, Father, I also like the thought about the fact that they're with you, and they're rooting us forward. They're rooting us on to live our life for your glory and to be pleasing to you. So, Lord, I pray a blessing upon each one today in Jesus' name.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Well, thank so much, guys, for letting me share my heart this morning. I want to encourage you to get our book, When Lost Comes Close to Home. That is something that I know will really, really touch your life. So many people have told us that.
Charlie LeBlanc:In fact, we got an email this week that said, This book has helped this man through the loss of his wife. He was a missionary in Mexico, and he said, Do you have it in Spanish? He wants to give it to some of his friends. Unfortunately, we don't have it in any of the languages, but you pray with us that we can get it in other languages. I have something else I want to share with you.
Charlie LeBlanc:This is called the God of all comfort. It's a simple USB with teachings, with videos, with scriptures, with all kinds of cool stuff on this little guy right here. This will really, really bless you. So I encourage you to order this on our website at charlieandjill.com. And I don't want to fail to say we have a lot of great music.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hallelujah. As many of you know, Jill and I have been leading worship for over forty years, if you can believe that. And, and yeah, probably more like fifty. And so, you know, God has given us a lot of great songs, songs of comfort, songs of healing, songs of encouragement. And we encourage you to go on there, download them.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know if you want to download it you can if you want to buy the CD we do have some CDs still so we encourage you to get our music as well because it'll help you in your journey praise the Lord well again, thank you for joining us today, and, we look forward to seeing you again the next time on the podcast. God bless you.