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.
Hi there. Thank you so much for joining us on Finding Hope, Getting Through What You Never Asked For. We have a special guest with us today and this is a friend from our childhood in the lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:Like when we were late teens, early twenties, we got to know this this woman, this young woman, young in spirit, and she became a very close friend through the years. So we'd like to welcome Nancy Lueckhof. Hey, everyone. I just wanted to break in real quick and let you know that Nancy Lueckhof has a wonderful book that I have read and it is amazing. It's called Sulawan, which is the name of an island in The Philippines.
Jill LeBlanc:It's a true story about a young woman who was rescued at sea by a whale shark. Wow. And as a result of years later, that was instrumental in bringing the gospel to this island of Suluan. It's an amazing riveted story. And I would encourage you to go on Amazon and get your copy.
Jill LeBlanc:It's great reading and you will love the history and everything about it. So God bless you. Information is in the description. And Nancy and her husband have spent most of their ministry life working in The Philippines, but he is from Germany. So they've spent some time working there as well.
Jill LeBlanc:Right now they're stateside, taking a little break. So we wanted to have Nancy on with us. Nancy has a story that not only broke her heart, but broke our hearts as well. She lost her very dear sister, gosh, what's it been now? Six years?
Nancy Lueckhof:Six years and four months.
Jill LeBlanc:Yep. And it was a very tragic loss. She was an amazing person. So, you know, a lot of times sibling loss gets a little overlooked, but it's a huge loss. It's a major loss.
Jill LeBlanc:It's not a secondary loss. Now there are cases that adult siblings don't stay close, and maybe it wouldn't be a major loss for the person who survived losing someone they're not very close with. But Nancy and her beautiful sister Sally were two peas in a pod and very, very close. So Nancy, tell us a little bit about your Sally.
Nancy Lueckhof:Nice Sally. Yes. Well, I'm the older sibling by three years. So Sally was my baby sister, baby sister, which she always reminded me not to see her as my baby sister because she passed away when she was 59 and she had been suffering with breast cancer. And I think she really believed that she was tackling it with a lot of natural, yeah, what would you call it, natural approaches.
Nancy Lueckhof:And she was a researcher and she just tried everything. And yeah, it just seemed to grow worse. And at that time we were back in The Philippines. We were thirteen years in Germany, back in The Philippines and we were communicating regularly. So I was checking up on her and the the challenge in her whole journey, and I believe also in her healing, was that she was in a very troubled marriage to the point that it was destructive.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I think in her soul, she was really grieved and battling emotions like hate, frustration, fear. And that's not a good atmosphere for, complete healing of your body. That's right. And it started out as breast cancer. And by the time it came full circle and took her life, it was brain, lungs, liver, bone.
Nancy Lueckhof:And yeah, so with her journey, she made it, this was 2019. Our son got married at the August and she came to the wedding, never would have known that she was in pain. And I've heard it said that very often people who are terminally ill or battling something will rally to attend a birthday or an anniversary. And that's what she did. I mean, we were happy dancing together and rejoicing and she didn't have any children.
Nancy Lueckhof:So our Benjamin was someone that she had always kind of claimed as her own son from the time he was born and just would not have missed this wedding for the world, gave a beautiful, beautiful speech. And what happened was she returned to Chicago to go down to Colorado Springs. And she was in such pain. She told me that she had to get a wheelchair to get her out to her car. She couldn't even lift up her suitcase.
Nancy Lueckhof:And from then on, things went downhill. So I was talking to her daily and she was just battling, just trying to make it, trying to pull out of this. And her husband, who she basically had been separated from, drove down and picked her up and brought her back to Oregon. I was not happy about that at all, but, you know, it's better than being alone in a cabin in the woods, you know, so I was thankful. But at one point I told my husband Friedrich, she is not going to make it.
Nancy Lueckhof:I just knew it because it had gone so quickly downhill. And I wrote my brother, Mark, there's a brother in between us. There's Nancy, Mark and Sally, the Stepanic kids. And my brother was like, no, you know, he just, he hadn't been in touch with her that often. And so I booked a plane and I flew over and, you know, found her in a hospice condition in their bedroom.
Nancy Lueckhof:And she rallied a little bit and, you know, came downstairs a few times, but just ended up feeding her, changing her clothes, helping her in and out of her bed. And honestly, as a truly born again Christian, a follower of Jesus, like Jill said, we've known each other since our youth group days and Sally and I got saved at the same time. So we've journeyed together in our faith walk, learned the same things, had a great foundation in the Word of God. But faced with her, this final stage of death, which you could just sense and what the hospice, I didn't know what hospice was. So the hospice woman had to explain to me, that's why she's home.
Nancy Lueckhof:So with all of all of this news and the surrounding atmosphere with her husband there and I don't know how much I should tell about that Jill, as far as like them thinking I was in unbelief about all this, but I knew that I knew that I knew that she wasn't going to make it. And that's very hard for me, as a fighter and dealing with someone I love. You know, never in a million years would I have ever expected. You just don't think about your brothers and sisters passing away, especially a younger sister. And so my approach was, let's just play some praise and worship music.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I would just bless her and pray over her. And she was mostly in and out of sleep. And, on the last day, of course, we didn't know it was. My brother had come up, and sister-in-law and spent a day or two there and, you know, she kind of rallied. But then he left and on that last day, was Sunday, October 6.
Nancy Lueckhof:She was really mostly asleep and I just had music playing. Her husband was nowhere around and I just grabbed her around the neck and I was just speaking into her. I said, Sal, it's okay if you go. It really is. But I'm mad at you because it was not supposed to be like this.
Nancy Lueckhof:I was supposed to be the first one, but you can go, you can go. And, I don't want you to suffer. And I said, just do me one thing. Somehow let me know that you made it and make sure you say hi to mom. And I sure hope that dad is there because we lost our dad like suddenly, Sally one day, two days before she turned 16 and like a month after my eighteenth, nineteenth birthday, which was another, a big grief in our lives.
Nancy Lueckhof:I knew she heard me you know, and she passed later. I wasn't in the room. I walked up right as I think she passed because I heard crying and her husband and his parents were downstairs and he said something like, yeah, she, like wet the bed and he was so upset about that. And I'm like, oh, come on. So I went upstairs and right as I got there, the hospice nurse said, I think she just left right now.
Nancy Lueckhof:So I like, I looked at my watch, 05:17 and I went over and it was quite a, quite a moment, you know, and I just started just fixing her hair. And I said, what do we do? You know, grab some clothes, put, found her most beautiful top. And then her husband's mom and dad came in and I went to the base of the bed and I just got down on my knees. And I looked up and this is where the whole God thing comes into play.
Nancy Lueckhof:This is kind of a, with my personal story with her, at my sister's wedding, I had a vision that, and I believe it was God preparing my heart that this wedding, this marriage was going to kill her. That happened after the ceremony when she was my sister, you know, we were dancing around and she laid on the floor and brought all her white roses on her chest and she was just laying there. And it was like, and I was at her feet and I collapsed in tears and I. That was what I sensed. And that's not anything typical, I mean, for the Word of Faith people and it's like this.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I never told her, how could I tell her after she was married? But you just watch it over the years.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. How long was she married before she passed? I mean, I know it was on
Nancy Lueckhof:and off. Nine years. Yeah, it was on and off.
Charlie LeBlanc:And how long did she battle with the cancer?
Nancy Lueckhof:Gosh, that is a good question. I'm trying to think back because it was like, I have a lump type of a thing and she never wanted to have a biopsy or anything, but it was. So I would say, gosh, nineteen, twelve, seven, eight or nine years.
Charlie LeBlanc:Wow. So shortly after she was married, the lump appeared.
Nancy Lueckhof:She Yeah, noticed exactly. Exactly. And so here I was at the base of her bed. The family, her husband, around her head, I'm on my knees at her feet and I look up and there's a vase of white roses on the dresser. So it's like I'm reliving the picture from nine years before that God had warned me about.
Nancy Lueckhof:And for me, was in strange way or unusual way, that was such a comfort because God knew how hard it would be for me to let go of her. Because she had struggled for so long in this marriage and being a missionary overseas, I left and she was single for so many years. You know, she was, she didn't get married until she was 50. Yeah. She was like a brain.
Nancy Lueckhof:She was, she was, I think she, she was just so unique. She probably scared off half the men that she met.
Charlie LeBlanc:Cause she was so smart.
Jill LeBlanc:She was just cute as a button and so joyful.
Nancy Lueckhof:Yeah. So, where was I? So I felt as an older sister, you know, and like abandoning, that's some of the survivor guilt. I should have been there for my little sister. I would have not allowed her to marry this guy type of thing, but she's a big girl and we all have to make our decisions, but still being so far away from her was hard.
Nancy Lueckhof:So yeah, that's the story. And there's more with, you know, we can talk later about Jill coming over, but, it was a, it was a great, it was a traumatic event. I couldn't even speak at her memorial service. I was angry at this man and that's something I've had to deal with. But yeah, he was a sibling.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. That's awful. You've you've touched on so many important aspects of, of your relationship and the grief that and the the horror of the moment. And and, of course, the things that led up to it with the marriage and everything, at least for your heart and and your relationship with God in in regard to that. You know, first of all, obviously, we've told you this many times, but, you know, we're we're we're so sorry and our hearts break with you.
Charlie LeBlanc:We we actually had the opportunity, as you know, to, to know your sister Jill from the early days more so, but even a month or so before she passed, she stayed with us, what, for a
Jill LeBlanc:week We had the privilege of hosting her in our home for, I think it was two weeks, it may have been three. But
Charlie LeBlanc:But she,
Jill LeBlanc:being the accomplished published author, did we say that on the recording yet? Did she have a PhD a in creative writing? Yeah. And she taught in university on Yeah. Creative
Nancy Lueckhof:Wheaton and yeah, and she was great in marketing, but she was a poet. That was Sally. She was very, very deep in her writings. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Well, the Lord used her to, as an impetus to get us finally moving forward in writing our book.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And and during that time she was with us, which you know, she dealt with the the illness had advanced quite a lot, you know. I mean, she was kind of she was near the end when she was with us, but she just wanted to meet together and talk about it and look at what we had and, you know, just help us get organized so that we could figure out how to do this. And she said, I will be your editor.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And we were like, oh my gosh. That that's so amazing. And and I took that as a sign from the Lord that she's gonna get through this thing because Yeah.
Nancy Lueckhof:Yeah. We need a
Jill LeBlanc:lot of help. And and, sadly, that was just a few weeks before she passed. But Yeah. But God used her
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:To get us moving forward, to get this book written and out there. So we are forever indebted to her, and I think we have a little thank you in the back of our book too.
Nancy Lueckhof:Yes. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:She never got to read it, but we are so
Nancy Lueckhof:kind. Of you. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:But what a great loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. You know, Nancy, we appreciate your your heart and and sharing the way you are because as Jill said at the beginning, a lot of people don't don't realize, the the sibling connection and the and a sibling loss and how painful, that can be. I mentioned to you before we started the program that, you know, for us, Beau, obviously, it was traumatic for Jill and I as to lose our son was beyond words. Yet our daughter, Cammy and Cherry, our two daughters, lost their brother, and and and they were so close. Cammy was closer to Bo than Cherry just because they, Cammie and Bo were a little more of the same, chemistry, I think like you and your sister were.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, Cherry was a little, she different and cut a different little mold. But my point is just that both of them have gone through such Pain. Such pain, such grief beyond words. And it's really affected their entire life and their future and their marriage and everything. And both of them have two boys now, so it's a beautiful thing.
Charlie LeBlanc:Just six months after Beau passed, Cammy had her first baby and then second, and then our second daughter had two. But again, it's always there, it's always tough for them. We get together on their anniversary of Bo's passing and we get together on Bo's birthday. And we do have a nice time. It's been seventeen years for us, so it just it gets easier to handle the pain and to handle the loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:But you never forget and you never want to forget.
Nancy Lueckhof:That's so true. You don't wanna let go.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And you don't have to.
Charlie LeBlanc:No. Yeah. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. It's okay.
Nancy Lueckhof:Exactly. Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:They're a part of us. Yes. You know, and they always will be.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. So I so appreciate your heart in in sharing those details because I think people need to understand, the gravity of loss. And a lot of people just don't. And I know a lot of our listeners are people who have had losses, and so many of them are saying yes, yes, yes. But we also have people that, that, you know, just don't understand that, you know, because they haven't experienced it.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so, it's just really it's really good to help them to understand the closeness that you two were, the pain of the loss, the grief. So, when you obviously, the funeral, Jill was there, it was a traumatic moment. You dealt with anger, you dealt with regrets, which is all It's normal stuff. I think about things that, I wish I could've done with Bo, or why didn't I do this, and blah blah blah blah, and all the guilt, and I'm the head of the home, I should've been able to get him healed, you know, all these different things. But, so as you started to have to live this thing out, and, sorry, and moved back to The Philippines with, you know, how did you manage?
Charlie LeBlanc:What what what did you you know, how did you how did you put the pieces back together of your own heart, your own life, your own relationship with God with, you know, how did how did you what were some of the things that you did that that helped you and things that didn't?
Nancy Lueckhof:That is a huge topic for me. Because I was on foreign soil and nobody there knows my family. Even my husband, I got married to a German and went to The Philippines. He doesn't know my brother and sister. So, and my parents are gone.
Nancy Lueckhof:The fact that Jill flew out, took me out of that environment. We went in a hotel together and I could kind of like just unwind a bit. But you sang at her memorial, that was like, well, somebody knows. Somebody who knew my sister was by my side, you know, and let me vent a little bit and cry and just go into introspection and someone who really understood. In being far away, I was thinking, oh, my husband doesn't want to see me crying all the time.
Nancy Lueckhof:Nobody, you know, We work in garbage dumps with people who are trying to survive. So it's like just lost my ear. They have their own serious life and death problems. But I would consider myself a very overly emotional person. My mom used to say, because we're Czechoslovakian and used to listen to operas and she'd grab my leg and cry and like, isn't, and I'm like that.
Nancy Lueckhof:I music and words and I'm moved to tears. So I had my sister's journal, one small one of her last few months on earth. And I would read that and look at her handwriting and I have pictures that I'd put by my bed and just look at her. But the loneliness was definitely felt because of our constant communication. But what, what was, what bound us so much together, and I would love to share later just like, why losing a sibling is such a major loss, but humor was something that we really shared together.
Nancy Lueckhof:And no one knows you like your siblings, really, because they've been with you since birth. They know your origin. They know your, the circumstances under which you grew up. Family traditions, family jokes, family idiosyncrasies, weird things about you. And you've gone through highs and lows together.
Nancy Lueckhof:But Sally could make me laugh till I was doubled over and in tears. And so like, I know her, I put on the songs that I knew that she loved and something would happen. And yeah, I talked to myself a lot. I was like, Oh my gosh, Sally would totally understand this. And I go on walks and I would just say, Lord, tell Sally this or this or that.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I used my imagination, just imagining her worshiping in heaven and being really creative and free and dancing. That really helped me. I mean, it was just me and God. I didn't have someone to debrief with because I went straight back and like, have work, you know, like, okay, get up the next day and put on your smiley face and let's keep going. Jill gave me a stack of books and the one in particular, like Loss of a Sibling, that helped me.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I've since then given that out to other people. So it helped me understand why I was feeling the loss so greatly. And I wrote down a few ideas here that the role of a sibling, you have a lifelong friend. Some people, some friends go in and out of your life. Sometimes people leave their spouses.
Nancy Lueckhof:But if you have a good relationship with your spouse, your whole life, they have intimate awareness, knowledge of you, your shared history. We have a shared history and that's cut off. Like she was no longer Ben's auntie and I didn't get to see her grow old or whatever. There's an unconditional love there you know, that you don't always have with other people because it's like, oh yeah, that's my sister. You just get a roll, roll the eyes and like, come on.
Nancy Lueckhof:And she could say things to me and I could say things to her that you don't say to your friends like, you look so ugly in that outfit. You know, what did you do to your hair? You know, Nancy, you need to lose weight or whatever, you know? And she would, she's the kind of person who would really dig, you know, and make me think deeper. And, yeah, there was, I kind of, they say you lose your past with her.
Nancy Lueckhof:Like, I have no one to talk about those things with. I have a brother and he's married and he's not Sally, you know, he's not as talkative and is not as artsy as Sally. So our family jokes, secrets, our weird humor, you know, you share that with your, your siblings, the way I'm sure Bo and Cammy had.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. I was going to say, as you express this, it sounds so much like Beau and Cammy. I mean, Beau and Cammy lit each other up. They laughed all the time. They text every day.
Charlie LeBlanc:They talk quite regularly, And they just lit each other up. And I mean, to be honest, just hearing your heart and it's kinda helping me see the brokenness even in my daughter, you know, of of what she's experiencing. It's it's it's helping me see it even more clearly as you're articulating your loss. So
Nancy Lueckhof:I read this word that bereaved, I'm sure you all know that. It literally means to be torn apart. And they likened it to like an internal, that you, a deep hole that implodes inside of you. So people don't see that on the outside. And so the healing has to be from the inside out.
Nancy Lueckhof:And so I think that's where our relationship with the Lord, His love, His comfort, His humor, His wink, yeah, I understand Sally would have loved this, you know, that heals on the inside. I think talking about it, know, bringing it up, of course there are tears, but there's a lot more. I think now when I go for walks, it's more like just a joy to know Sally's waiting up there and she's having the best time. But that hole was an explosion. Like you just cannot wrap your, baby sister died because I still see her as a little Sally with the curly hair, you know, running around, not as the PhD professor who's this poet who's traveled all over different countries.
Nancy Lueckhof:And, you know, she ghost authored books for people and won prizes. And yet as the baby, she was scatterbrain. My parents called her the little butterfly, or my brother did because she was always, I'm going to go to Czechoslovakia tomorrow. And we're like, You're doing what? And she was always moving down New York, back to Ohio, here and there, living out of her car.
Nancy Lueckhof:I think that's when she came to be with you guys. She was trying to find a place to land, battling cancer. And that just, when I think, when I allow myself to think of that, I just, I can barely contain the sadness of that, but she's free from that. And that's what I rejoice in. I'm so glad that humans are not meant to suffer like that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Not at all.
Nancy Lueckhof:Not at all. That was never God's plan. So my comfort, saw this, to remind myself, my love for Sally does not end with her death.
Jill LeBlanc:That's right.
Nancy Lueckhof:So I can just keep loving her and, know, it's just increased, you know, the appreciation.
Jill LeBlanc:And she is very much alive. And that's what we had to realize with our son and other friends that we've lost. They are all very much alive. They're just living somewhere else. And we will see them again.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. But it's it's hard. It's hard not having them in our
Charlie LeBlanc:And the beginning is so tough for sure. And, Nancy, are there things like throughout the day, throughout the months as you or even when you were working in The Philippines, were there certain things that would trigger you that that you would see someone that maybe looked like her or smell perfume that reminded you of her or someone would laugh and remind you a little bit of her, were there were the things that triggered like, say, you were just doing well and then all of a sudden, outside of a memory, of course, of just thinking about her, which we all are triggered all the time by stuff like that. In fact, just yesterday, I think it was the day before, someone sent us an offering, and in the bottom they said, In memory of Bo, and Jill wasn't even home. I just sat there, I was texting them to thank them and just started weeping. And it's been seventeen years.
Charlie LeBlanc:And obviously we believe that tears are fine. I mean, they're precious to God and we're not embarrassed ever to cry about Bowie, you know, and and about other people's losses. But anyway, again, were there any particular things as you were getting through this process that would trigger you?
Nancy Lueckhof:Yeah, I think, there were several. Just Sally had a gift, a mercy gift. And, I don't necessarily have that. And I work with the poor. I'm more like, excuse me, exhorter, encourager type.
Nancy Lueckhof:And, I work with a lot of poor people. And so there were times when I was faced with a situation where I might have recoiled a little bit. And then I just think, I just feel like Sally would have known what to do, you know, and I I'm filled with this, like I'm very much humbled, how much she really gave of herself because, you know, we have, as humans have a tendency to hold back at times. And so that kind of, kind of knocks me on the side of my head at times. I think me venturing into writing and dealing with the whole writing scene and creativity.
Nancy Lueckhof:I cannot tell you how many times I think of her, even just thinking how to write this. It's like Sally would know. She is so good with this. Why? And she's, and she's so smart.
Nancy Lueckhof:If I, if I don't dig deep in things, I think Sally would have done it like this and like that. She was just like, she would research and she had this great brain and I mean, yeah, I would compare myself to her. I know that's, that's not wise. Siblings do that, but like she was cut from another cloth, you know, I'm just, just amazed.
Charlie LeBlanc:So as you started writing, that that that brought up a lot of missing her and remembering her. And Yeah. Gosh, that that's that's I never never would have thought of that. But yeah. And for me, even continuing on in music, because Beau is an incredible musician and writer and singer, and so there are times when I'll hear a song or something, or I'm writing or working on a song, I'll just think of him, and I think Bo could help me right now.
Nancy Lueckhof:Oh, yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:I know he could. And he could. He was so great. So, I can relate to that to a degree.
Nancy Lueckhof:And even being with you guys, Sally adored you guys. And our early days of being Christians was listening to you guys sing and lead worship. And she had her favorite Charlie and Jill songs. So it's just like, it's such a cool thing that you guys really got to know her when she was older and that, now we can talk about Sally together, but she just adored your music and was like a huge fan over the years. So it meant a lot that Jill sang, you know, I think it's like Sally's like, woah, I get my
Charlie LeBlanc:own counsel here. Well, I actually did not realize all of this when she came and stayed with us. You know, we were just knew Jill probably knew a little more than I did, but I just wanted to help her. I just wanted to, you know, minister to her in any way we could, help her in any way we could. You know?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. But, wow. I'm just I'm glad we were able to be a part of her life. We're glad I'm glad she was able to be a part of our life because it really helped us a lot, but I'm so blessed to hear that our music was of such a big part of her life as well. Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Praise god.
Nancy Lueckhof:You know, you you mentioned, just knowing that they're still alive is a, is a great comfort. And I did experience something. And this is kind of a little like hokey out there, hoo hoo, but
Charlie LeBlanc:We've got many of those that we didn't put in the book by the way.
Nancy Lueckhof:Yeah. And I mean, you take it for what it's worth. I don't, I don't believe you're supposed to talk to the dead. I don't believe you're supposed to ask for, you know, come back and, and blink the lights if you're here.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right, And
Nancy Lueckhof:you see in scripture, it's like once you're gone, you're gone. And you really, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But remember my wish to Sally, my last wish was Sally, just please somehow let me know that you made it. In other words, like you're still alive. And I woke up, I did post on Facebook that night that Sally had passed away.
Nancy Lueckhof:And the next morning, I get this private message from the man who lives in our childhood home in Mount Prospect, Illinois. We're in, you know, Midwestern, you know, small town, not suburbs, small town, the most beautiful street in the world. If you were to ask me, where's my favorite place? Pine Street. Wow.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I only lived there till I was six, but it made such an impression and it formed who I am those first six years. I don't know, you know? And, he said, I saw that your sister has passed. And he said, I've just got to share, this is the strangest thing. And he said, last night, he said, nobody is in my house.
Nancy Lueckhof:My kids are out. And I was laying in bed and I heard footsteps going up the stairs and little feet running back and forth at the dormer above. And he said, maybe your sister just stopped by to say goodbye on her way out. And that's where we
Charlie LeBlanc:all
Nancy Lueckhof:slept. And when I brought our son to college, we drove cross country. I brought him to that home. That's how I met that man. I went up to the door and said, Hi, this is my childhood home.
Nancy Lueckhof:Could I come in? Would you mind? We became, you know, we became good acquaintances and, you know, we're like, I follow that street. The street actually has a Facebook page. And so my son got to see the room that my dad helped build.
Nancy Lueckhof:And, I said something particular about those steps. I said, Sally fell down these steps and, cut her lip, on the door hinge down here. And this is where we slept. And we would goof around up there, you know, like the three of us. And nobody except Sally knows how much that house means to me because we like had a song, you know, Pine Street, we're home.
Nancy Lueckhof:That was like, we always talked about Pine Street as grownups, you know? So that was my sign that she's like, Hey, here's one for you. I know you love this place and I'm on my way to heaven or something. I don't know. And the timing with the time and everything is so right.
Nancy Lueckhof:And I was, I was here in, how many? Two two falls ago visiting our son. And I was here in this room. I was on the floor ironing. And all of a sudden I had remembered in the morning it was October 6.
Nancy Lueckhof:And then all day long, I forgot about it. And here I am ironing and all of a sudden it hit me. Oh my gosh, this is when Sally passed away. And I looked at the clock and it was 05:17 in Oregon time, right then. And it's like, God is so good to me.
Nancy Lueckhof:Just like He's telling me, Nancy, I remember I'm with you on this, you know, we haven't forgotten. So little things like that are just so sweet that, you know, I'm not alone in this journey, even if nobody else really knows Sally. And her best friend who led her to the Lord lives here in Georgia and I've met with her. Yeah, so Betsy, also from St. Louis.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. I don't know. I don't think we know everything, you know? And, we see through a glass darkly and heaven is, you know, what do they say? At At hand.
Charlie LeBlanc:The kingdom of heaven at And hand is right many people that have gone to heaven and come back, or have been on the operating table in a lot of places, they said, I was just right there. And then I just right back. So, you know, I do believe that that our loved ones are aware of our lives and and they're aware of our spiritual lives, and and I do believe that they are rooting us on, as it says in in Hebrews, that, you know, we have a great cloud of witnesses that are just encouraging us. And, I know even as Jill and I moved into this ministry of of trying to help people get through grief and pain, I I know that, in writing the book and everything, I didn't even think about it when we were doing it, but after it was all done, thought, well this is an extension of Bo's life. This you know, is not what he would be doing, but this is an extension of his life.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's all because of him. So,
Nancy Lueckhof:Yes. Yes. Wow. Yeah. That's really beautiful.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Well, God is so good and and and he is the God of comfort. I couldn't have said that within the first year of losing both. It's interesting how scripture says he heals broken hearts and he comforts those who mourn. You know, I didn't God has always been the comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc:The Holy Spirit's the comforter. God is the father of mercies, the God of all comfort. But I didn't understand that or really feel that right after Bo passed. I tried to keep a relationship with God. I had that scripture ring in my ears, where else can you go?
Charlie LeBlanc:I have the words of eternal life. So I wanted to run. We were mad. We had a little bit different experience than you at the point of both of us, because we just, we did not hear that he was gonna pass. We we we were just so we didn't wanna hear.
Charlie LeBlanc:We we were just so, he's healed, he's gonna make it, you know. He's rise from the dead even if necessary, you know, if if he did pass. So, when we came to that end, we were just like, everything's lost. Not only we lost our son, all of our faith, all of our belief systems were totally destroyed, our faith in God, so we had this season of anger toward the Lord as well. Although it wasn't him, it wasn't his fault or anything like that.
Nancy Lueckhof:That's so understandable.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it was very tough. But my goodness, to hear the description of what you went through being away, being so close to her, being so far away, that distance is awful, and, and not being able to, to be there and coach her along the way of marriage and different things. I can imagine the enemy, this is something that I do bring out in our book and bring out when we're ministering to others at the right time. I don't always come into this, but the enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy us as well, and he wants to destroy our future, and our loved ones. Obviously, Sally's saying, Go for it, Nancy, go for it.
Charlie LeBlanc:And Bo is saying that with us, but the enemy tries to use these tragedies in our lives to totally destroy us as well. Yes. We were so broken after that, our faith was so destroyed, I couldn't even read the red letters of Jesus healing people. I just didn't have the heart to. Because when he'd say he'd heal a young daughter, you know, or a young person, or whatever, I just couldn't I couldn't handle it.
Charlie LeBlanc:It was just too hard for me. And so it took me, and Jill a while to get back foundations of the simplicity of Jesus' love and his love just drew us back, you know, to a place where we would start hearing and accepting and reading and obviously brought us back to this place that you were just saying, that if anyone's sick, we're in the middle of it, man. We're going to pray, we're going to believe God, we're going to just trust for a miracle because we hate to see people pass, first of all, and the damage it does. Yeah. They say, well, deaths are swallop in victory.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, hallelujah. Yes. For them. But for those who are left, it's traumatic.
Nancy Lueckhof:No.
Charlie LeBlanc:So, anyway, it's horrible to lose a loved one.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:It is. It's horrible. And like you said, the definition of bereaved, I don't think I'd ever seen it quite that that definition, but it's just ripping and tearing you apart.
Nancy Lueckhof:Mhmm. I I love the title of your podcast, Finding Hope. And I think that's something we do have to do. And hope doesn't come from people. And I know in your book, like you said, you need Jesus with skin on, but that's only Jesus, that's, that's in the end, that's Jesus loving you through them or encouraging you through them or coming over and cleaning your house when you can't get out of bed.
Nancy Lueckhof:But finding hope, it's, we do have to look for it, I think. And, and because Jesus is the only one who can give us a perspective on eternal things. And, and like Andrew has said, I really like that, you know, we're just always talking about heaven, how great it is and everything. And then all of a sudden someone gets a bad report and we just freak out. And it's like, what happened to the hope of heaven?
Nancy Lueckhof:And realizing this life is fleeting. I mean, that's really hard to accept when you lose a child, you know, a spouse and cut short. But I think we do, I love that finding hope. There's hope to be found. Eventually, it'll come, it'll come.
Nancy Lueckhof:And that's a confident, positive expectation of what healing, restoration of eternal life with God and, you know, a perspective.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. You know that scripture in Lamentations, which has become one of our favorites, about where the song Greatest Thy Faithfulness came from. We read it in the New Living, and I won't read the whole thing, but the part that I was even praying this morning and thinking, or maybe it was last night, but it says, When remembered this, I dared to hope again, when I remembered that the loving kindness of the Lord never ceases, his mercies are new every morning, great is his faithfulness. And so it was kind of like a situation where we had lost hope, all hope, but to remember, to come back again, to remember God's love and his faithfulness and his grip on our hearts and lives helped us to begin to hope again. I know even Terri Mintz, when she lost Larry, she told us here sitting in our kitchen, we've had her come over a few times now and just spend time with us.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we've gone over there, of course, and spent time with her. But she said the hardest thing was just to have hope again. You know, just to to to to to have a hope for the future, you know, and to to know what my what is my future, you know. But, I know in your case, you know, just the hope of getting through the pain of loss, the hope of getting through the grief, and and to be able to live, forward without her. You just you need hope.
Charlie LeBlanc:You need hope Yeah. To be able to sustain that kind of life to move forward without our loved ones when we're that close to them. Yeah. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Nancy, it's just been so delight ful having you here with us.
Nancy Lueckhof:Thank you.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank you for all that you've shared. I want to be sure and mention Nancy has an amazing book that she wrote. Do you have a pic? Can you hold it up so that people can see it? Go up a little higher.
Jill LeBlanc:There we go. There you go. So, yeah, this is a true story of something that she learned in The Philippines and she put it into novel form just to tell the story. It is amazing. It's it's the story of a a young girl who was lost at sea and was rescued by a whale shark.
Jill LeBlanc:And it is true and it's amazing. So you can find this book. It's called Suluan, which is the name of the island where the girl was
Charlie LeBlanc:So spell it out for those who aren't watching. Yes. S
Jill LeBlanc:U. Yep. Can you hold it up again? Yeah. S U L U A N.
Jill LeBlanc:It's an amazing story and, and, just would encourage you to go to Amazon, grab a copy. Do you have it on ebook? Can they download it
Nancy Lueckhof:Yes, as it's a Kindle. And, you know, I would say, here what I wrote it. I'm going to give this book away, this Sunday, but I put on the cover, Always Hang On to Hope. And this young lady lost everything, everything. And yet, God miraculously came through and did a tremendous work of restoration in her life, which then later, decades later brought the gospel to her island.
Nancy Lueckhof:Wow. And so it is a book about hope. When hoping against hope and, you know, I'm thinking of this scripture, I would have despaired unless I would, I had believed I would see what's the rest.
Charlie LeBlanc:The goodness of God in the land of the living. Only know it because you sing it.
Nancy Lueckhof:You know, it's I so know, The goodness of God. Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:I would have despaired unless I had believed. Anyway, yeah.
Nancy Lueckhof:Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. Yes.
Nancy Lueckhof:Sure.
Jill LeBlanc:And do you have a website that anyone can go and just see a little more about what you all do in your ministry?
Nancy Lueckhof:Thank you. Our ministry is called Christian Frontier Ministries. I'm sure there are other Christian Frontier Ministries out there but it's www.cfmnetwork.com and it's Friedrich and Nancy Lueckhof. We're in The Philippines. Like Jill said, were in Germany for thirteen years, but our heart was always in The Philippines and God told us fourteen years ago, go back there.
Nancy Lueckhof:So we're just here for our vacation right now for Christmas and New Year's. So we're heading back.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hello again, everybody. This is Charlie and Jill and I just want to say a special thank you for joining us on this latest podcast episode. And we want to remind you, we actually have a new episode every Tuesday. So come and join us on all of these. And if you could, share them with your friends, give us a thumbs up, follow us, however you can.
Charlie LeBlanc:It'll help us reach more people, and that's our heart. And we also wanna encourage you that we have a website that will really help you. We have grief resources. We have music, lots of music that'll really bless you. So we encourage you to sign up on our mailing list, and, there's free resources if you do, free songs, lots of good stuff there as well.
Charlie LeBlanc:So God bless you and thanks again for joining us.