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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, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Finding Hope, getting through what you didn't ask for. And we're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc, as you may know, and we're just excited to be here with you again today. We have a great, a great episode today. I don't know what they call them.
Charlie LeBlanc:Episode, podcast, all those good things. But yeah, we have a really, interesting one today. It's kind of a tough one actually because, we received an email from a young man at school asking this tough question and, it's basically a question about faith. How do you, how do you maintain your faith when you go through a real tragic situation? And it was really hard for us to maintain that faith as well.
Charlie LeBlanc:But before we get into that, we do wanna do a quick shout out to John Tesh.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. What a blessing it was that they wanted to do this interview with us, he and Connie. Connie was the producer, so she was behind the scenes. She's awesome.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And John was amazing in-
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes he was.
Jill LeBlanc:-in all the all the things he asked. And we're hoping if you got to hear those episodes, which if you haven't, we really wanna encourage you to go back and and listen to them because they were powerful.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:But, John was he was the bomb.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And what a privilege it was.
Charlie LeBlanc:It really was. And by the way, I wanted to say, he pushed our book for those first three podcasts, and I wanna push his book. He wrote a book called Relentless that you can find on Amazon, Relentless by John Tesh. And it is amazing. I got the audiobook for it.
Charlie LeBlanc:I mainly got it because I wanted to learn how to do our audio book because he spoke so well. He's such a professional and all that kind of stuff. But, but I started listening to it and I'm like, oh my gosh, his story was gripping. Yeah. So I really encourage you to get John Tesh's book called Relentless, available on all the platforms, of course.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Charlie had it on audio.
Charlie LeBlanc:And
Jill LeBlanc:so I feel like I've listened to it because he would put it on in the shower and blast it.
Charlie LeBlanc:Blast it. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So so I heard a lot of it too. But it really was amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc:It really was good. So anyway, again, thanks John and Connie Tesh.
Charlie LeBlanc:So to get into the heart of the matter today, this is a tough subject as I said, what about faith? And if you don't mind, I'm gonna open up with a part of a little email that I received just recently from a young man who lost his grandfather, about a year and a half ago, and him and his family were standing in faith. The grandfather was praying. They were standing in faith.
Charlie LeBlanc:We were, they were all, just like we were standing in faith, believing God, confessing the scriptures, you know, praying constantly, and their their grandpa passed and their hearts were shattered and broken. And then the good news is that, they got ahold of our book and and they were blessed. So maybe I'm getting two stories mixed, but nonetheless, he came to me with an email and, and-
Jill LeBlanc:And he didn't have our book because it would have answered these questions that
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right. There was another young man that came up to me during that same service and said, I got your book a year later after our mother passed. So I'm getting the two mixed up. Sorry about that you guys. But nonetheless, this, let me just read this to you.
Charlie LeBlanc:I thought this was really heartbreaking, but he says, apologize for a rather heavy question, but similar to you, my whole family, including my grandpa, was standing in the Word for his healing and unfortunately did not see the physical results we were believing for, which we understand.
Jill LeBlanc:We have the same story.
Charlie LeBlanc:Same story. And it says, I still wanna pursue walking and healing with an open mind and with a full submission to what the Word of God says, but I feel as though, this is a powerful statement, but I feel as though my understanding is a little broken at this point in time. But it touched me deeply.
Jill LeBlanc:So he said, I wondered if you had any wisdom regarding understanding and walking in Biblical healing after experiencing what seemed contrary to the word. Forgive me for breaking down that way, but boy, when I sense people hurting like that, it just, I don't know, touches something deep in my heart, I guess, because when you've been through it and you and you have felt the pain, you know, it's easy for you to get touched in that same area when you sense someone else has experienced the same kind of pain.
Charlie LeBlanc:So anyway, this sweet young person, I guess I didn't meet the person, grandfather, so he must be young, but I did email him back and I did my best to explain our heart and our journey of faith coming back. But we wanted to talk about that today with you, to hope to give you a little bit of insight and maybe possibly a little help if you have stood in faith and believed God for the healing of your loved one and it didn't happen. And we have seen it way too many times, and I'm not trying to be the doom and gloom guy because we have seen many people get healed, some of our best friends have gotten miraculous healings, but for those who don't receive the healing it does leave a lot of confusion and a lot of difficulty.
Jill LeBlanc:And and we went through that, didn't really went through that for a long, long time. And I know that your grief journey was a little different than mine.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But nonetheless, they were both so deep and so long.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And, really, it we're changed forever.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, it doesn't go away like it never happened. Our lives are changed forever.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And that's what happens when you lose a close loved one.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, here I was breaking down just a minute ago a little bit after sixteen years of Beau passing, and Beau will be 40 next month.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. In May.
Charlie LeBlanc:In May. And so it's been sixteen years for us and it's still very tough in those moments. But we live life, we have fun, we laugh, a lot of great things, we have grandkids, but there are moments when we remember and think about both.
Charlie LeBlanc:So back to the subject. Let try to tackle this a little bit.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, I emailed the guy back and I just loved on him. And, you know, there's a chapter in our book, by the way, When Loss Comes Close to Home, maybe here would be better instead of right in front of the mic, but, but When Loss Comes Close to Home, I actually addressed it. The last chapter says, "What about faith?" Because that, you know, we we minister to the brokenhearted, we minister to people who have friends who have lost loved ones, but but you know, everyone quite often people say, well, what happened? Why you know you were standing in faith why didn't it work for you and so on and so forth and these are tough tough questions but and like you said we both went on different journeys through that terrible aftermath of awful pain and confusion.
Charlie LeBlanc:But one of the things that helped me was a pastor, and this didn't answer all the questions, but a pastor came up to me right the day that Beau passed. He came over to the house, lots of people came over to our house and ministered to us. And this sweet pastor friend of ours, Rick, he said, Charlie, he said, "there's a faith to stand against the mountains." No.
Jill LeBlanc:There's a faith to move mountains.
Charlie LeBlanc:Thank you. That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And there's a faith to stand when the mountain doesn't move.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And then he followed it up with, "And that's where you are right now."
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. So that statement, a faith to stand when the mountain doesn't move. Wow. That touched me deeply because that's what we needed.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's what, that's where we were at. We were in a very broken place. We had been knocked down, and yet, we wanted to stand back up and somehow make it through this. It was so tough. We had to figure it out.
Charlie LeBlanc:We had to figure out how are we gonna survive this awful tragedy. How are we gonna make it through this situation? So, so yeah, so we did our best and and that statement alone helped me. Faith to stand when the mountain doesn't move. And so I endeavored.
Charlie LeBlanc:I prayed. I sought God. I said, God help. Help me. I need this faith.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I know this young man is, their their family probably went through the same thing. How you know, how do we find faith to stand when everything fell apart? So, one of the things also that helped me was, you go through all this mind battle. What did I do wrong? Who did wrong? Who didn't do the right thing? Did I not pray properly? Did I not fast long enough? You know, should we have gone to a different doctor?
Charlie LeBlanc:Should we gone to a different hospital? We went to the Mayo Clinic, but maybe we should have went to MD Anderson or maybe we should have gone to this place in St. Louis, you know. There's so many questions that bombard your mind you just feel so defeated and then you also have this thing of, you know, God why didn't you? God how could this have happened?
Charlie LeBlanc:But you know, one thing that happened to me that I came to a place where I said, you know what, I'm gonna drive myself mad, crazy, if I keep trying to figure this thing out. And there's a scripture in 1 Corinthians 13 that basically says that we see through a glass darkly but then face to face. And I began to see that as long as we're in this earthly body and this earthly mind, we're not gonna know everything. It says we know in part, then we'll know more.
Jill LeBlanc:But that was a really hard pill to swallow in the beginning.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, that I remember being with another couple and talking about everything, and and he said, you know, some things we just won't know till we get to heaven. And I said, that's not good enough. I've gotta have some answers.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, so in the beginning, you're just you're just raw.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's true.
Jill LeBlanc:And you don't wanna hear things like that, you know, like what you just said.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Well, just like you don't wanna hear, well, he's in heaven. Praise the lord. You know? Wow. You don't wanna hear that kind of stuff.
Jill LeBlanc:That's kind of insensitive for people to say that.
Charlie LeBlanc:For sure.
Jill LeBlanc:But this part, you know, when you just you're so broken, you're just so crushed. And, you know, when someone says something just to try to help us get along, you know, in our journey a little bit better... You just don't wanna hear that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. I mean, there's a time and a season for everything.
Jill LeBlanc:The secret things.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, yeah, exactly. And that's the other scripture that helped me, it's the secret things belong to the Lord. But, you just like you said, Jill, you know, when at the beginning nothing helped us, to be honest.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. Exactly.
Charlie LeBlanc:Nothing. Nothing helped. We were broken. Here I go again. We were in so much pain and and our heart bleeds for those who have been through losses like this because your heart is so shattered.
Jill LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc:You're in so much pain. You don't know what to do. And you don't know where to turn, and you try to turn to God, but then God didn't answer your prayer for healing for your friend or your loved one, and and you are just shattered. Your heart is shattered, and there's so many scriptures that I've learned now that talk about your heart being shattered and grief being beyond words and those things help me even reading some of David's Psalms that that were just, you know, expressing his confusion over what happens in his life.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so, yeah, there is no great answer and there's a time for certain answers. This particular one that said, you know, the secret things belong to the Lord. I don't remember when in my journey that happened. But when it did, it it did help me to say, okay, I'm gonna have to figure out how to be okay with this.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, I don't want to. I don't want, I'm still not really okay with it.
Jill LeBlanc:Well, no, not okay with it.
Charlie LeBlanc:But I'm gonna have to figure out how to live.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so that's when the Lord's or, either the Lord spoke to me, I'm sure the Holy Spirit's always helping us in all these situations. He is, of course.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:But but, but, like, I thought, you know what? I'm gonna have to live in what I know and not in what I don't know.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:I wanted to say that again, live in what you know and not in what you don't know.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's kind of a weird little twist on things but I had to just reach out to God and say, okay God, I know because I've known you this many years and I've known God for a long time, I said, I know that you're a good God and I know that you still love me no matter what.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and so I'm gonna start there. God, you love me. But God, you didn't heal my son, but God you love me.
Charlie LeBlanc:And yet, you know, that whole thing of you didn't heal my son, there's so many doctrinal and deep theological things to deal with concerning that. You know, because the Word of God says that by his stripes we were healed, that He already did it on the cross of Calvary, that it's done. So to even say, God, you didn't heal my son. Well, he said, yes I did. We just didn't receive it. So there's all that too.
Jill LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc:But nonetheless, I had to live in what I knew and I knew God loved me and I knew that the other thing that jumped out is I knew that he said he would comfort those who mourn and that he healed broken hearts. So those two things, he healed broken hearts and he comforts those who mourn. So those two little things helped me.
Charlie LeBlanc:Kinda like what you said earlier, you just gotta take it a little bit at a time Where where you're at at the time.
Jill LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, to see what will help you and what won't.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. Right. There was someone that contacted us through social media who's recently in the last month or two whose son suddenly passed away. I think it was a heart issue. And he was in his, what, twenties maybe, and or maybe thirties. And it was just so so sudden, and she was so flipped out. And, you know, I was trying to reach out to her and just, you know, just try to help her a little bit because she was so distraught.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And, you know, but that's the way it is sometimes in the beginning for people.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And I know that I, you know, we were a little different in that for me, I didn't get a lot of scriptural words, you know, revelation.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:It it mostly, most of my encouragement came from either people sharing with me a vision they had or a dream that I may have had or just a thought that I felt like God was speaking to me or something.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And so it just comes different ways for different people.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It does. And and you just you just have to be patient with yourself. Someone said be kind to yourself.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we're gonna be talking a lot on these podcasts about the things, you know, the way to treat people, like you said your friend who had just had a loss, you know we talked about that on some of the John Tesh interviews, but a lot of what we have on our heart is to encourage you and help you be a better friend to someone who has had a loss as well. But you know, I was thinking about this area of faith, just to get back specifically to that. There's this whole aspect in Hebrews 11, and I thought I could just turn to here to my book and there it would be. But basically, they just said, these all died in faith, not receiving the promises of God. And I think sometimes we think we're, if you're really in faith then everything would have worked out just perfectly.
Charlie LeBlanc:But really and truly, so many great men and women of God have died, been murdered, been murdered and they were in faith, they were in incredible faith. And Hebrews 11 shows us a whole list of people that saw amazing miracles through faith but on the flip side it goes on to say some were sawn in two, some were murdered and killed. I don't know, should I have all that scripture out and ready. It just shows that you can be in faith and still lose your life, number one. Because we know Beau was in faith.
Charlie LeBlanc:Beau never dreamed, he said, I'm not dying. He yelled out, I'm not dying. We never dreamed, we never dreamed it either. So we were all in faith but you know, he didn't receive the promise on this side of heaven. And you know, there there is that that aspect and so that's when we fall into that other side of faith.
Charlie LeBlanc:Faith to stand when the mountain doesn't move, but, but yeah, you know, it's not to say that you weren't in faith, because, you can be in faith. Paul was an incredible, incredible man of faith and yet, you know, we have all those lists of the things that he went through. He said, I've worked harder for God, taken more beatings, I've been dragged to more prisons than they, I've been flawed excessively multiple times even to the point of death. Five times I received 39 lashes from the Jewish leaders. Three times I experienced being beaten with rods.
Charlie LeBlanc:Once they stoned me three times, I mean, I could go on and on. Shipwrecked, you know, night and day in the sea, perilous rivers, robbers, foreigners. I mean he went through it and yet he was in faith during all that time. He was standing, believing, pushing through the pain. Although when God spoke to him and knocked him off the horse, God said, I'm gonna show you all the things that you're gonna have to suffer for my name's sake.
Jill LeBlanc:Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, that wasn't like, you know, that was just showing you that when you preach the Gospel, those who preach the Gospel will be persecuted, the Bible says. You know?
Jill LeBlanc:Isn't it interesting though that from the get go, you know, when Jesus knocked Paul off his horse, that's when the Lord showed him that. Right?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. The Lord just showed him that.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean-
Charlie LeBlanc:You're a vessel for me and you're gonna preach the gospel, but it, you're gonna get persecuted. You're gonna get, people things are gonna come against you. The enemy is gonna try to stop you in every way possible. And you know, Satan doesn't like us at all. He hates us and he wants to destroy us.
Charlie LeBlanc:And he came after our life, our ministry, our son's life, our two daughters' life, to destroy us with this cancer with our son. And it broke us to no end when Beau didn't make it. But one of the other things that we recognized early is that the enemy was not wanting to stop there with Beau, but he was gonna try to destroy our marriage and he was gonna try to destroy our kids as well. And we just refused to let him.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, Jesus turned to Peter and he said, Peter, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed that your faith fail not. That is so important that we stand, we keep trusting as best we can. We keep, you know, seeking God with all of our heart. Again, there's a time, at first, Jill and I, our hearts were shut down to God. We were just like, God, I don't understand this. We don't wanna talk to you. You know?
Jill LeBlanc:Well, I I just quit talking altogether. I didn't even say things like that. I just I just treated him like he didn't even exist because I'm like, everything was on the line and it failed.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, when you're in pain like that, know, even when someone tries to help you, like a dog when the dog's hurt, you you wanna go try to help him and he will bite you if you go near him. You know, when you're in that kind of pain, you're hurting and it's hard. And it's hard for friends even to know how to minister to you. That's why the old preacher said show up and shut up sometimes, But it's just kinda like a situation where people have to be patient with you and you have to be patient with yourself and just breathe.
Charlie LeBlanc:Just take a breath, cry all you want. Here, and I'm now starting to preach on what to do when you have lost, which we're gonna be touching a lot on that two weeks ahead of, we have a whole book worth of stuff and more that we've learned since we've written the book. But yeah, Jesus loves us and so many things just don't make sense in this life. So many tragedies we heard on the news today that there was a shooting in Tallahassee, Florida. We live in Florida.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it broke our hearts. Two people were killed, many others injured. Twenty year old went crazy and started shooting people. I mean, I just, the the pain of the losses that we hear every single day is nonstop. Our hearts just go out, but we don't understand it.
Charlie LeBlanc:But I'll just say this, we live in a fallen world and this world is corrupt, it's full of pain, it's full of evil, it's full of diseases.
Jill LeBlanc:Super toxic now. Didn't used to be like that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. And so, you know, God is not in control of everything. I'm just gonna shoot that out there, contrary to a lot of people's beliefs, but God is not in control of everything. If he was in control of everything, He would've never let Adam and Eve, fall in the garden. But anyway, we can go on and on about-
Jill LeBlanc:And all would be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.
Charlie LeBlanc:and everything would be beautiful, yeah. But the thing is man has his own free will and then there is an enemy who roams about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and you know, be not ignorant of his devices, the Bible says. And Ephesians tells us we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness and high places. There is an enemy out there destroying human beings, just trying to destroy life, trying to destroy us. And we took a stand on our marriage and we said we're not gonna let this happen.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we began to minister to each other and pray and we did a lot of safeguards which I think we talked in the John Tesh interview but we'll get into more of that as we move along. But you know, we just wanted to just say that we understand the pain of knowing that, you know, of not knowing, the pain of not understanding. And we've been there and we still don't fully understand but we've come to a place of knowing that God is true, his word is true, we were able to come back to that truth, to stand in faith with people, to believe God, to pray, to know that Jesus is a healer, even though we didn't experience in this situation, like we said, so many people have experienced healing and we've even experienced healing.
Jill LeBlanc:You can't deny the fact that the Lord still heals today. Yeah. There's so many healings taking place and miracles happening.
Charlie LeBlanc:Absolutely.
Jill LeBlanc:We can't deny the fact that God just doesn't heal today.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. He does.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, we can't accept that.
Jill LeBlanc:We can't deny that He does heal.
Charlie LeBlanc:He does heal. Yes. Exactly. And he is the healer. Thank God for it.
Jill LeBlanc:But, and I couldn't I couldn't go there for a long time. Because I was like, I don't think so. Yeah. But but God, in his tender mercy, he just brought me along and it was, He's so wonderful. Yeah, He is. He has a way of reaching each one of us in our deepest deepest needs.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, I couldn't even read the red letters in the Bible for a while so if you're in that position, that's okay. Just know that God loves you. That He's patient with you. I had a biker tell me, he said, Charlie, God's big enough to handle anything you wanna say to him.
Charlie LeBlanc:I have some things I wanted to say, but then he had some things he wanted to say to me. He loves you and we're sorry about the pain that maybe you're experiencing in your life. And we do encourage you to be patient with yourself, be patient with this journey of grief, and just know that God is going to help you get through it. We do encourage you to get our book, When Loss Comes Close to Home. It does have a lot of detail in here about this area of faith and about so many other things.
Charlie LeBlanc:What did John Tesh call it? A Swiss army knife or something? I don't know.
Jill LeBlanc:For getting through grief.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Forgetting through grief. And so we do encourage you to to get that, to get the book and, and and stick with us in this podcast.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. And not only for those that are suffering from a loss, but those that are also walking beside someone that is, you know, maybe your your friend or, someone in your family is is walking through a special, really painful loss. And you're at a loss on what to say to them. We've got practical things that you could put to use right now in your life in the second half of this book.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. Yes. So God bless you. Thank you for being with us on this podcast.
Charlie LeBlanc:We so appreciate it. There's buttons or whatever.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Give it give it a like, thumbs up down below. We would really appreciate that. And share it with people that you think would wanna hear what we've shared today. And subscribe.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:We'd love for you to just be a regular part of this community.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And then select your notifications so that you never miss an episode.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And we wanna invite you to to join our mailing list as well. We put out little emails talking about these podcasts, talking about our travels, talking about other things that God is speaking to us.
Jill LeBlanc:There should be a link for that down below.
Jill LeBlanc:And it's CharlieandJill.com/welcome.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. And we believe that'll be a blessing to you as well.
Jill LeBlanc:And one last thing. We have a Spotify list called Finding Hope. It's a song, it's a collection of songs that will just minister to your hearts.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Songs, mostly songs the Lord gave us and a few others that we've included but it will just touch you in a deep place. So check out Spotify and is it also on YouTube?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, it's on YouTube.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. So check that out, the Finding Hope playlist.
Charlie LeBlanc:Okay, well again, thank you so much for being with us. We sure love you. And feel free to email us, write us questions, anything that we can do to minister to you. We love you. We're praying for you.
Charlie LeBlanc:God bless you.
Jill LeBlanc:God bless.