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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.
Welcome back to Getting Through What You Never Asked For. Charlie and I have a real burden to help people that are walking through loss and difficult situations just to try to bring encouragement that it won't always be the way it may be right now for you. And the Lord is faithful, and he will carry you through this time, is carrying you through this time, and he'll he'll always be helping us when times are hard. He's just that faithful.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. This, you know, many people have said that they've been helped by this program, and that's our desire, that's our hope, help you get through these tough times, like Jill said. So we have a lot of good things to share today, things that are on our heart, things that helped us. We always share things that help us because certain things didn't help us and other things did when we were going through the real pain at the beginning of our loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:And here we are over sixteen years later, and yes, we can smile, we can, you know, laugh. We can dream, we can laugh, but yeah, but it's the first year, two, three, were very, very tough, and our heart goes out to you. And for those of you who are still suffering, and your hearts are still broken, and you're still grieving and mourning over the loss of your loved one, I know just how hard that is. And, but, you know, we're here to encourage you, to let you know that we understand, and, hopefully some of the things that we share on this podcast will be a help to them.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. We sure do. We also wanted to tell you, so it's the beginning of October and happy fall y'all. And before we know it, the holidays will be here. And for those who have suffered a life altering loss of any kind, whether it's a divorce or a career, the ending of a career, or you know of course the loss of a loved one, just any type of thing.
Jill LeBlanc:There's something about the holidays that just makes everything worse. At least it was that way for us and many we've spoken to. And so on November 6 on a Thursday evening, we're going to have a Facebook live called Finding Hope for the Holidays. And we just want to talk about things that helped us get through, some of the things we really struggled with, and we're going to have a time for question and answer as well. So be sure to sign up on our email list and that way you'll be notified for sure.
Jill LeBlanc:And down below in the description you'll find our link tree which is where you can find a sign up for our email list as well as anything else that you would possibly want from us. It's all down below in that link tree.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:So we'll remind you about it again but we'd love for you to join us and we just want to help bring more value to your life.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. You know, we've been talking about on the last couple of podcasts, some of the things that helped us get through the difficulty and the things that help us even to this day. And I think that's really important to discuss because as we talked about last podcast, there were songs that helped us. We talked about how that you, instead of journaling, you wrote songs that you shared your pain. I mean, you did journaling too, but you did write a few songs that were really, really touching.
Charlie LeBlanc:We shared about one of them last week and we talked about Toby Mac's song. And there are so many songs that really helped me through my journey. Now, I must admit that I was very cautious about songs, but songs that were transparent and really, really were gut level thoughts, they really helped me. And I don't wanna, I'm thinking about one by Fred Hammond right now that that really blessed me, where he, you know, well, me see if I can find it so just I can make make a clear a clear reference to it. It's called I will find a way, and the first line says, I've lost some joy, I've lost some time, now it feels like I will lose my mind. And boy, I can relate to that. It's a journey long and lost my way, and now it feels like I've lost, I've lost is all I say. I've lost is all I say. Searching here and over there for what I've lost, Where is it? I don't know. I will find a way. And then and then the chorus says, I will find a way to lift up my hands. I will find a way to worship you, Lord. And though my heart is low, I'll find a way to keep you praise, to I'll give you find a way to love you more.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, you know, these are the kind of songs that really helped me, that blessed me because, as we said, I don't wanna wear it out, but you know, they were songs that really expressed pain and heartache. And you know, for me, I told you how I reached out to other ministers and friends that had had losses and they expressed what they went through and what helped them and what didn't. And you know, one of the things that helped me was finding people, Bible characters, who also experienced difficulty and yet got through it. I just wanted, I needed examples of someone who got through it.
Jill LeBlanc:Which is also why you called so many minister friends. You just needed hope that, am I done? Am I washed up now? Am I will I ever minister again? Will I survive this?
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. Yeah. I didn't I didn't it it it was it hurt so bad and it was so discouraging and, you know, it was tough. It was a very tough time and so I needed examples of people to help me, give me advice, but also an example of a man of God that went through it, or a woman of God, you know? And, so that always encouraged me.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, we talk about Joyce Meyer sometimes, and, you know, we worked for her for seven years and led worship for her. And, you know, she had a really difficult childhood. You know, she was sexually abused by her father. Her mother knew it and didn't do anything about it. You know, we just my heart breaks for what Joyce went through, and yet, you know, God has really blessed her and used her in in the because and because of that pain, she's very transparent.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. And she's very, compassionate, you know, toward others who have, you know, who've been through difficulty. That's one very strong characteristic about Joyce. But, you know, just seeing her get through it, you know, remember we were leading worship for her and she would just hold her bible almost in tears and say, I could never have made it. I would have never made it without this Bible, without the word of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I remember thinking, I love the word of God too, but I don't know if I have that much. I mean, I got saved, I'm full of Jesus, I'm full of the love of God, I'm full of everything, but there was something about the way that she said it that I could tell came from a deep, deep, painful place of how desperate she was for the word of God that changed her life, for Jesus himself. And now that we've been through this, can feel the same way. I mean, the word is life to me. I mean, I always loved the word, but I'm seeing it in a different light now.
Charlie LeBlanc:I see God's word in a different light. I see great men and women of God going through painful situations. I mean, Joseph being sold as a slave by his own brothers. Come on. I mean, what horror.
Charlie LeBlanc:Then, you know, and then ending up, you know, slave trading and getting into Pharaoh's home and then God raising him up. Gosh. And then not having that bitterness against his family, which you could easily have. But he made through that difficult time, embraced his brothers and sisters, and wept bitterly when he saw them because he loved them and missed them so much. Forgave them, obviously, wept bitterly when he saw his dad as well, and when his dad passed, he wept bitterly.
Charlie LeBlanc:So, to see other men of God get through pain really, really encouraged me, because I thought, well, if they can make it by the grace of God, I can make it.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:So one of those great heroes of faith is the Apostle Paul. We talked a little bit about this on the last program over there in Romans, the eighth chapter, how that Paul said, Nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. And he says, no matter what I go through, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword, yet in all these things we're more than conquerors to him who loved us. So there's Paul again being very transparent and telling people what he went through. And I love it in two Corinthians, the fourth chapter, he says, I'm sorry, in 2 Corinthians, the first chapter, he says, we think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia.
Charlie LeBlanc:We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. So, I mean
Jill LeBlanc:You don't hear those scriptures preached very much.
Charlie LeBlanc:No.
Jill LeBlanc:In the circles we run-in.
Charlie LeBlanc:No. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Or just in general. I mean, people don't like to talk because about they don't really know how to justify it with what they're believing for.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But man, that's tough stuff.
Charlie LeBlanc:It is. It's transparency. And, you know, Abraham, the scripture says, hope against hope. Abraham believed.
Charlie LeBlanc:I mean, we see his account of like, how are you gonna do this, Lord? I'm almost 100 years old and you're saying I'm gonna have a baby? My wife is old? She's gonna have a baby? What do you, you know?
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's unbelief. And so, you know, it was a hopeless situation. And he's a great example of God turning something hopeless into a miracle and hopeful. And, you know, even when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, you know, you're gonna have a son, you know, she's like, woah, you know, that's impossible.
Charlie LeBlanc:Impossible. I've never been with a man, how are you gonna do this? You know, and she said, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you and you will be conceived of the Holy Spirit. So, you know, God is the master of impossibilities, of course. And when you go through a painful loss and you're broken and you think you'll never make it out, you know, that's one thing.
Charlie LeBlanc:You can somehow, if you can get a glimmer of hope, a glimmer that he will bring you through like he brought these other people through their dark moments. And I can't even imagine again what Joseph felt like when he was thrown into that well and, you know, just young man, just, all my brother's betraying me, trying to kill me, you know? I can't imagine the terror and the despair of that, and Daniel being thrown in a lion's den, trusting God, hoping, believing, praying, but, you know, not knowing for sure what would happen there, but God did a miracle for him and pulled him out of darkness. And so, God is good at pulling us out of the most difficult, tragic situations that we've ever been through. So, you know, looking at Paul again, I love it where he said, you know, I was overwhelmed beyond my ability to endure.
Charlie LeBlanc:I thought I would never live through it. In the fourth chapter he says, we were pressed on every side by troubles, but we were not crushed. We were perplexed, but not even in despair. We were hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down but we are not destroyed.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, you know, again, I could go on and on about Paul, all the difficulties that he went through and he talks about it in different places, you know. But yeah, I don't know, Jill, that gave me hope. I know, I needed something.
Jill LeBlanc:-Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:-Somebody, a glimmer. Because I had lost all hope.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. I feel like one thing people need who have experienced loss, and I know we needed it desperately, is affirmation. Just just from someone else to acknowledge our pain and and not think less of us because of it, but then realize how hard it is to walk through it. That is so huge to be acknowledged and and affirmed that we are not just crazy. We're not just psycho. We're not just carnal, but we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:And that is a hard place to walk through.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:And and so, you know, Paul didn't have people there necessarily when he was going through all this. He had to be the one to tell them. And then I'm sure he received all kinds of affirmation, you know, and and comfort. Well, he he did receive comfort from Titus, you know, that came to visit him and all the saints that that
Charlie LeBlanc:Timothy and
Jill LeBlanc:the sent them to him. So it's it's huge, isn't it, to to just know that others are aware of your suffering and for those to let you know that they're aware and that they they're they love you. They're acknowledging, you know, how hard it is.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It's interesting you say that because that's exactly what Paul said. He he said, you know, I was comforted by the coming of Titus. And then, I don't know if it was in the same place or not, but he also said and and he was comforted by you, but he said, I was also comforted that he told you about my situation and that you sent your prayers in a sense. I'm totally paraphrasing the Charlie LeBlanc version.
Charlie LeBlanc:But it was, you know, basically he was saying I was blessed not only that he comforted me, but that he was comforted by knowing that the other people were praying for him and standing with him and caring for him as well. Yeah, I remember John and Susan Donnelly in England. I'll never forget that time that we were just how many months were we out from losing Beau when we did that? I think about five or six?
Jill LeBlanc:I'm not yeah, it was either that or a year and five or six months.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, don't remember exactly when it was, but I know that we would
Jill LeBlanc:It had to have been in the first six months.
Charlie LeBlanc:We were really hurting. Yeah. And we were leading worship for Andrew Wommack again, which we love to do. We're grateful and honored. In fact, I'm honored. Andrew, what a blessing him and Jamie are. They knew that we were hurting, and they knew that this was a tough road, and they gave us a lot of time off and helped us. But they also, when we started leading worship for them, they were so patient with us.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, they were.
Charlie LeBlanc:And they never demanded of us. They were grateful that we started leading worship again, but they knew we were still going through a process of having our hearts healed, and so they were just very patient with us to not put demands on us, and you know, sometimes, like we've said before, we'd lead worship and go sit in the back of the room or go up to our hotel room and call our daughters and just sometimes weep and sometimes just encourage each other. So, yeah, they were definitely an instrument of helping us because get through they were so kind and patient and never challenged us. What a blessing that was. But, you know, when we were there leading worship for Andrew, I remember John and Susan asking us out to lunch and taking us to a little restaurant, being in the corner of that restaurant, and he put his hand, if I remember right, on top of my hand, where we had just ordered or something, and we had a little time, and he said, Charlie, so how are you really doing?
Charlie LeBlanc:What's going on in your heart? I broke down crying.
Jill LeBlanc:Sobbing. Just sobbing, uncontrollably.
Charlie LeBlanc:I know, right in front of him and the whole world. But thankfully we were in a little corner than what everyone thought. But the point is that he was a safe friend. And he is to this day, him and his lovely wife, Susan, they live in Dumfries, Ireland. Scotland.
Charlie LeBlanc:What did I say?
Jill LeBlanc:Don't let them hear you!
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, oh, Scotland.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh Lord. If he sees this, he's gonna text me and really scold me. Dumfries, Scotland. Yes, the motherland. He talks like there's no other land but Scotland.
Charlie LeBlanc:But anyway, yeah, he was so compassionate, so understanding. Both of them wept with us, encouraged us, defended us, stood by us. You know, as Paul said, No one stood by me except for so and so and so and so. John and Susan stood by us and loved us and So, helped Thank God for good friends to stand by us. Like you said, Paul had Timothy and Titus that stood by him in the darkest times.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. Thank God for that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. You know, something else that I found myself doing right after we lost Beau in regard to my relationship with the Lord, You know, I've said before that it was tough, I wanted to run, but the Lord spoke to me, where else can you go? You have the words of eternal life, all this. But as I began to move forward in a lot of pain and a lot of confusion and a lot of heartache and everything, I was able to pray in the spirit. And you know, the spirit of us says we pray in the spirit, we pray with the understanding that there's a place of praying in the spirit when we don't know what to pray.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, thank God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, I think that, boy, that was just us all over. We didn't know what to pray. We didn't know what to say. We didn't even wanna pray much at first but I found myself praying in spirit. It says here in Romans again, right before we get into all the Romans chapter 8 the thirty first verse, we just discussed that, What shall we say to these things?
Charlie LeBlanc:If God be for us, who can be against us? Well, he's referring to these things, a lot of things that he'd just written in the chapter before. What shall we say to these things? Well, one of the things he's referring to is just a few verses before where he says, Likewise, the spirit also helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And I was just studying that this morning and getting so blessed by it, just the fact that he's blatantly saying that sometimes we do not know what we should pray for.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I mean, again is humility. Paul writing in humility saying, hey, sometimes I don't know what to pray for. Sometimes there's difficulty, there's confusion, there's situations, we've got a friend that's in need, we're praying for them, we don't know what to pray, we don't know how to pray. I mean, there's certain things you know what to pray, you know how to command, you know how to speak. But there's also things that sometimes are not making sense.
Charlie LeBlanc:Sometimes when you go through changes in your life, you're changing jobs, changing businesses, working with different ministries and different things, you don't know exactly where you're going. You don't have clarity for your future sometimes, and you have the word of God that says he will lead and guide you, he'll be with you always, but you don't have clarity on what to do next. Right. And in those positions, and like we didn't know what to do next when we lost Beau. We were just breathing, just breathe.
Charlie LeBlanc:That was all we could do. But I found myself praying in the spirit. And it says here that You don't know what to pray for as you ought, but the Spirit Himself, I love that, Himself, Holy Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. That's very, very deep.
Jill LeBlanc:It is really deep. It's one of those mystery verses that I have always seen and kinda skipped over because I'm like, that's just really, I don't get all of that. It's pretty deep.
Charlie LeBlanc:It really is, and I started actually looking up Hebrew words and Greek words and all this kind of stuff, and it was very, very powerful just to see that. But as I study it out, we know the Holy Spirit's on the inside of us. And so he says, groanings which cannot be uttered. So I know that when I was praying in the spirit, were times when I would just be like, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to think here, God, help me.
Charlie LeBlanc:I feel like I'm drowning. And so I would just pray in the spirit. And some people pray in tongues. The Bible says when you pray in the spirit, pray in tongues, and some people pray in tongues, and that helps them as well. You're praying mysteries that you don't know about.
Charlie LeBlanc:You're praying prayers you don't understand, but it's a very, very powerful thing. But going further, I just think that when we groan, when we lament, when we cry, when we wail, as we did many times through the pain, I really believe it's the Holy Spirit in us takes that and forms words to gods that we don't even understand. But the Holy Spirit, I think, intercedes for us according to this. He intercedes, he comes in and he prays for us. He talks to God for us.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it also says over in Romans 8, just a little bit further, that Jesus is at the right hand of God who makes intercession for us as well. So we have, when we're in pain and when we're broken down, we have the Holy Spirit, we have Jesus himself, as we've been saying so much in this podcast, loving us and interceding for us, helping through the depths of our heart and spirit. I know recently I just went through a difficult time, and I felt the heaviness. And so I just prayed in the spirit a lot. In praying in the spirit, I was trusting that the Holy Spirit, according to this word, was praying through me.
Charlie LeBlanc:The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanage which cannot be uttered. I just trusted that that was taking place in me, and I started to get freedom. Started to get a release in my heart. And I just remember in the early days, that was what I did a lot, because I couldn't seem to figure out what to pray in English. But I sure understood how to groan, and how to cry, and how to weep.
Jill LeBlanc:Man.
Charlie LeBlanc:And how to, you know, just expressing, my pain. And, you know, I also remember Jesus being at the tomb of Lazarus, and it says he groaned. It said he groaned at the pain of humanity. And there are several places it talks about Jesus groaning, but, you know, there are these places in our human flesh here where we don't know what to pray, we don't know what to do, and we just have to just sigh and groan and trust that these are prayers that the Holy Spirit is praying through us.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I believe that. I mean, that helps me.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank God for the Holy Spirit.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, in John 15, isn't it? Or 14, that he's referred to the comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:And if you go into the Greek, that one of those words is the help. One of the meanings of that word is the helper.
Jill LeBlanc:He helps us so much. I mean, everything you've been talking about here with him praying, praying for through in And, and that's, you know, we can't even express that, but he's there inside doing it and he's helping us and we don't even realize he is such a helper.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Reminds me of a song I wrote years ago, it's called, One with the Lord, and it says, oh, what a joy it is to be one with the Lord. And that's the beauty of our relationship with God, is now we're one with Him. He's on the inside of us. Scripture says Christ in you is the hope of glory. We're the temples of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is in us. We've been bought with a price, our bodies are not our own, And so, He's in us and He helps us. Like you said, He is the helper.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And He will help us in time of need. He will pray through us. He will help us get relief and help us get through the difficulty. So, if you're listening, we just want to encourage you.
Charlie LeBlanc:We know that some of this can be maybe a little more than what you can handle right now, but maybe if you're hurting and you're crying, just trust me that the Holy Spirit is in your heart, and he is crying out through you to God, and God hears these, and Jesus intercedes for us as the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, and he will help you. Feel free to weep, to cry, to lay your heart before God, because that is like groanings which cannot be uttered, and the Lord hears that, and he answers, and he comes in to restore your soul, to heal your broken heart. It's part of the mending, it's part of the healing, to allow yourself to just share your brokenness like that. So, we love you so much, and we wanna help you. If you have any questions or anything, please leave comments.
Charlie LeBlanc:If you have any subject you want us to cover, we'll do our best to cover it in any way. But we want to remind you of some of our resources that we have, that we do these things to help you. I've said that on a podcast recently and started crying about my book, our book. I started crying because I thought, we did this because we were mandated of God to do it, and because we wanted to help you. And so this book, When Lost Comes Close to Home, is just such a blessing, and it's got so many of the things that we talk about on this podcast.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then we also added this little recently, The God of All Comfort. It's a USB, it has a beautiful song on it, it has scriptures, it has resources, it has a little devotional, it just has a lot. I've got videos of me teaching, Jill and I sharing about the song. It'll really bless you. There's also a bundle with those two things together.
Charlie LeBlanc:But again, sign up on our mailing list so we can stay in touch with you. Like this podcast, right? And leave a comment. And, yeah. Anything else?
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Remember about, the Finding Hope for the Holidays Live Q&A and encouragement on November 6. So again, be sure to sign up for our email list so you can be notified about that and get registered when we have all that ready to go. Because we'd love to just help you through that time because it's not easy.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I'm gonna ask one last thing. Please pray for us as we pray for you. Because we wanna help more people and we need your prayers to find our way to help more people like you. Alright? We love you. God bless you. Have a beautiful day.