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.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (00:03.306)
Hi and welcome to the Finding Hope podcast. We're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc and we are here to talk about what...
I was just gonna start a clean line, but okay.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (00:31.138)
Hi, this is the Finding Hope podcast. We're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc and we're here to talk about getting through what you never asked for. That's right. Today, particularly, we would like to talk with those who are walking beside people that have gone through some really tough times. And so we have some things to share that that'll help us all be better helpers to those who walking through tough
Yeah, and if you've had a devastating loss, you're going to be sitting here shouting going, amen, Charlie. Amen, Joe. Way to go. Preach it, preach it, preach it. know, because obviously, like I mentioned in the last podcast, a big part of our burden is to educate the church. And I don't want to say educate, you know, but I guess I want to say just encourage them, help them, help the church in general be better confidants. And you know,
as well as we know that that is a great need that people need to learn how to be a better confidant when you when people go when their friends go through pain, heartache, losses like many of you have like we have. So, yeah, so we're going to we're going to get into, you know, some of the things to say and not to say and some of the things to do.
and not to do and we talk about this on and off through the podcast, but we think this is going to be helpful. So why do you think that it's a it's such a thing that in our circles, it's hard to find. It's not as common to find people who really know how to be good comforters. You know, it's more common to find people that just want to
want to help you get over it faster, want to help fix you and, you know, make you better so that you can get on to the next season of your life. Yeah. You know, I think it's, I think it's because, you know, we've grown up in, really powerful theology that, you know, that just says, you know, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We're more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (02:50.082)
This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. No excuse for being sorrowful. No excuse for not being on top of your game every single day, no matter what comes your way. And so therefore... And partly is because we read in the Bible that death is swallowed up in victory. And so we're not allowed to mourn or be sad.
over the death of someone if they're a Christian because they go straight into the arms of Jesus and into the into the glory of heaven that we can't even comprehend. But they have just stepped right over into it. You know, they're their body is dead, but they are more alive than ever. And so what what gives us the right to to be to be sad over that?
That's kind of, you know, what we've all experienced and not all of us, but a lot of us. I remember shortly after our son died, within the first year, we were flying back and forth a lot to Colorado because we were working at the Bible college there very frequently. And so I remember on one of our flights, we sat next to a woman who was a life coach and
she, she asked, she's just started inquiring about what we did and just different things. And we told her we, we just survived the death of our son and, and she showed more compassion and, and empathy to us than almost anyone we had experienced to date at that time.
And we were so blown away by it and we went on to talk about it and we just thought, you know, there's just different circles that people develop mindsets in and the circle where we ran around, it wasn't so common. And so once we experienced loss,
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (05:18.495)
a very significant loss in our life, we began to understand the need for people to learn how to be better comforters and just learn more about the compassion of the Lord. And so here we are today. This is why we're sharing these things with you. And like you said, this lady, you know, she when she heard she acknowledged our loss. And that's a very important part.
of this is that we need to not avoid, not hide, not try to play like it didn't happen. We talked about that last podcast about the elephant in the room, but we need to acknowledge. It says when grief goes unacknowledged, healing often slows. Isn't that interesting? But when you acknowledge someone's pain,
healing begins to flow. Yeah, it like brings affirmation to that person. Yeah. And when it's not acknowledged, it's like a wound that never gets properly cleaned. It closes slowly and can reopen unexpectedly, unexpectedly years later. Someone, you know, all someone really needs is for you to just acknowledge.
that I can imagine that you're still hurting. And they could look up at you and go, wow, how'd you know that? How would you know that? Now, don't get me wrong. You're gonna get caught on this sometimes because I remember going up to a lady, a couple at church that had just lost their son. And I walked up to him and I gave him a big hug and I said, I am so sorry. said, I can't imagine. I I know what it feels like losing a son and I just can't imagine what you're going through or something like that.
And they looked at me with big old smiles and they said, praise God, it's all good. Hallelujah, he's in heaven. God is good, we're good, we're fine. That was like at the beginning, like the honeymoon, the grace shelter that you get at the beginning. Where all of a sudden you think everything's gonna be fine. Like you went to that women's conference at the very beginning and you thought I'm healed. My grief is over. yet, you know, then just came back with vengeance. But yeah, you know.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (07:39.022)
This can bite you sometimes. You can put your arm around somebody and I'm so sorry. And they will say, I'm good. Everything's fine. know, well, you know what someone said, follow their lead. You may have said that. I can't remember. I think it was you. I quote you, follow their lead. You know, like just wherever they're at, then you affirm them. You know, the Bible says, weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. If someone is like good.
And then we've got we've gotten emails that said, man, thank you so much for your book. It was so powerful. I really enjoyed it. But just to be honest with you, I lost my son and God healed me in within the month. And I'm great. Everything's fine. And I'm like, wow. OK, praise the Lord. Well, maybe again, I'm the man with no faith or something. It made me feel pretty small, to be honest. But but same time, you know.
That was just for a moment because I know scripturally that great men and women of God grieved terribly and, you know, grieved with a lot of passion in the loss of their children, loss of their mom or dad. And that's another thing. People don't realize that some people are so close to their mom and dad that, you know, that they grieve heavily. I think it's based on relationship. It is.
And, and circumstances surrounding their relationship. Right. Like your situation and my situation. And I'm thinking of, like that, that man that you were talking about a moment ago, that's that lost a son and said, you know, but I'm doing well. And I think if I remember right, that was an estranged relationship.
And then something happened that his son died and his son finally had peace, I think is how he looked at it. My son finally knows peace. He's finally in the presence of the Lord without having to suffer in this world, you know, with whatever it was. So, you know, we just don't know. Right, we don't know. It's different with everyone. And this is why we can't judge someone's grief, thinking, well, that's, you know.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (10:06.413)
That's not, it's sad, but it's not that great of a loss. don't have any place to judge that. no idea what the relationship was with that person. Like when my mom and dad died, we lost Bo in 2009. Three months later, my dad passed. And again, I've shared this before, but it's like I'm at the outdoor, he was a veteran, so they had beautiful outdoor ceremony.
honoring him as a soldier as well as we're honoring him as a dad and All my brothers and sisters or you have a tear there We've been a little bit not all of them But most of them and then I was just sitting there numb because three months later I lost my son So my dad was 87 years old. So it's like he lived a good life. He was a godly man I loved him. He loved me. We had great relationship, but
You know, I mean, yeah, I'd love for him to live to 90 or 95 or a hundred, whatever. But on the funny side, I kind of don't wish you to live that long because the older he got, the harder he was to live with. But anyway, what a great guy he was, though. But the truth is, is that, you know, he lived a full life. And my mom, think, was 87, 88 as well. And she lived a full life. And I miss them. Sure, I love them. But nothing compared to losing our son.
But there are others who lose their mom at 90. There's a guy at the gym that I go to that he just lost his mom and she was 88 years old, but he's he's kind of, he's tender. They really miss him. They really miss her, you know? so, yeah, everybody is different. And so, you know, I know Jill, you, you you had an interesting experience when your mom and dad passed too.
Yeah, I mean, they both were ill when they declined and passed away and they were miserable physically, know, just their physical being was just miserable. And I prayed, I said, Lord, please help them to transition quickly so that they don't have to suffer like this. And so I was glad for them.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (12:34.773)
when death finally came and they were able to be ushered right into the Lord's presence and not have to suffer in this life anymore. that's right. So it's different for everybody. But something that we can learn is that, you know, to acknowledge people's losses, regardless of what they are,
You know, and if someone came up to me, Charlie, I'm so sorry your dad passed. said, well, thank you so much. You know, yeah, he's great, man. I love him. I miss him, but you know, he's, he's good. Thank you so much. So it's very kind of you. And so, you know, it's, it's like, I still appreciate the fact that they thought about it. That, you know, and one statement says the healing power of being seen. In other words, the fact that they saw this loss and I've got a good friend in California who just lost a good friend of his.
I lost my best friend. And just for people to acknowledge it and remember that is amazing. And I know for us, we go out of our way to try to remember even by putting dates on our calendar of when different friends of ours, you know, deceased. Yeah, because, you know, we'll text the spouse or we'll text the dad of the whatever situation it is.
or the brother or sister when we have it comes up on our calendar. And yeah, we're not smart enough to remember every year. And, you know, but they appreciate it. We attacks. Yeah. Or, know, if you see them, you give them a hug. You know, a memory shared. We've had people send little texts. Bo when Bo was in high school, my locker was right next to him and he would always be so sweet to me and so kind to me. And he would walk me to my next class as a gentleman.
And I mean, when she sent that to us, it was a treasure that that will hold for the rest of our life, because, you know, we didn't know all about Bo. We didn't know what he did by by himself at school, you know, with another another lady that, he wasn't they they they weren't boyfriend girlfriend at all. He was just being a kind gentleman. man. Does that ever mean she was beautiful? Well.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (14:54.997)
Maybe he takes advantage of the situation. Maybe. But yeah. And again, remember is saying the people's names and type. We're afraid to say the name of the deceased when you know, if I text a widow friend of Jill and I's, you know, in a group text, I'll just say, you know, thinking about your husband today and I'll name his name. You know, I know that you guys miss him so much. And, you know, just name his name. It's it's it's very, very powerful.
I thought about you today, know, thinking about you today, you know, those kind of things that they do. They do really go a long way. Sometimes Jill and I sit on the anniversaries of Bo's passing or on his birthday. And and we get together with our girls and and, know, and we will say a couple of things to each other and we'll minister to each other. But, you know, since I was sitting there like no one remembered, no one knows, you know, we grieve alone.
And then all of sudden, bing, a little text come through like, our sweetest friend remembered, you know. And today, unfortunately, it's all about Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whatever it is. So if you don't post on one of these social media places, that is the anniversary of the death of your loved one, then nobody, nobody knows and no one remembers and no one said now.
As soon as I put something on Facebook and say, this is both 40th birthday or whatever it was, man, I get texts. get things a mile long of people sharing the condolences, which I greatly appreciate. But again, I guess I'm sharing a little frustration over the fact that we're so connected to the social media world. Why can't we just call each other or at least text each other?
and just say, remember I'm thinking about you, whether I post it on Facebook or not, or Instagram or whatever. Why can't we just remember each other's losses like Jill and I attempt to do? We put it on our calendar. We get a reminder, bing, you know. And if I see something on social media about someone that I'm close to and I didn't have it written down or I hadn't looked at my calendar that day or whatever, I will personally go to them if I have their
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (17:16.513)
their number if we're on a texting basis and I will directly contact them rather than on social media. That's just what I do. I think it's more personal than to go on social media and do that. That's good. That's my own little tip. Yeah. I'm remembering someone right now that we need to contact. So praise the Lord. Well, you know,
Losing a son obviously changed our lives. Many of you have lost a child or someone that you love, a brother, sister, mother. And it's just, it's changed your life. And so we need to be aware that, you know, we don't judge people's other griefs, other people that are grieving, you know, let them live it the way they want to. If it's a brother or sister, don't make it any light, any lighter, you know, don't say, well, it's not a child.
No, it's a big deal. Like you've said more than once on this, Jill, you every person's life and grief is important. Yes. No matter what it is. That's right. Yeah. It may not make sense to you, but it makes sense to them. And that's what matters. Right. If it's a big deal to them, then we ought to love should show that it's a big deal to us. We should at least acknowledge it enough and honor them.
and don't judge them, but just at least say, know, we're with you, we pray with you, we're very sorry, we're standing with you. You know, we continue to our friend who lost his wife continue to just let him know that we're standing with him, we're thinking about him. And of course he has all of his children and his grandchildren. And unfortunately we don't stay as in touch with his children.
as we want to or if we think about, but we're praying that his children have friends that are staying in touch with them. But the problem is, is when you're in your 20s and 30s and 40s even, you don't, you're just not aware of the pain of death as much. You know, I remember I went to my grandfather's funeral. I went to my cousin who died's funeral when I was in my 30s and 40s. But it didn't...
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (19:38.826)
It didn't affect me. Now that I'm older and of course have had loss, whenever anybody, whenever I hear about anybody passing, my heart just breaks. And I immediately want to, what can I do? What can I do? So yeah, we just need to be sensitive to other people, regardless of the loss, whether it's a child, whether it's a grandchild, whether it's a...
mother, father, sister, brother, just a dear close friend, someone they work with. We need to be sensitive to that. Yeah, and reach out to them. And acknowledge it, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely acknowledge it. You know, when his best friend died, he was constantly reaching out to their sons. Yeah. know, and some of the in-laws that we knew.
of the family, we reached out to them as well. So. Sometimes on the anniversaries, we will not only reach out to the widow, my friend's wife, but we'll also reach out to their kids if we can. Yeah. So. then it touches them so much. Matter fact, we were with them on the one year anniversary of his friend's passing. And we.
they were in St. Louis. we went to St. Louis and to just be with them for that time because they decided they had had his ashes that they kept in a beautiful urn there in the home for a year, but they decided they wanted to bury the ashes. So we were with them, excuse me, just spent the day with them. got flowers for each of the kids families and, and then we all we took them out to lunch afterwards and
And I remember one of the sons saying, man, you guys really know how to do it. bless them. don't remember that. Yeah. And, you just it all depends on the relationship that you have. But it it meant the world to them that someone was acknowledging. Yeah. The depth of of this impact on their family. Standing with them through that whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Going to the funeral, going to the grave site.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (21:56.769)
Yeah. Just being we were honored that we were the only non-family member that they allowed to go. We were honored. But of course, we were best friends with with their father and of course, their husband. Best man in their way. Yeah. He was your best man. I miss him dearly. We think about him all the time. And he was a very funny guy, too. So we'll just be.
Walk into the day and we'll say Larry would have said this and we just laugh out loud because we remember him and then we'll text his wife sometime and say we just remembered Larry when he would say this and she comes back, you you think, don't mention it because she's going to be sad. No, she comes back with a ha ha. She goes, yeah, he was such an amazing guy. He was so funny. You know, she gets blessed. Yeah, she does. And she'll even shoot back a funny one. Yeah, we call them Larry isms. Right.
Lary-isms back and forth. again, it's a lot of also learning the relationship and learning what will help and what won't help in a given situation. So once you get a hold of that, you you could just you can just run with it. So, yeah, for sure. Well, kindness, patience, listening, being present, compassion, all of these great things are just so important in helping each other. And I know
that all of you out there can say a big amen. Yeah, these are just all ways we can show love. know, love is an action word. Yes. If you did well in grammar class when you were in school, verbs are action words and love is a verb. It's an action word. And so, you know, these are all just ways that we can reach out and show love to these families and individuals that are struggling from...
losing someone. on. Yeah. So don't forget, don't forget the siblings, the daughter-in-laws, the son-in-laws, the grandchildren, the close friend, all of them, the caregiver, mean, based on your relationship. Yeah. Don't forget these guys, you know, because they're all hurting and that's an important lesson for us all. They are all hurting and we need to do whatever we can to bring comfort. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Well, listen, this has been great.
Charlie & Jill LeBlanc (24:14.614)
pray that, you what was the theme of this again? Those who are seen to be unseen, you know, to the unseen ones, you know. So we're just remembering them and- The hidden mourner. Yeah, that's true. But just terrible for someone to have to mourn by themselves and they're afraid to let other people know. So anyway, we could go on forever, but we sure love you and we appreciate you. And we encourage you to go to our podcast and-
Share it with us, especially this one. Share it with your loved ones that maybe haven't had losses so that they can begin to understand. so we just encourage you to just like our podcast, go to our website, look at the resources we have to help grieving people. We have our book, as Jill mentioned last podcast, you know, finding hope to carry on when death turns your world upside down is the subtitle.
When Lost Comes Close to Home, Andrew Womack and Joyce Meyer did a forward in that book. We're very blessed that they did. They're very kind people. And you can find it on Amazon on audio form, as well as Kindle form. And then we have the printed form. You can get it through Amazon on print or through us. Yes. Charlieandjill.com.
So God bless all of you. We pray that this helped you and you had a lot of amen's during it. So God bless you, love you, and we'll look forward to seeing you again in the next podcast. God bless.