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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 and welcome to another episode of Finding Hope. Getting Through What You Never Asked For.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we've been through some difficult times that we never asked for, and I think many of you as well have probably been through some tough times that you didn't expect, didn't ask for, and never wanted. My heart goes out to many who have been through divorces. That has got to be one of the hardest things next to losing a loved one that there is because there's so many similarities, you know, all of a sudden. You have a dream as a little girl, a little boy, you know, I'm gonna get married, I'm gonna have kids, and and we're gonna live happily ever after, you know. Kids are gonna grow up, and my husband and I are gonna live into a golden old age, you know, and together, and then all of a sudden something happens in the midst of all that, and the husband or the wife decides to leave. And that's awful. You know, I'm not judging anyone, I'm just saying that hurts. That's what that's what I'm trying to say.
Jill LeBlanc:I remember my sister said she was divorced, I don't know how many years ago, but she said it was almost worse than a death because it continued to crop back up. They have three children, and the children were teenagers, I guess, when they I know they separated a long time before they got divorced, but but, you know, they had to work out. They didn't share custody, but they shared other things and as well as child support and it's a mess.
Jill LeBlanc:Things like that. Yeah. And so it as long as he wasn't around or in her life, she was good. But, you know, anytime he had to pop up, she had to see him or had to work something out with him or whatever, or get money from him. That was hard.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. That's tough.
Jill LeBlanc:Divorce is awful.
Charlie LeBlanc:It really is.
Jill LeBlanc:We have a good friend who was divorced and the whole family was involved in the church. They were awesome. Three kids, just one of my favorite families. And then, the husband left.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And it was as if when she came back, when she would come to church, people just stayed away by the droves.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:They didn't know what to say to her, so they didn't say anything, and she felt invisible. And that happens a lot.
Charlie LeBlanc:It happens a lot, to those who go through divorces. And if you lose your husband-
Jill LeBlanc:Your spouse.
Charlie LeBlanc:Your spouse, you know, let's say these two or three couples, they get together all the time and then all of a sudden, you lose your husband and you're there alone and they don't invite you anymore.
Charlie LeBlanc:Or they come to church and she has to sit alone. I remember being at church about last year and we were worshiping and I saw this one single elderly lady in front of us in a chair by herself, no one near her. And I didn't know what her life story was, I didn't know what the situation was, but my heart just kept leaping out in compassion for her. And, at the right time, when it says greet one another, you know, or something, I went over to her and I just, you know, gave her a little side hug and said, you know, God bless you. I can't remember what I said, but, you know, then later there was another moment where, hold hands and let's pray together, and I held her hand or whatever. And at the end of the service, she came up to me and she just said, Thank you so much. I think, I don't remember exactly, I think she said she had just lost her husband. And I just thought, wow. You know, people who have had losses, whether it's divorce, whether it's death, they need people to love them. They need people to care for them. They need people to help them.
Charlie LeBlanc:And if you're in that situation, praying that you will find people that can just sit with you, talk with you, listen to your heart, and minister to your broken heart. That's our desire right now, is to do that as well.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, and if you can get involved with like a singles group at your church or, you know, sadly some people have to create a new group of friends that they do things with. But I just encourage you to try to get bold and just get out of your comfort zone a little bit and try to find community somewhere. It's very important to not isolate yourself and just try to to muscle through this on your own. It's it's so helpful to have people with you to walk with you through this time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. I'm thinking when you said that, I'm thinking about this one friend of ours from church who'd recently lost her husband. And she, after the first service, between the first service and second service, was always a little band playing in the foyer. They're just kind of bluegrass country, but they're singing all Jesus songs.
Jill LeBlanc:And they're kind of a geezer band.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it's kind of fun.
Jill LeBlanc:It's all whiteheads.
Charlie LeBlanc:They're older, they're all- White hair. Wonderful people, and we always get entertained by that. But just the last time I walked by, all of sudden I looked, and there was this woman who had lost her husband a couple months earlier, but there she was, she was a singer, And so she was there singing, and I think-
Jill LeBlanc:And she never had before.
Charlie LeBlanc:No, she had never done that before. So I was real proud of her for just doing something to help her and be around some people and friends. So, yeah, it's important to find community, like you said. Find people who can help us. I know for us, right after we lost Beau, within that year, we decided to accept a position with Andrew Wommack in leading, starting the music and worship school at Charis Bible College in Colorado Springs. And so we were living in St. Louis, but we made an agreement with him that we would fly in every Sunday night and we would teach and start the school and do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we'd fly home. I know that sounds crazy, but we-
Jill LeBlanc:It was.
Charlie LeBlanc:It was. But we did that, and quite often on Wednesday nights, Andrew would have a conference that we led worship at that we'd have to, from school, go straight to the conference and lead worship at the conference Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then Sunday we'd go back to Colorado and start the school again on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So we did that on and off for nine months. And this was within the year that Beau passed. There was a-
Jill LeBlanc:No, actually, or was that the year after?
Charlie LeBlanc:No, it was within the year that we started.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, 2009. So- Right. But there was a two edged sword with that.
Jill LeBlanc:Right, exactly.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, on one hand, we had community, we had young worship leaders and musicians that we were around and mentoring and teaching them as loving on them like our own son. It was a healing balm in a lot of ways.
Jill LeBlanc:It was.
Charlie LeBlanc:But the stress of flying back and forth and handling and preparing to teach and leading worship, I mean, it was so hard that after nine months, we just went to Andrew and said, We can't do this anymore. It's too hard.
Jill LeBlanc:So we started that position about eight months after Beau passed away. So we were still so broken. But we would pull it together and do this because I don't know. I really think it was the Lord that we did that. Some people said, are you crazy?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You guys don't need that, you know, right now in your lives. But but I I feel like we did I don't I didn't feel it then, but I know now that we did need that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Because of of what he was just sharing.
Jill LeBlanc:But it was still so hard. And we've we've said this before. There were times that we would drive in in the morning, and we would have 7AM rehearsals before school or 06:45 maybe before school started at 8:00, and we'd do a chapel from 8:00 to 08:45. But there were times we would arrive and in the parking lot and and it didn't happen often, but we there were a few times that we just sat in the car and held hands and cried because we were just still so broken.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:But yeah, we just kind of manned up, pulled it together and went in and did our job here. And, you know, so people don't always understand how grief affects a person for a long time. And it can be a long time. It's not for everyone, but for most, especially if it's an unexpected or tragic loss. It's and you just don't you don't always know that they're going through this. But but if you know that someone has lost someone in the in the recent past or even if it was an untimely death a few years ago, possibly, I would just encourage you to reach out to them and just love on them.
Charlie LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Jill LeBlanc:And and even let them know that that you realize that they're walking through a really tough season, but that you are holding them close in prayer. And just give them some of your heart, spend a little time with them and it'll that'll go so far. Those will be seeds that you sow that you will reap from throughout eternity.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. Yeah. And, you know, this the heart of missing your loved one really never goes away. I'm sure that on my deathbed I'm gonna be thinking about Beau and just, you know, looking forward to seeing him. But even sixteen years later, we were recently working on a project, you were collecting things for someone to help us with a podcast or with a writing, writing a journal or something, I can't remember what it was, but you told me that you fell into tears.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh, yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right in the middle of it.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, trying to think what that was.
Charlie LeBlanc:You were getting uh...
Jill LeBlanc:Oh, I was working on just, I was pulling all those classes together that we're gonna be recording.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, see.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And just going through different things in preparation for those. And oh my gosh.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Just rereading some of our journey.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And some of the things that we've been through and things that people said to us.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And every time someone would mention Beau, mention what an amazing guy he was, or I wish I could have known him. Sounds like, you know, just such a dude. And it would just my heart would swell, not with pride, but just almost with grief. And here we are sixteen years later, and and I would maybe tear up a little bit, but then I would go on some more, and then something else like that would pop up. And and eventually, it just built up to where it all started coming down, you know? Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:It still happens.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it's still there. And, you know, when we- Shortly after Beau passed, I remember thinking, I'm gonna start journaling this. I'd always been a journaler, but, you know, after Beau passed, was like, I'm done. I'm done with everything. I'm done with life. I don't even wanna do anything anymore. We lost our heart. As we said in the last podcast, our heart was crushed, brokenhearted. We had no hope for the future, we didn't know what we would do, where we would go, we didn't know if we would make it through it. I'm honestly, we really didn't know how this would turn out in our lives.
Charlie LeBlanc:I wanted to get through it in a healthy manner and I called different minister friends of mine who had lost children, I said, "Help, I'm drowning." What can you do to help me? And they would always give me a little word of encouragement, and so many people did, and helped us along the way. But I'm so glad that I decided to start journaling, because I just wanted to capture how I felt at that moment, because sixteen years later, you know, we're doing so much better, and you know, we miss and love Beau, but in order to write the book, you know, speaking of the book, this is our book, When Loss Comes Close to Home, and it's subtitled Finding Hope to Carry On, When Death Turns Your World Upside Down. And that's exactly what happened to us, our world was turned upside down.
Charlie LeBlanc:But, you know, I remember we started looking back at some of the things we had written in our journals and just started recapturing the emotion and the pain that's so real, and it's so hard. And it's hard for me at times. Every now and then I can get that feeling again, I can grab that glimpse again, but of course you were crying recently, but we still cry. It just depends on when and what and what triggers. But those raw emotions, and I found this in our book actually, this was something I wrote in my journal three years after Beau's departure. Now that's three years.
Charlie LeBlanc:So people would think, Oh, three years, Charlie.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, you should be over it by now.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh gosh, listen, can remember around the three year mark that I thought, Oh, wow, I think I can believe God again. I think I'm beginning to see a little bit of a vision of what our future might be, you know, that God could still use us. You know, don't get me wrong, we went back into worship leading about four months, you know, three to four months after we lost Beau. Oh, Andrew was so sweet.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, Y'all take as much time off as y'all want, you know, we'll cover you, the meetings will get them covered by the worship leaders, but y'all take as much time, we want you to get better, we want you to get through this thing in a healthy manner, and then about three months later he said, How y'all doing? Praise the Lord, you ready to come back? God bless him, because he really missed us leading worship for his conference, and we really missed him and the crew there too. It was hard. It was hard to get back into leading worship and being around so many people that are just, all they can think of is rejoice with those who rejoice.
Charlie LeBlanc:No one understood seemingly how to weep with those who weep out of Romans the twelfth chapter. That's another whole teaching that I'm not gonna get into right now. Yeah, getting back into that environment where everybody just wants us to lead them in worship. Everybody wants us to just lead us in praise and let's have a good time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Let's do some fun songs!
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, do some fun songs. And I'm like, Well, yeah, I love Jesus with all my heart, but I'm just not quite ready for jumping up and down just yet. But we went through it and God gave us grace and we did what we had to do. Yeah. And God helped us and we did it with a pure heart, with all of our heart, but, you know, sometimes we just felt like we were like robots just getting it done.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. And actually, I was at times.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:I was totally in autopilot mode for the first several months.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Well, the Lord knew our hearts. That's the beautiful thing. The Bible says that, and we've said this scripture a lot in Hebrews, that he's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. And so he feels what we feel.
Charlie LeBlanc:In fact, I've read the scripture in Isaiah many times that says he suffers when we suffer. So that's the beautiful thing about God is that he totally gets it. He understands, he understands our pain, he doesn't rebuke us for pain, He loves us, He walks beside us, He comforts us, He hangs in there with us. As we're healing, He's hanging in there with us, loving on us, and healing our broken places. And so I found this, and I wrote it and put it in the book, so it's a little bit long, just bear with me.
Charlie LeBlanc:But what I love about this is this is three years after Beau passed that I sat down and wrote this. It just shows you how even that far along in the journey, how difficult it can still be. So I said this, I said, so what I'm trying to say is losing a loved one, especially a child, is like you get cut deeply, something is ripped out of you, like you have an accident and one of your internal organs is ripped out of you, or like a part of your heart is torn out of you. Maybe you survive the accident as we did, but you are missing a vital part, and obviously we were missing Beau. On top of that, if you have a serious wound, which is very painful and needs time to heal.
Charlie LeBlanc:So you get cut, but that healing doesn't come right away. Healing takes time, and it takes time to heal even if you cut yourself. Healing is a process, and during that process there are painful days. Sometimes when fentanyl is healing, it could be itching and hurting, it's like, ah, you know, but it's healing, and that's the way it was with us in our healing process. There were times that really hurt so bad, but we knew by the grace of God, we trusted, we hoped that our healing process was still going.
Charlie LeBlanc:Then sometimes you begin to heal and you hit the wound and it reopens. And that's what happens in grief too, is there's times when, you know, you might infected and the doctor has to cut it open again. Healing is a beautiful thing, Jesus healing broken hearts, but it doesn't mean that you won't still hurt while you're being healed. In many cases there's a process of healing in the soul, getting through some of this tough stuff, which many times is not instant. For Jill and me, it took a lot of time.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I got that capital letters with dashes in between it in the book. T-I-M-E, time. It just takes a lot of time for some people, not for everybody. For Jill and me, it did. And I know for a fact that Godly, faith filled men and women have experienced tragic loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:Many of them, it took a lot of time for them to get through it as well. So I just wanted to give you a little peek into three years after Bo passed, I just had this burden on my heart to just say, Listen, this still hurts, this takes time, it's like a wound, don't judge someone who's still hurting. You just gotta be patient and let them heal. As we've said in many of the podcasts, the Lord said, you do the loving, let God do the fixing. You need to just love people and be patient with people, we need to be that way, and just let God do his healing process.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. I'd like to read a little something from our book, if I may. And it's a quote from his name is Doctor Colin Murray Parkes. And it's it's from a book called that he wrote called Studies of Grief in Adult Life. And he says the pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love.
Jill LeBlanc:It is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact or to pretend that it's not so is to put on emotional blinders, which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitably occur in our own lives and unprepared to help others cope with losses in theirs. And then Rabbi Grollman says this, grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It's an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity. And then he quotes Doctor Parks, which is the price you pay for love.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So we experienced that cost of love in our lives. And I know many of you have as well. And it's it's not something to cower from. The grief journey is just something we have to go through. But God will, God will meet you there, and he will help you walk through this time because he's faithful.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. Yes, he is. Speaking of faithful, you know, that great song, great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. You know, when when Beau died, I really struggled with the thoughts of God being faithful and and and, you know, because it didn't seem like that was the case in that moment. And then, so this great hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, I was just happened to be reading in Lamentations one day, and I noticed the scriptures before that song, or that scripture, which turned into a great song, and it just jumped out of the page to me and really, really made sense.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I'm gonna read it to you out of the New Living Translation, Lamentations 3:20-23, and we might read 24 as well. But he says, this Jeremiah, he says, I cry out, my splendor is gone, everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost. And brothers and sisters, you may be in that position, I know we were, that everything we had hoped for from the Lord was lost. And then he goes on to say, this thought of my suffering is bitter beyond words. And really it was for us. It was so bitter. And then he says this, I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. I just appreciate this transparency of this prophet just saying, you know, my suffering's bitter. I'm never gonna forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. And that's the truth, people.
Charlie LeBlanc:You'll never really forget all that you've been through. And I thank God that we don't fully forget it so that I can help others understand and walk through this difficult time. But the scripture goes on to say, I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss, yet, this is amazing, he turns it around, yet I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercies never cease, great is his faithfulness. What a beautiful song.
Charlie LeBlanc:But I love that thought that he says, I'm hurting, everything I'd hoped for is lost, my suffering's bitter beyond words, I'm never gonna forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. But then he says, yet I will still dare, I love that word, dare, to hope. Because it's almost like I'm a little bit afraid to hope again because my hope was crushed, as you said earlier. A hope deferred makes the heart sick. Your heart is crushed when your hope is broken.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so it's almost like you're afraid to hope again. You're afraid to believe again. You're afraid to expect again because nothing worked this first time. And again, I know everyone's journey is different. We're just sharing parts of what our journey is.
Charlie LeBlanc:Maybe your journey was a lot easier than that, maybe it was worse. But I love the prophet being transparent here and saying, yet I still dare to hope. So I'm gonna take a chance here and dare to hope, but he says, this is how I dare to hope, when I remember that the Lord's love never ends, that his mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh every morning.
Charlie LeBlanc:I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance, therefore I will hope in him. But I just love that, that we felt like we had lost all hope. I struggled with the faithfulness of God, but he says, when I remember this, that his faithful love never ends. There's so many scriptures I'm thinking about right now, but the love of God is what really pulled us through this difficult I remember in New Living in Romans 8, it says, does it mean he no longer loves us? Paul said, if I go through all the difficulty he went through with beatings and shipwrecks and nakedness and starvation and stonings, he said, Does it mean he no longer loves us?
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's the beauty of it. No, it doesn't mean he no longer loves us. We live in a fallen world, we have an enemy that's out to kill, steal and destroy from us, and we can know that God loves us even in our pain, even in our suffering, he suffers. We can know that he is, you can know that he's with you right now, that he cares, that he wants to comfort you, he wants to hold you, he wants to carry you through your difficult times. God bless you, praise the Well, we just wanted to say that we love you and we pray that God just continues to help you in your situation.
Charlie LeBlanc:Lord, I just pray that you strengthen them, encourage them, comfort them, and just be a healing balm. You heal broken hearts, Lord. We expect it. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, that's all the time we have for now. So God bless you. We love you. Don't forget our book, When Loss Comes Close to Home. Get it, it's on our website, on bookstores, on lots of places.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, and links are below. If you're watching on YouTube, there will be some links following that you can look at. And please subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already, and be sure to give it a little thumbs up, and that helps us to reach more people. And you can also share it with others that you feel like benefit, that would be a blessing. This message that we shared today, you can share it with someone you know.
Jill LeBlanc:So thank you so much for joining with us today, and we're looking so forward to continue sharing with you every week. God bless.