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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 the Finding Hope Podcast. We're Charlie and Jill, and we are just so happy to be here with you today. We have some things to share that we believe will be an encouragement to you, hopefully an inspiration. And I just want to give a disclaimer right up front. We have encountered a very tragic loss in the in the last in in this week that we're recording this.
Jill LeBlanc:And so please bear with us if we are a little more emotional than even we normally are because someone especially is usually pretty emotional.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Our hearts are really tender and broken.
Jill LeBlanc:Here we go.
Charlie LeBlanc:Sorry. Because, yeah, a real dear friend left us this week.
Jill LeBlanc:Yep.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so we've been with the family a lot and, funeral and so on. But, but nonetheless, you know, that's what this podcast is all about is understanding grief and understanding your pain, you understanding our pain. And so we hope that this will be a time that will encourage you and help you in your journey as well.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Well, one of the things we wanted to do today was take a couple of clips from the recent interview we had with Joyce Meyer on her Talk It Out podcast. We're gonna take a few clips and just talk about them and just see where it goes from there. So we hope you find some encouragement in all these things that are gonna be put out today.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. You know, speaking of Joyce, you know, we met her many, many years ago. People don't you may wonder, well, why were we on her podcast? Well, we met her back in the 70s, I guess it was, in St. Louis, Missouri, and before she was in ministry.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then we went off to Bible school and went off in ministry. And when we came back to St. Louis later, we found ourselves on staff with Joyce Meyer at a local church and we became even closer friends at that point. And then back in 1985, I guess it was, is when she took off into her ministry and we took off into our ministry and we stayed, good friends. And then back in '97, many years later, she asked us to lead worship for her conferences, which we did for seven years.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it was a really, a real great time of ministry with Joyce and, of course, getting much closer to her and her husband, Dave, whom we just respect so much. But, they they invited us, when when Beau when we lost our son Beau, they really jumped in the middle of that and they were very kind and helpful and supported us through that whole journey just as Andrew and Jamie Womack did and many other of our dear friends and pastors around the world supported us throughout tragedy. But we were so blessed when Joyce, first of all, when we wrote the book, we asked her if she would, write the forward in it along with we asked Andrew Womack also to write the forward. And Joyce was very kind enough to do that and to endorse our book and push it. And we were, again, so blessed when she called us and said, would you guys be on our podcast?
Charlie LeBlanc:And I was like, wow, we would be honored. So, that day came and we had such a wonderful time sharing with her. And you're going to see some of that here on our podcast here. And, so we hope you administers to you. And we're going to, like Jill said, show a clip about a five minute clip of us on her set in St. Louis.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then after that, we'll talk a little bit about the things that we talked about. Her program's called Talk It Out, so we're gonna talk it out some more. All right. So God bless you, as you watch this clip.
Ginger Stache:Can we start by talking a little bit about your son and the terrible loss that you faced? But tell us a little bit about him.
Jill LeBlanc:He was an incredible young man. He just was full of life. He lit up a room when he walked in, and he was one of these guys that everyone just loved, and he was funny, he was just so great.
Charlie LeBlanc:Great musician, very artistic, yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And he was 22 and began to complain about a sore throat. And so fast forward, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and it just was a nine month battle of fighting all of that and standing and believing. I mean, fought on every level. We fought medically. We fought natural remedies. We stood in faith on the word of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:In the hospitals and the Mayo Clinic.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, all that. And nine months later, he passed. And so we were blown out of the water. It was such a huge loss. We have two daughters besides, and he was our youngest. They were all so close as siblings, I mean, super close. And so it was a, it was like a sudden death, even though we had this nine month journey, but we were believing God that even if he did pass, that the Lord would raise him up. We just knew that this was not gonna be the end. And ended up it was the end. So we were very just blown out of the water.
Jill LeBlanc:I personally was super angry because I just felt like we tried so hard to stand in faith. We fought so hard. Anyway, I was mad at God for a long time. And we didn't minister for several months. We took some time off. And even when we started, what I mean by ministers, leading worship, we didn't do a lot of teaching. We didn't really do any teaching during that time. But when we would lead worship, I was just a shell. I was an autopilot. I was just up there.
Jill LeBlanc:I would be cordial to people, but I would leave the room afterwards and go to my hotel room or whatever. So it was just whatever we could do to survive. But it was a major loss, and it affected our family big time.
Joyce Meyer:Did it affect your marriage at all? I know a lot of times people end up divorced when they lose a child.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it does. You know, had a friend at our house the day of the funeral. We had the house full, and a pastor actually came to us, pulled us aside, and said that it can affect marriages, and many times marriages don't make it because of the loss. And he warned us to be on guard for that, and that really helped us. So it helped us.
Charlie LeBlanc:We prayed together. We said, Okay, we're not gonna let this happen. And we just took some precautions in our grief journey to say, I just looked at Jill and thought, you know, when she's hurting, I'm leaving her alone. You're letting her get through that. When she would see me hurting, she'd let me grieve.
Charlie LeBlanc:And sometimes when I would be edgy, I would let her know. I said, listen, it's not you. I'm just having a rough time with the loss of Beau today, so don't take it personally. Know? So, yeah, we worked on that, but it it was something to have to be on guard with for sure. Yeah.
Joyce Meyer:I've heard that a lot of people don't make it because each partner grieves differently.
Charlie LeBlanc:Exactly. And the other side of that too is when you're hurting, you want someone to help you.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And when that person that you want to help you is hurting too, then how, you know, and thankfully there were moments when she wouldn't be hurting as bad as I was and she could help me and vice versa.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:So we hope you enjoyed that clip. Yeah, there was a real special time. They were showed a lot of love and a lot of compassion and they asked a lot of good questions. In fact, we have another clip that's going to come up in just a few minutes. Jill, that one question about marriage.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. That's a really important one.
Jill LeBlanc:It really is because it it can be such a platform for the enemy to move in
Charlie LeBlanc:Yep.
Jill LeBlanc:And destroy a marriage.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yep.
Jill LeBlanc:And, you know, we've, I did a lot of research when I was writing about that part in our book, the numbers are really kind of all over the map. The typical understanding from many people is that it's a very large percentage of couples that end in divorce once a child dies. You know, like I said, if you look at this link resource, it's massive. If you look at another resource, it's like, you know, it's not the majority, but it is.
Charlie LeBlanc:But nonetheless.
Jill LeBlanc:Definitely affects marriage.
Charlie LeBlanc:It definitely is tough. I know that, you know, in our journey, like we said on the thing on broadcast, there were moments, I mean, let's face it, marriage can be tough enough without something like this. And, you know, Jill and I love each other, but we've had our differences and we're created differently in God, we think differently. And so, you know, marriage can be hard at times anyway. And then, you know, you have this loss and you're devastated.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I think I've shared before on this podcast that, you know, it it worked both ways with me where there was a part of me that that looked at you, Jill, and just said, you know, my compassion for you having lost a son was touched me deeply and overwhelmed me at times and made me just very tender. But then when I would be hurting a lot, I would be selfish and wanting more from you as well, you know? And so but you couldn't give it at times. So that's kind of the issue is that you want someone to help you, but they really can't because they're hurting.
Jill LeBlanc:This is a God thing.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, God is the one to to help. I mean, you know, we both did our best to be kind to each other, and especially once we realized what was happening with the other one. You know?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:We would take turns, like you said, having bad days or bad moments.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. Normally, we weren't both there at the same time, but it did happen.
Charlie LeBlanc:It did happen.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. But, you know, we we have to we have to let God be the one that we run to and and and hold our hearts.
Charlie LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Jill LeBlanc:Because we can only do so much, but the Lord is is is our helper.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And he wants to help us in those times. It's tough for parents when you lose children.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah it can be really tough.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's really probably one of the most difficult things that anybody can experience. So we're I tell you what, we're going to go ahead and go on to another clip of of our time with Joyce and and her team. And we just pray that this continues to help you.
Ginger Stache:Well, thing with losing a child like that, exactly what you're saying about you'll always have a pain when you think of the loss, because with that was the opportunity for relationships to build and what he might have accomplished and potential grandchildren and larger family and things like that. So you're just always thinking of what would have been. Lost a sister at birth, and I just think about, after all these years, wow, what would it be like to have a sister? And so I think it's the what ifs sometimes that are really hard.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And when you go through something like this, of course, you you have a lot of what ifs. You know, I wish we would have. What if we'd have done this? Why didn't we do this? You know, and all this.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:It can drive you crazy.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:It can it can keep you up at night.
Joyce Meyer:The devil will try to blame it on you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Absolutely. No doubt. I'm the man of the house. I'm the priest. I should have been able to command healing. I should have been able to be the one to find the right doctors. And so I felt like a loser big time. And the enemy will just really pound you with that and try to cause you to lose everything. Like I've said in the book even that I wanted to just go to Downtown St. Louis and drink myself to death.
Charlie LeBlanc:I was ready to run, but I couldn't do that to my wife and my two daughters because I understood the pain of the losses. That would be selfish of me to get myself out of pain. But yeah, it's a really hard journey, and I think we do need to be patient with people and be patient with ourselves. You know, because I've had widows, close friends of ours who have lost their husbands, and, you know, a year later, calling us crying, saying, What do I do? I know, I feel embarrassed, and I'm still crying.
Charlie LeBlanc:I know God loves me. Know God's great, but I come home to an empty house, and I can't take it, you know? And we've just been able to minister to them and say, Listen, it's okay. Listen, you have permission to cry all you want. In fact, I do believe, and that's another whole subject, but I believe that crying actually is a vent almost of health.
Joyce Meyer:Oh yeah, it's a release.
Charlie LeBlanc:Into your soul, it is. It's a release. And as the scripture says, it's precious in his sight. Our tears are precious to him. He keeps them in a bottle.
Charlie LeBlanc:There's nothing unholy, ungodly about it. It says, Godly men buried Stephen and mourned greatly for him. You know, godly men. Great men of God, of David's great warriors said they wept until they could weep no more.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, and so just the whole aspect of thinking that weeping and mourning is not manly or you're not in faith anymore. Well, you know what? Maybe you're not, but maybe you're in a deeper faith. And like you said, Joyce, know, sometimes intercession, and, know, I've been looking at that Romans 8, this intercession thing of when we don't know what to pray as we ought, we pray with groanings. And I feel like sometimes when I've just sat there crying and hurting and groaning that it was my heart, the Holy Spirit praying through me to God. So there's so many angles.
Speaker 6:One thing in the book that I appreciate that you guys wrote about was, as a person, like my husband lost his dad a couple years ago. And so it's not my dad, but I loved him deeply. And I love my husband. I'm watching him grieve. And so I thought oftentimes, I thought, I don't know how to handle my emotions because I feel guilty for feeling them because it's not my dad.
Speaker 6:And I need to be strong for him. But you guys put words to those who are I don't remember how you phrased it, but like your daughters who lost their brother. And when it's somebody who's not directly connected to you, but it's a little bit different. My feelings are still real. It's okay that I'm grieving too.
Speaker 6:Also, how do I support my husband who is grieving an even bigger lust than me? So I appreciate that you put words to that because I don't think we know how to do that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, to acknowledge that. Like even in the green room, I said, So how is your husband? And I immediately thought in my heart, How are you? Because I know you had a relationship with your father-in-law as well. And sometimes we forget that.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, someone would go to our kids, How's your mom and dad? But my kids were breaking. They were hurting so bad. And so that's really a good thing to remember.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I was driving in the car last night. We had a car issue. So I borrowed my mother in law's car. And so it's her husband who passed away.
Speaker 6:And so in the car, I was connecting my phone, and it says Mark's iPhone. And so it's Mark who passed away. And so I thought when I thought it's Okay to cry, Erin, it's okay to miss him. You're alone. And then I remember what you all had talked about.
Speaker 6:Like, it's okay for me to feel sad. And I felt for my husband. And it's just like, it's been three years. But it still felt so fresh. So I just it's hard.
Ginger Stache:That's that there's no limit
Speaker 6:Yeah, absolutely.
Ginger Stache:-to God's always healing, but there will always come those fresh waves of grief that we don't expect. At very inopportune times.
Charlie LeBlanc:Unexpected, yeah. You'll see something, smell smell something. I hear a song that remind me of Beau. And it's not always that I'll start crying, but I just miss him. We landed at St. Louis Airport, and we go, We love St. Louis. Have such fond memories here, and all that. And then I'm driving down 270, and I'm passing St. John's Hospital, where Bo was many times, and where Larry Mintz, a close friend of mine, died recently, less than two years ago now.
Charlie LeBlanc:And my heart just went, Ugh. Yeah. You know? So it and you know what? The tears, it's not like I said, it's not always bad.
Charlie LeBlanc:And people are afraid to make someone cry, but tears aren't they aren't bad. They can be healing.
Ginger Stache:I completely agree. And there's a reason that God made us like this. There's a reason that he gave us such deep love for each other and emotions and tears to express grief. But when I start to feel like I'm gonna cry, I mean, my head would just explode if I could let it, trying to hold everything in. My face will get all red.
Speaker 6:Usually your eyes go up too.
Ginger Stache:I know. And we do. We try everything we can to avoid. And sometimes I don't know if it's to avoid my pain or if it's to avoid someone else seeing my pain. I don't wanna be embarrassed by it.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Ginger Stache:And both those things are not in line with God's Word at all.
Jill LeBlanc:That was pretty touching, that little clip there. Several things hit a little chord in me. One of the things that Ginger mentioned about just thinking about what life could have been had it been different.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's so hard.
Jill LeBlanc:And I remember when it hit me that in our situation, losing our son, he was a young man, and he had a girlfriend before he got sick, but just never meeting, him never getting married, me never having a daughter-in-law, like it's all about me, you know? Right. And us never having his children, you know, our grandchildren from him. And I remember when that thought hit me, how hard it hit me. And, oh my gosh, it just sprung a whole gusher of emotion.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. The reality of that is is so tough. I mean, obviously, you know, sixteen years later, we've well, even last night, you know, both of our daughters were here at the house and, for a few minutes, and I just looked over at them and it was getting late and I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but I didn't want to leave the moment because there were my two daughters, they're adult daughters now, they both have kids, but they were my two daughters and and, you know, my son's not there, but my daughters were. So I just didn't want to leave that moment. But same time I was really tired.
Charlie LeBlanc:So but yes, it's those things that you just remember that, like you said, Jill, just both children and grandchildren. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to have that one, you know, so cross that one off the list, you know, but but also, it it struck me how important it is. And we've said this so many times before to let yourself cry, you know, when you get hit with these things. You know, like we've been with the family of our dear friend who passed away this week, and you know, there's been a lot of tears flowing, and I remember, like the oldest son, there was a moment we were with him in the kitchen, and the daughter, and he was struggling, we were hugging each other, and he was just crying and crying, so I encouraged him when cry passed, I said, Listen, don't stop yourself from crying. I mean, if you're in the middle of a situation where you just have to put it on pause for a minute, that's fine, but you let yourself cry as much as you can. And he said, Noted. Because he said, I don't think I'm gonna not be able to, but it's it's so important.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, definitely.
Jill LeBlanc:And even what Erin shared about her father-in-law, you know, that that little shocking situation that she wasn't expecting three years after he passed away. But all of a sudden she turned her car on and it tried to link to Mark's iPhone and how hard that was for her. I remember something like that happening to me. Back home after being away for most of the year, just tending to, you know, just all kinds of reasons. You can read about it in our book.
Jill LeBlanc:But I remember looking for something in in the garage, you know, and we had brought all of Beau's things back to our house. He was living in Arizona at the time, and and I was searching all these drawers for something, and all of a sudden, I opened a drawer and it was full of his things. And I wasn't expecting to see that, and I was so shocked and just burst it out in a storm of tears.
Jill LeBlanc:And when you're not expecting something like that, it can be really shocking, like she said. So, you know, just to say, for those of you that are walking through maybe a new loss, maybe it's just been a few years, these things will just continue to happen, and it's okay. It's just part of life now, and it's not fun, it's not comfortable, we don't like it, it's just part of it.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and, you know, Ginger said something too that we took a little bit different direction, but she lost a sister, you know, a sibling. At birth. Yeah. At birth. And she thinks a lot about what it would have been like.
Jill LeBlanc:To have a sister.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Apparently, she didn't have one at all.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, in this week that we've been with our dear family of the of of a dear friend who we lost, the way it's affecting the entire family. I mean, you've got, you've got grandkids. They're two olders two older sons that are married and have two two children each.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, and then they have two two, children living at home. But you've got our friend who's lost his wife, who's broken. We've got children who've lost their mom way too young. We've got grandchildren.
Jill LeBlanc:They don't really realize they're all young.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, but they're like, where where is she? You know, kind of a thing. But but nonetheless, it continues to hurt right on down the line. And if we were there, like Jill said, hugging their son, you know, they all needed so much help. They all need continual ministry, not just our friend who lost his wife, but the children.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we always need to be aware of all the different levels of loss that are around us when someone, you know, when we lose someone. And like you said about the situation with Beau, I saw on my phone this morning, something came on about our friend who passed and something bounced at my phone. I went, oh my gosh. And it was just for a moment shocking because I thought she's gone. You know, we'll never see her again on this side.
Charlie LeBlanc:We'll never obviously we'll see her in heaven. But on this side, we'll never we'll never get to spend time with her. We'll never get to laugh like we did and talk like we did and have our family time together with families. And it's a real tough go. So it hasn't even fully sunk into our hearts yet, to be perfectly honest with you.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's been a week where we've been with the family.
Jill LeBlanc:It's not even been a week.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's only been a few days and we've been with the family. You know, like I said earlier, the funeral and feels like two weeks.
Charlie LeBlanc:We sang a couple of songs at the funeral. Yeah, it's just the beginning. And so, you know, we will be in the middle of ministry to that family quite a bit. But but yeah, these losses is is is not natural. It's not the way it meant to be.
Jill LeBlanc:No. The Lord- We weren't created to have to experience loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:God didn't put that capacity in us because we were supposed to live with him forever.
Charlie LeBlanc:Forever. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:In the garden.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:Experiencing His love, His bounty, presence daily.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:And so it's something that we have to learn how to live with.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we've talked about this before, the scripture says, Oh death, where is your sting? And truth of the matter is, thank God through Jesus Christ, our loved ones go straight into the arms of Jesus. And thank God there is no sting in death from the standpoint of of
Jill LeBlanc:The ones who passed.
Charlie LeBlanc:The ones who passed. Yeah. You know, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord immediately. But but, you know, for us on this side, and we talked about that this week with their sisters, our friend who died, her sisters came in, one from England, one from Ireland, one from Dallas, and they were all there and they lost their sister, you know, and and they're they're just broken, they're hurting. And we talked about that as well.
Charlie LeBlanc:Just, you know, just how hard it is for them too. So, yeah, so we're going to we're going to be looking more at at at some other videos of of our podcast with Joyce because I just felt like it was a very powerful interview that she did with us and and Ginger, her assistant. And who's the other girl? Erin. Yeah. Erin was a blessing and talked about her her father-in-law that passed.
Jill LeBlanc:Who we knew also. And we knew him as well.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh yeah, that's right. I've forgotten that. So anyway, we sure do love y'all and we're hoping that this has been a real special moment for you and that it's helping you. And please, again, write in with questions and let us know if we can help you or minister to you in any way.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes, absolutely. And we just also want to invite you to like this episode and share it around and subscribe. We wanted to say too, we just finished the Finding Hope for the Holidays Live Event and that is available on YouTube if you want to go back and watch it. If you didn't get to catch it live and we it was really such a great time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So, please go back and and catch that and if you watched it with us live and you want to see it again, it will be there. Yeah. So, have a great day and just remember that the lord loves you so much and we just pray that you are finding hope and getting through the things that you never asked for because God is faithful.