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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 again to another episode of Finding Hope. Getting Through What You Never Asked For.
Jill LeBlanc:We appreciate you joining us so much because we have so much to share to help heal the brokenhearted and just to bring awareness to this journey that so many people are on.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, we believe that God has helped us, we know he has, get through the most difficult thing in our life that we ever experienced and that we never dreamed would happen to us. But God in His grace brought us through to a better place.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, for sure.
Charlie LeBlanc:And 16 years ago, we were in such an awful place of grief, of pain. We lost our 23 year old son after standing in faith with him for over nine months to see him live and to rebuke this cancer, to get him free. But but, you know, it was a difficult, difficult road. But now here, years later, God has brought us into a much better place and we're much stronger. More importantly, we, as Paul said, comfort others with the same comfort that you've received from the Lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:So that's our responsibility. That's our mandate now is to comfort you, to comfort others with the same comfort that we receive from God. That's what we're trying to do in this podcast is help you find hope, help you find comfort in your journey.
Jill LeBlanc:And sixteen years later, it's not like it's gone.
Charlie LeBlanc:No.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, we miss him every day.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And especially at the holidays, that's that's some of the hardest times.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Is just having to, you know, him not being there. It just adds an element of heaviness.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's obvious. There's one chair missing at the Easter dinner, you know, kind of thing.
Jill LeBlanc:And like, you, our daughter is moving house. And so they had our they had Beau's drum set in the room of one of her sons. And so she asked if he could come over and pack them up and just put them away for a while, because when you're staging at home, you know, you've got to just get stuff out.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:He had to put those away once again. And I'm sure that-
Charlie LeBlanc:It was tough.
Jill LeBlanc:-stirred some emotion.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it was tough.
Jill LeBlanc:So it doesn't go away. But thank God, the Lord helps us. He sends us help. And one of the ways he helps us is just through sending comfort through his presence, through his spirit and through other people.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. And just knowing that he is a comforter, that alone just affirmed us. We talked a lot about this in the last podcast that it affirmed us that he wasn't mad at us. In fact, there's something that the Lord spoke to me recently.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, Charlie, I never rebuked anyone with a broken heart. He said, I rebuked hardened hearts. He rebuked his disciples for hardness of heart. He rebuked the Pharisees for their hardness of heart. But never, never in Scripture that I can find where someone came to Him humbly, in tears, with a broken heart, with a broken life. Never did He rebuke them. He always healed their broken hearts. Always accepted them. He always embraced them. And even the woman that came and knelt down with expensive perfume and washed his feet and dried them with her hair and her tears. She was crying with her tears. You know, even her, they said, get her, you could that perfume for a lot of money and give it to the poor. And he said, Hey, the poor, we always have with you. He said, But this woman right now, she's preparing for my burial. She knows what she's doing.
Charlie LeBlanc:But my point is that she was broken and the woman that was caught in adultery was broken and everyone wanted to stone her. But Jesus said, no. He had compassion on her. He held her. He said, Where are your accusers? I don't accuse you either. He said, Go and sin no more. So Jesus heals broken hearts.
Jill LeBlanc:And He proclaimed that when He, after He was baptized, He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to heal the brokenhearted.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. He was quoting from Isaiah 61, where He just said-
Jill LeBlanc:That's part of his big deal is healing the broken.
Charlie LeBlanc:Absolutely. That's his heart. He loves us. And you know, this scripture in Hebrews 4:15, which is one that we both love so much, says that we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. I think that was a big part of my healing, just to know that Jesus is touched with my pain. I was hurting and I needed his help and he was there and to know that he was touched with our pain, he's touched with the feelings of our infirmity.
Charlie LeBlanc:And another version says, We don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness. He has sympathy in our weakness. And he knows when we're grieving over a loved one, He understands and He cares and He wants to come along right beside us and love us and work with us and walk with us.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Interesting what you said. You said we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize. So a double negative makes a positive, which is great, because we do have a high priest who does sympathize with our weakness, which you explained in the other translation. But He sympathizes with our weaknesses.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, and He is touched. I like that version He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. You've got to see God in your journey as someone who is touched with your pain. He's touched with your heart. And you know, a lot of times there's not a quick fix in things like this.
Jill LeBlanc:No.
Charlie LeBlanc:And He knows that. So that's why He just comes alongside, puts His arm around you and walks with you. There's another scripture that jumped out of the page for me out of Isaiah that says, When Israel suffered, he also suffered. Listen to that one. When Israel suffered, he suffered. Wow. I mean, just to think of it, when Israel suffered, God rebuked him. No, he suffered. He is pain, just like a father with a child.
Charlie LeBlanc:When Beau was young and he hit his head, how many times did he have stitches?
Jill LeBlanc:Gosh, can't remember.
Charlie LeBlanc:Can't stop counting, but when he bust his head and the bleeding, you know, we were like holding him, comforting him, stopping his wound and stopping him from bleeding, just like our Father does for us. When He sees us in pain, He comes to our rescue, He comes to hold us, He comes to carry us. And you know that scripture in Isaiah, I'm trying to find it right now, it's one of my favorite. Here it is. Isaiah 63:9, it says, In all their suffering, He also suffered. But then He goes on to say what we talked about last podcast. He said, He lifted them up and carried them through all the years. So He carried us and I know that-
Jill LeBlanc:Through all the years...
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, yeah. All the years.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, and I know that people don't quite get that sometimes, you know, but when you're that broken, you just can't even move sometimes, and you just need someone to help you, I'm reminded of that foot prints in the sand story about the person that was walking along the beach and only saw, you know, he's-
Jill LeBlanc:Jesus was walking with him.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right, he saw footprints next to him.
Jill LeBlanc:He saw two sets.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And then all of a sudden in the difficult times in that person's life, all of a sudden there was only one set of footprints and the person complains that God, I thought you said you would be with me always, you'd never leave me or never forsake me. You know, and then the Lord replied and said, the times when you have seen only one set of footsteps is when I carried you. Hallelujah. And I'll be perfectly honest with you, back in the day when I'd hear this, before I had the loss of Beau, I thought, oh, that's cute.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, it's a little religious. It's kind of little flowery things that maybe women like to think about. Oh, Jesus carries us, you know, I kind of, in my own heart, it didn't mean much to me. But boy, you know, when I needed it, and when I realized that He did, He helped us, hugged us, He held us, He carried us through the darkest times in our lives.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes, He did.
Charlie LeBlanc:So this little poem, you know, by Mary Stevenson back in 1939, it says, and I think she was young when she wrote it, if I remember right. And so, yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And if you got to listen to the last episode, at the end of the episode, we played the song God of All Comfort, which the second verse was taken from that poem. He is a comfort. He carries us when we can't carry on.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And you know, he suffers when we suffer. And I believe he also weeps when we weep. That's an interesting concept. But I was outside one day on our patio, you remember back in Saddlehorn in St. Louis, and we have a little table, round table with a round umbrella and some seating around it. And I just needed, I was hurting and I just needed to get alone. So I went out on this deck by myself And I sat there and started thinking about the Lord and started thinking about Beau, I started hurting on the inside of me. And I remember I just started breaking down in tears, and I just started crying and crying. And all of a sudden I looked up and there was a cloud moving in and it started to rain. It wasn't a torrential rain, but it was just a light, beautiful, I don't if it was a spring rain or summer rain or whatever it was.
Charlie LeBlanc:But it started raining and thankfully I was under the umbrella, know, I sat there and of course I had been crying over Beau. And I felt the Lord spoke to me and said that exact thing that I said earlier. He said, Charlie, when you weep, I weep. And of course, the metaphor of the rain coming down around me with that being the tears of God. That really spoke to me.
Charlie LeBlanc:I know it's another little superficial thing, but it touched me deeply. I felt like the Lord said, I weep when you weep. And, you know, I thought about that. And I thought at the tomb of Lazarus, you know, Jesus was a friend of Lazarus, and he was a friend of Mary and Martha who was Lazarus' sisters. It's interesting how I have two daughters and a son who died, and we tried to raise him. But nonetheless, Jesus knew he was going to raise him. But when he approached the tomb and he saw Mary and Martha crying. It says here, he saw the Jews who had come along with her, with Mary, I guess it was also weeping.
Charlie LeBlanc:He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And and then it says, Jesus wept. Now he wept because they were weeping. And and there's a lot of translations of this, a lot of different theologies behind this thought. But but truly, I like the amplified.
Charlie LeBlanc:It says when Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews who had come with her also sobbing, he was deeply moved in spirit. Listen to this, to the point of anger at the sorrow caused by death. And he was troubled.
Jill LeBlanc:Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then he wept.
Jill LeBlanc:Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And so, Jesus was he was hurting, seeing humanity hurting, angered at what the devil had done and causing death to humanity and seeing people dying around him. And yet he was deeply moved, it says in spirit. And He wept.
Charlie LeBlanc:The next statement, John 11:35, Jesus wept. And He was weeping with those who were weeping, and weeping over the pain of suffering. And then the Jew says, See how he loved them.
Jill LeBlanc:We were never designed to be able to handle death, because God's plan for man, and, you know, for people that He created, His man and woman, was to live with Him forever.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:In the garden.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:He didn't equip us to be able to handle death. Right. It's not in there. You know, it wasn't supposed to be that way. Yeah, that's why it's so It is.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's why when a loved one dies, it's like your brain can't handle it, your heart can't handle it sometimes, you don't exactly know what to do, how to process it. It's a difficult road because like you say, weren't created for it. Yeah. Yeah, we were created to live forever. That little story of being outside and it raining and just knowing that he suffers when we suffer, He weeps when we weep.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so if you're crying, or if you're suffering from the loss of a loved one, I want you to know that Jesus is with you and He is crying with you. He is mourning with you. He is suffering with you. Suffers when we suffer. I think that's very comforting to know that we're not alone in our journey, we're not alone in our pain, that He's with us.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I tell people that a lot. I said, Listen, go ahead and cry, go ahead and mourn, but do it in the arms of Jesus as best you can. Do it with Him. Don't feel like you have to hide to do Do it with Him because He loves you so Yeah,
Jill LeBlanc:He does.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. I was actually stumbled upon a devotional by Andrew Wommack, which we follow Andrew, he's a good friend of ours, actually him and Jamie. When we lost Beau, they stood beside us, they came to us, they helped us recover. After several months, we took time off from leading worship for him. And he was fine.
Charlie LeBlanc:He said, Take as much time off as you need. So they really, really loved us. They didn't try to fix us. And that's another whole teaching that we'll do later. We appreciate them.
Charlie LeBlanc:So I was reading his daily devotion just last November. And I was so struck by Andrew saying, The Lord deeply feels our hurts. When we hurt, he hurts.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And when we are blessed, he is blessed.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, and that's the truth. It's like, you know, when we're in pain, he's in pain. When we're happy, he's happy.
Charlie LeBlanc:And the scripture says, rejoice with those who rejoice, but weep with those who weep. And you know, so the Lord rejoices with us when we're happy, when we're hurting or weeping, he weeps with us. He is our present help in time of need.
Jill LeBlanc:He's so awesome.
Charlie LeBlanc:He's our companion, even in pain and suffering. And he just loves to be with us through it all.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, he does. Yeah, I read this last time from the New Living, but I wanted to read this from the Passion Translation. It's Isaiah 41:10, it says, Do not yield to fear, for I am always near. Little rhyme there. He's always with us. He's always near. Never turn your gaze from me, for I am your faithful God. That's really speaks to my heart because I was so broken in the very beginning that I just didn't want anything to do with fellowshipping with God because I felt like I like like Charlie said last time, felt that I had been I was disappointed.
Jill LeBlanc:I felt that I'd been betrayed. And, you know, I don't blame God. Now I've come, you know, away from that time in my life, but I ran. I couldn't run very far. There was really nowhere else to go. But the Lord, he encourages us, Never turn your gaze for me, for I am your faithful God. And he is. I was just being, I was so distraught, I was so broken, I couldn't see that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Because I had turned away from him and I couldn't see his faithfulness. He says, I will infuse you with my strength and I will help you in every situation. I will hold you firmly with my victorious right hand. So it's a safe place to be is in his presence, just in fellowship with him, letting him wash over your soul with his love and his compassion. And you can can be safe there.
Jill LeBlanc:You don't have to perform. He will never throw you away like we read last time from Isaiah 41. I think it was verse nine. In the NLT, it says, I will not throw you away. You are so loved and so valuable to him.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. And you know, there's a scripture and I want you to share this story, but this scripture has become so real to us. As you say, he will not throw us away. Isaiah 42:3, A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench.
Charlie LeBlanc:Jill wrote a song called A Bruised Reed years ago, before we lost Beau.
Jill LeBlanc:Twenty years ago.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we would like to play that one for you sometime.
Jill LeBlanc:We'll do it sometime.
Charlie LeBlanc:Maybe today. No, maybe some other time.
Jill LeBlanc:I don't have time to tell the whole story today, but I'll get it to you one of these times. But I was so broken and well, it's just a big story.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's not that big.
Jill LeBlanc:I'll try to not make it big. Okay. When Beau was with us, and we were all standing and believing God for his life speaking the word, someone had made reminder bracelets for us all, a friend of his. And they put on there Isaiah 43:2, which is, part of that verse is you shall walk through the fire and not be burned.
Jill LeBlanc:And he was given that scripture real early on in the journey by someone just trying to encourage him. And at the time that he received that scripture and shared with all of us, the doctors were talking about chemotherapy. They you know, they were just trying to come up with a game plan because they were so dumbfounded at this disease hitting him so hard and him being so young. So it was just scrambling and a lot of discussion and just different things. They're they were talking about chemo and radiation, which are like fire, bomb igniting inside of you.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, it just it's poison. It burns from the inside out. So someone sent that passage right after all that. And it was just such wonderful news that that you will walk through the fire not be burned. So anyway, this bracelet was made and we were all wearing them.
Charlie LeBlanc:I wish I had mine on. Don't have it today. Normally do.
Jill LeBlanc:So we were running out of them and I decided to order some more and I kind of revamped it a little bit, just looked a little different, a couple different colors and a little bit different design and put that scripture on there and got them ordered. And this was later on in the journey. Anyway, Beau passes. Middle of January comes, Beau passes away, and it we broken.
Charlie LeBlanc:Torn to pieces.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. We just were so dumbfounded. Yeah. And then a couple days later, a box arrives, and it's on the island where I'm sitting and and I didn't recognize where it was from. So I opened it up and I saw it. It was a box full of reminder bracelets. Yeah, I just I just busted into tears. I was I just could not believe it. You know, these we were standing, we were believing he was going to walk away from this thing. And so I just start sobbing.
Jill LeBlanc:So after I composed myself several minutes later, I decided to just take one out and look at it and see what it was, you know, how did it turn out all this before I threw them away, I'm like, these are useless. So I pull it out and I am looking at it and I notice I had put the wrong scripture reference. And I busted out into tears again. I mean, I thought I just can't do anything right. I cannot believe it.
Jill LeBlanc:I just completely screwed this up, blew this chance to do this. So we're definitely throwing these things away. And I was just sobbing, you know, I was alone and just news, just me and God. But I didn't sense him there. So after a while, I regained my composure once more, and I thought, well, let me look look up this scripture and see if it's, you know, it might just be some random thing like, you know, don't go lay with your neighbor's wife.
Jill LeBlanc:I didn't know what the passage was going to be when I when I looked it up. So I looked it up, and it was this one. It wasn't Isaiah 43:2. Which is, I you shall walk through the fire not be burned. I had put Isaiah 42:3. Which is a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he shall not extinguish.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh my gosh.
Jill LeBlanc:And he will bring justice to those who have been wronged.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. Wow.
Jill LeBlanc:Well, I just started bawling again, because all of a sudden I am the bruised reed and the dimly burning wick. I was the one that was crushed. And we know that the Lord didn't cause this cancer in our son. We know that he was not withholding healing. There are still mysteries out there, but he does see the end from the beginning.
Jill LeBlanc:And he knew that I would need these that passage at this time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And, you know, God is just so big and so incredible.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So then we kept the bracelets. We still have a few to this day. It's just a passage that we have drawn a lot of life from. And especially that end part that he will bring justice to those who have been wronged.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And someone asked me a few months ago, they said, how do you feel that Beau has been vindicated, that justice has come? And really, I have to look at this new season of ministry that we're in now is the vindication. We're getting to help people who are walking through the pain of loss and giving them hope that you will recover. The Lord will bring you through this time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. And I love that scripture is so special to, A bruised reed, he will not break it. The first part as well as the second part.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:But we talk a lot more about all of this in our book, When Loss Comes Close to Home, and the subtitle says, Finding Hope to Carry On When Death Turns Your World Upside Down.
Charlie LeBlanc:Joyce Meyer did a forward in it, as well as Andrew Wommack. We encourage you to get the book. It's on all the at all the bookstores. It's online.
Jill LeBlanc:There's a link below. It's on our website. Yeah. And you can download it as a digital book, as an audio book.
Jill LeBlanc:All the different ways. And we would love, if you're not already on our email list, there's a link below that you can sign up so that we can stay in better contact with you. And we have a free download for you if you sign up and it's Nine Steps to Help the Bereaved and Their Supporters. So it's a guide that will just be a help to you.
Charlie LeBlanc:charlieandjill.com/welcome
Jill LeBlanc:That's in the link below.
Charlie LeBlanc:Should be in the link below. So yeah, any way that we can help you, send us your thoughts and things that you want us to cover, we'll do our best. Well, we love you and we appreciate you and we thank you for joining us today. And we pray that the comfort of God, the peace of God, the strength of God would be with you and help you get through these difficult times. Subscribe to this please, press the little button, notifications, all those good things.
Jill LeBlanc:And share it if there's someone on your heart.
Charlie LeBlanc:We want to help you and to help so many others as well. Alright, well we sure love you. God bless you. Have a good day. And if you're hurting, just know that we're standing with you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Alright, God bless. Bye bye.