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What do you do when the bottom drops out and life breaks in ways you never imagined? Charlie and Jill LeBlanc have walked that road, and through their personal story of loss, they’ve discovered the sustaining power of God's presence. In this podcast, they offer heartfelt conversations, Scripture-based encouragement, and the kind of hope that only comes from experience. Whether you're grieving, struggling, or searching for peace in the middle of chaos, this space is for you.
Welcome to the Finding Hope Podcast. We're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc, and we're so glad you've joined us today.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes. We just enjoy coming to you and sharing things that God has taught us and helped us through all these years of losing our own son. It was traumatic time in our life but we actually just went through the seventeenth year of losing Beau. It was a traumatic day in our life and so every every year we do remember this day it always comes it sneaks in on us, and sometimes the grief is there strong, other times it's not as hard and interestingly this year, and we always go out to dinner with our daughters because of course they're remembering their brother but, but this time, Jill, you've been said it just didn't seem to be as hard.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, I believe that I've turned a corner in my own recovery because I know I mentioned recently how even Christmas this year was not the challenge that it has been in the last sixteen years. And so this year, like I said, Christmas was not as hard, and the anniversary was I not as received one text the night before of a very dear friend who sent some condolence. And it made me a little bit choked up because it surprised me because I hadn't really gone there in my mind that much. Although I knew it was coming and we were making plans to go out with our and all that, But she sent that real sweet note and it touched me and all of a sudden I had a lump in my throat. But then on the day, it just, I didn't really feel one thing or another. I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel anything abnormal.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know? And so I'm just trusting the Lord that He's just bringing us on
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, as He strengthening as time goes on. You know, I read a quote by Earl Grohman that said, the depth of sorrow diminishes slowly and at times imperceptively.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, that's good.
Charlie LeBlanc:He says he speaks to how grief changes over time, reminding us that healing after loss isn't a dramatic or linear. Often the pain eases so gradually that you hardly notice until you realize one day you feel lighter than before. And that's kind of the way it is all of a sudden and it goes in in stages. You know, I remember, I looked in one of my journals like a year and a half after Beau passed and, the Lord had spoke to me some very powerful things about our future and our ministry.
Charlie LeBlanc:But then I also remember three and a half years after both pass, all of a sudden I felt a lift and a freedom that I could dream again. I could believe again for the future of our ministry. So it's just kinda, it's interesting and our dear friend, in St. Louis that lost her daughter, our dear friend, him and her and her husband, we were with them on the year anniversary. And she asked you, she said, okay, I've made it through a year. What do I expect now? What do I do now? You know? And that was hard to answer because it's kind of like more of the same, but then it just slowly it gets harder and yet it gets easier.
Jill LeBlanc:It gets harder because you miss them so much more. I mean, more and more time has passed since you've gotten to be together. And so that part is harder. But then you're not facing all the firsts that you do in the first year, you know, of the birthdays and the anniversary of their passing and the family holidays and all this.
Charlie LeBlanc:So that's also hard.
Jill LeBlanc:Even though those are going to continue to come each year, It won't be the first one, it won't be so shocking.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:But yet it's still hard for a long time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, I think about our dear friend here locally that lost his wife just in, was it November that she passed?
Jill LeBlanc:End of October, was actually the day before my birthday.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, so that made your birthday very tough because she was a dear friend of yours. But you know, one of the first things I thought of was not only how dreadful the loss is for her family, for her kids, for her grandkids, but also to think about the fact that they they had to go right into Thanksgiving holidays, which she was the master cook and the master person who put everything together special and then they had to go right into Christmas. So yeah, these holidays, I think we talked a lot about this on our finding hope for the holidays and things like this that we've done. But, but yeah, these are these are tough moments and many of you have experienced what we're talking about and some of you are on a journey maybe into your second year, third year or maybe your first, we don't know. But, I guess part of my heart in sharing with you about Beau's anniversary, the seventeenth year of his passing is that there is hope for your future.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know the scripture tells us that that there's hope for your future and, and you know things will lessen, the pain will lessen, it'll get a little easier as time goes on. You'll never forget them and we don't want to ever forget them. We won't ever forget them.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:But, but at the same time the heaviness, deep deep sorrow, the crying, the tears. Yeah, we'll still hit a moment where we'll
Jill LeBlanc:of course
Charlie LeBlanc:we'll cry and things happen. But but the deep, deep depth of it, will will get lighter. And and it'll get a little easier for you.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I wanted to mention you were quoting Earl Grohlman.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm sure we've mentioned this along the way. But his book called Living When a Loved One Has Died, it's just a thin book, and we've got the hardback. And the format on the pages is written as if it's poetry because there's just a few words on a page. It's it's just very spacious. But I wanna say that book, if you don't have it yet and you are living when a loved one has died, we highly recommend it. He was a rabbi that early on was thrusted into grief ministry because right after he started in ministry in New York City was the first bombings at the World Trade Center. And I think that was in the early '90s.
Charlie LeBlanc:Mhm.
Jill LeBlanc:And all of a sudden he is knee deep into a grief ministry that he never anticipated. And so he's learned so much about helping people through those hard seasons. And his writing is just so eloquent and at times very poignant in that it just kinda hits home.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Sometimes it's kinda tough love a little bit, but we just highly, highly recommend this book. It's the book that we would send to people before we had our own book out.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:When we would get word of someone losing a close loved one, we would send them this book.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And we just highly recommend it. So it's on Amazon. You can find it there in different places.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, we quoted Earl quite a bit in our book for those of you who have read it.
Jill LeBlanc:We did.
Charlie LeBlanc:We've said Rabbi Grohlman or different things like that. But anyway, he was a real ministry really ministered to us and it just helped us get through that initial shock. Yeah. He just has a way of saying it. And you know, lot of people have said that about our book too but we you know it's funny because we didn't have our book at the time but and, we really needed this book.
Charlie LeBlanc:So, yeah, look it up on Amazon Living When a Loved Ones D by
Jill LeBlanc:Has Died.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, has died by reverend, Rabbi Earl Grohlman.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, loss just continues in all of our lives. We were just in California with some friends and celebrating his birthday and just out of the blue, the day before his birthday he got a call that a dear friend of his 64 years old, who he had worked with for thirty plus years, was in an accident and died 64 years old. And you know, we were there with them just supernaturally in the right place at the right time and they're talking to the wife of the deceased and they're weeping and they're trying to catch their breath, can't believe the news and we've all experienced that those of us who have been through loss but you know, and again, I talk about this a lot, but there we were, we happened to be there with them and I felt uncomfortable again. At first I felt like, I don't really know that I'll have the right words to say. I don't even know.
Charlie LeBlanc:I don't want to be intrude on their intimate space of pain and grief. I don't want to get it. I don't want to disrupt that by anything that I would say or do, but it was just the opposite. They just said, oh my God, it's supernatural that you guys are here with us right now and and you know that you can be here to minister to us and to just help us. And and again, it's funny because I don't feel like we said a lot of things and you don't need to say a lot of things.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it showed me once again that principle that we talk about so much on this podcast of the power of listening because Butch, our friend would just want to just continually talk, you know, if I would say, man, I'm really sorry, you know, about the loss. I said, that's just horrible. And he go and then he just start talking about his friend about what he did, how he did it and how I would just texted him the other day and how he just finished this project and we just did this together and that together and that together. And again, in my mind, I thought, there it is. Let them talk.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Let the bereaved talk. They want to talk about their loved ones. They want to talk about the memories they want to remember. And and that alone was was a big part of our ministry.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:That weekend is just to listen.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, I know. This is kind of a deep way to look at it, but we were talking this morning about loss and eternal life and the fact that it was not in the plan of God for us to have to encounter loss. We were created to live with Him forever in the garden, in this beautiful amazing garden that he had prepared. Right. Just in fellowship with him and procreating and having children and families and all this stuff and never experienced loss.
Jill LeBlanc:And yet we, you know, because of the way things went down and sin and death, it's just so messed up. And so the whole grief thing and loss and pain and all of it is just so weird and it's just horrible. It's not what God planned for us.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Because he is a loving, merciful, compassionate father. But yet here we are in not in the plan that he created.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. We're no longer in that perfect state. And, you know, I think when Jesus took on flesh and walked among us and, he saw the brokenness of humanity, of course he knew it before he came down but yeah but, but nonetheless he he walked in it, he walked in the flesh, He he understood more directly the pain of human because he became human. He put aside his his glory and, put on human flesh. And, and there again at at the at the, tomb of Lazarus, you know, he if Bible says he groaned inside of him.
Charlie LeBlanc:In fact, he even got angered a bit at first before he wept. And I think he was just, again, angry at at the pain of loss in this world. The Bible says that death is the is the last enemy. So it is an enemy.
Jill LeBlanc:It is.
Charlie LeBlanc:It is an enemy and Jesus saw that in that moment with his friends, Mary and Martha, weeping and all the Jews weeping. And then he also, you know, his friend Lazarus was in the tomb. And now he knew he was gonna raise him because that was part of his ministry calling in that season of his life. But but at the same time he was touched as I say so often touch with the feelings of our infirmities. He was touched deeply.
Charlie LeBlanc:He felt the pain that we feel. And I I just love that aspect of God because when I'm hurting, I have to know and believe that he hurts with me. He understands my pain. He doesn't judge me for pain. He doesn't judge me for being sorrowful.
Charlie LeBlanc:He understands pain and he's touched with our feelings. And I've said so often in Isaiah, when Israel suffered, he himself suffered. So I just want to encourage you that if you're suffering in any way, we certainly understand. But even more importantly, God understands your suffering and He wants to help you. He wants to be your comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc:Scripture says the Holy Spirit is the comforter and he wants to overshadow us with his comfort. And I think about this family of this man that passed of my friend in LA and, they told us that they went to visit the family and and that that, you know, the family is doing really well. Their dad, their husband just passed, but they knew that he went right into the light of heaven and and that was comforting for them, you know, to be able to know that that he went right into the arms of Jesus. And as much as that's a comfort was a comfort to us, we were also just grieving so heavily because we couldn't believe that our 23 year old son actually died. This is ridiculous. This is crazy. Our son can't die. We only have one son. He can't I don't care if you have five sons. You can't you can't lose a son.
Charlie LeBlanc:But so many people have daughter or a daughter. So many people have lost their Children. Maybe you have and the trauma is crazy. But, but to hear that this family was taking it well, we know from experience that there's a special grace that you have right after your loved one dies.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Where God, it's painful and hurtful, you have grace, strength of the Lord in your weakness to get through the funeral, to get through all these difficult moments. But even our friend that locally here that lost his wife, it's all settling in now. The new normal is settling in. The holidays are gone, all the kids are now back into their regular routine. His older kids have children, he has two adult children that have jobs and busy and so all of a sudden it's like the empty pillow next to him and the empty your house.
Charlie LeBlanc:And she was larger than life. And I just my heart breaks for our dear friend who's lost lost his wife. And of course, we just have so many. I was noticing on the back of our book the other day, at the end of our book, we just listed up to the day of the publishing being published. In fact, on the second publishing, we added another dear closest friend of ours that we grew up with in the Lord. We added him.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. And and the reason we have all these back there is, is just because and I know you become more aware once you walk through something like this, but it just seems uncanny how many people we know that have died since our son died.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, it's pretty crazy.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It really is.
Jill LeBlanc:And so we we just listed all these names of of people that we know.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And and anyway, it's back there. So just just this morning, we got word that another friend of ours passed away this morning.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And it was not like our friend's loss of his friend because that was an accident.
Jill LeBlanc:So that's very traumatic. This one, was ill and he passed away peacefully in his home. And so that's easier, I guess, to take because he was on hospice, they were thinking without a miracle that this is the way it was going to go, and we got the news. But still, it was a very dear friend, Charlie's age. He was ten months older than you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Eleven months.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, so tragic.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, very tragic. And this man was an amazing man of God who the Lord used all over the world to help people so And many he and his wife have just been a huge help and blessing to us through And the we got that news this morning. And so, as we were talking about how a grace that comes on those who are left behind, You know, we have a chapter in our book called The Analysis of Paralysis. There's a book in high school and college called The Paralysis of Analysis, because, you know, you dig into calculus and all this deep math stuff that I never went to, and it can become paralyzing. But we talked about the paralyzation that happens to someone who experiences a loss.
Jill LeBlanc:But it's like the grace of God to paralyze, in a sense, paralyze your soul just so you can get through, you can think to make plans and arrangements, and, it's it's like a blessing of the Lord. It it really is his grace
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It's a little bit of
Jill LeBlanc:That covers us.
Charlie LeBlanc:Supernatural medicine or something, you know?
Jill LeBlanc:Exactly.
Charlie LeBlanc:Anesthesia.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Our dear friend here locally, who lost his wife. Actually, he had sisters in town from, her sisters, the deceased
Jill LeBlanc:and his sister
Charlie LeBlanc:and his sister were in town and a couple of them were from England. So he wanted to have a quick service for them to honor his wife. And so within a week and we were there within-
Jill LeBlanc:Within two days.
Charlie LeBlanc:It was in two days because they were getting relief. So we we actually sang in that service and then he got to thinking after that that he needed to have one another service for all of our friends here in Jacksonville and others that would want to come in. He did that as well, which was powerful. People came from all over to come and show their respects for her. And then he went to Dallas and had a third gathering.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah because they lived a lot of their life there. That's where they met and all that.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, we did the two, we did one in St Louis and then we went to Phoenix and did another one there because I had family and he both cousins and a lot of them that couldn't travel. My mom and dad were elderly, they couldn't travel. So but that's hard.
Jill LeBlanc:It is.
Charlie LeBlanc:But but the grace of God was there to help us get through those two and help our friend get through those three. But again, now that the dust has settled, you're you're by yourself, then you have to cope with it. You have to figure it out. You have to lean heavily on God's grace to pull you through those dark times now that you're alone.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. A friend of ours sent us this scripture this morning, when they got the news of of, our friend who passed. And it's Psalm 116:15, it says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones. And that right there is beautiful because the Lord, like we've said, He loves us so much and He just wants us with Him. But we have to come to this earth and leave this earth in order to be in our eternal home with him.
Jill LeBlanc:And so it's precious to him because we get to go and be with him forever. But then we leave behind all of these people who love us and will miss us, and it leaves a vacuum in their hearts. And there's other translations of this same scripture that give it a little bit different perspective. In the New Living, says, says, The Lord cares deeply when his loved ones die. So, that's just another way to say, He is thinking about us, He cares for us deeply.
Jill LeBlanc:But in the Passion translation, it says, When one of God's holy lovers dies, it is costly to the Lord touching his heart. You know, it's costly because that person who was an instrument of the Lord's to bring the gospel to people that don't know Jesus, that's done now. Their life is done. So, it's costly. It's costly to the calling and it's costly to the family. Again, they have this huge gaping hole in their heart now and that in their this person filled.
Charlie LeBlanc:The grandchildren, the children, you know, where's grandma, you know? It's just horrible.
Jill LeBlanc:And in our case, we didn't get to have a daughter-in-law. We didn't get to have more grandchildren.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Or we didn't get to have our son as we aged and had that relationship.
Charlie LeBlanc:And our daughters are missing their brother like crazy, you know? So it is there's nothing good about it on this side except for those who knew Jesus knowing that they're in the father's hands. And, I must admit that that really helps me these days because quite often, I I just I'll be thinking about Beau, and I'll just know that the Lord takes care of Bo better than I could ever take care of him. And just to know that he he's in a good place, he's in a beautiful place. And our friend that just passed recently, he's like you said, was in his early seventies my age.
Charlie LeBlanc:I just told my age. And, and so, you know, but he was, you know, he was just so full of life. He had so much more to live so much. And our friend Yvonne, 64 years old, 65, so much more life to live. Our friend in California, our friend's friend in California, 64, so much more life to live.
Charlie LeBlanc:And yet, you know, we don't want to over magnify all this life, this life, you know, because yeah, this life is a vapor. We're here today, gone tomorrow, you know, but but we God put us on this earth to live, to strive, to bear fruit, not to strive but to thrive. I said strive to thrive. And you know, I was thinking about a song that if we have time, I'd like for Tanja to play it at the end. There's a song that you wrote, Jill, that says, Lord, I want to see your glory.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I just thought about that all morning about our friend that just passed in Texas, that was my age and just to see the glory of God and and one of the things it does for me and you said it in when you wrote this song, it says, I'll be faithful to the tasks that you've laid out for me. And I think that's something that even with Beau, you know, I just feel like I'm gonna finish my race as long as I have breath, as long as I have life, I'm going to do my best to fulfill my calling and to do what God has put me on this earth to do. And, you know, and some say, want to make my loved one proud of me and my loved one would want me to be happy and things. And that's so also true. There's no question.
Charlie LeBlanc:But, but I'm just looking at it from my perspective of, and that's very true. I think about both sometimes he thinks about that about us, but I just think, you know what, as long as we're alive people, we need to do the best we can and to do the best we can in our life to be as fruitful as we can. Jesus said that he wants us to be fruitful in every good work. Paul said that too. And you know, this is my will that you bear much fruit, Jesus said.
Charlie LeBlanc:So I just want us all to just, you know, take a deep breath and just say, you know what, we're gonna win while we're alive, we're gonna win, we're gonna do what's right, We're gonna do our best to help people. We're gonna do our best to fulfill the calling on our life. If you're a grandmother, you're gonna be the best grandmother you can be. If you're a husband, best husband, you can be whatever your position in life is at work, a career ministry, whatever it might be, you know, as long as we have breath, we're going to praise the Lord and we're going to live our life for it to be an honor to him. And I just want you know, try to get that song in at the end So as
Jill LeBlanc:Alright. Well, we better get on it then.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, listen, we wanna encourage you to get the book.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. We haven't mentioned this in a while. This book, When Loss Comes Close to Home, it will really touch you. If you don't have it yet or you know someone who's walking through loss, this will be a blessing to them. It'll be a blessing to you to become a better supporter, to know how to help them. So it's on Amazon, It's on our website, charlieanddeal.com. And we just encourage you to to go for that. It's an audio form, digital download. So go for it.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. So we're gonna play this song or a little bit of this song as much as we can and let it minister to you. So God bless you. Thanks again for being on the podcast with us.