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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 everybody, and welcome to another episode of our Finding Hope broadcast, Getting Through What You Never Expected. And, I know we could have had a lot of different subtitles. That was one that our producer helped us find, but, it's just getting through tough times. It's basically our heart in this podcast, is to encourage you, when you get hit with difficult things, things that you never expected, things you were not believing for, just the tough stuff, especially as it pertains to the losses of loved ones, and I think that's probably one of the toughest things. I know for us, losing our son at 23 years old was just beyond belief.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:We've talked a lot about that on this podcast, and we have other close friends who have lost their loved ones, and we're in communication with them, and especially those who have lost children, and it's so tough, or even we have a lot of dear friends who have lost their husbands, and that's been a really-
Jill LeBlanc:And now wife.
Charlie LeBlanc:tough journey for them, yeah, and now a good friend who just lost his wife. But anyway, we're hoping we can help you and encourage you in this episode, and let you know that we love you, and that we want to comfort you with the same comfort that we've received from the Lord. It's been sixteen years for and time doesn't heal, the Holy Spirit does heal, but time does make it a little bit easier as you continue on in your journey with the Lord. You know, we just actually got home last night after attending another funeral. We did two weekends in a row, we flew out to two different funerals, and the theme this month is being a good first responder.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so, we have learned how important it is to respond when we hear of someone who has lost a loved one, or even someone who's been through a struggle. Like we had a close friend who was in the hospital, and Jill was just texting his wife constantly, encouraging her and praying for her, and responding to that situation was very, very powerful. And we actually just saw them at this funeral this weekend, and he was back, thank God, from the hospital, back from the dead.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, one of his doctors who saw him early on told him recently, he said, I didn't think I would ever see you again.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And so it was like he was back from the dead.
Charlie LeBlanc:It was. So he was in a wheelchair, I was helping push him around, but they were so grateful for our involvement, especially in that critical time of over a month, I think, he was actually in the hospital, and Jill was just texting her regularly, of course we were praying.
Jill LeBlanc:Sending a lot of encouragement.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, yeah. Being a good responder, so valuable, so important. And like I said, we just came back two weekends in a row, funerals, and you know, it was interesting because the first one, a dear friend of ours lost his wife, and we just knew if we could be, we had just come back from our international trips, two of them in a row, and we were ready to just stay home, but a day later, we were on a plane, and we went to that funeral, and you know, it's just being there, showing up, meant so much to our friends. We hugged, we wept together, and they all just really appreciated-
Jill LeBlanc:The family.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, the family just really appreciated us being there. And then this one, this weekend, again, this was a great man of God who was almost 90 years old, had an incredible ministry all of his life.
Jill LeBlanc:I think he served the Lord over fifty years.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Fifty two years.
Charlie LeBlanc:No, no, serving the Lord seventy years, over seventy years, but
Jill LeBlanc:Oh, yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:But he was in ministry.
Jill LeBlanc:Pastoring, like fifty two years.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, pastoring fifty two, and in ministry, I think seventy years, because he was associate pastors and things, I don't know. He was a really incredible-
Jill LeBlanc:Amazing man of God that I wish he I wish he could be multiplied into so many of us. Just his character and the way he was was just amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc:The funeral was amazing.
Jill LeBlanc:And it truly was a celebration-
Charlie LeBlanc:It was.
Jill LeBlanc:of his life because he he ran his race well. And and, boy, did he endure some hardship.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. He did.
Jill LeBlanc:But he never lost his trust in the Lord and always was encouraging others even through the hardest times.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So it was it was a wonderful celebration. But a week before then, we're at the funeral of our friend who died before she should have. And it was, I mean, you know, they call it a celebration of life many times.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we did. I mean, we centered on her life and how wonderful she was, of course, you're gonna do that.
Jill LeBlanc:For us, it was very sad. Her family, it was just a different... Not all funerals are created equal.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right. That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And and so neither should our responses be-
Charlie LeBlanc:That's good.
Jill LeBlanc:be to those who are concerned-
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:who are involved in in, you know, the family that's being affected directly.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:So we have to just be led by the Spirit. We have to think through things like, you know, maybe plan ahead some things that you might wanna say to the family members of, you know, in a funeral situation or or even just a loss or or whatever situation you're walking into. Try to think ahead a little bit and and just ask the Lord to guide your words if you should even say any words.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, sometimes no words are best.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But we have to be sensitive so that we can be a good first responder and and our words bring life and be a blessing to people.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, that's real good, Jill. You know, it's like, we hear I get a little bothered by sometimes on Facebook when I look at the responses of some people. Now thankfully, I'm seeing more and more people with heartfelt responses to losses, and I'm so blessed by that. I just go, wow, man, they really are getting it, they're really understanding. But so often, that little phrase, sorry for your loss, it just rolls off of our mouths so
Jill LeBlanc:Tongue tongues.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, our tongues, thank you, yes. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss.
Jill LeBlanc:You know- I mean, it's better than some things that can be said,
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Jill LeBlanc:It's just become habitual, I think.
Charlie LeBlanc:But even to say, So sorry, just add something in there to break it up a little bit. Sorry for your unbelievable loss, or just do something. And I like what you said, prepare for what you might wanna say, And don't say it unless you have the open door to say it. But when preparing for that individual situation, like you said, all funerals are not created equal because it depends on the situation, how old the person was that died, what the situation was. Oh my gosh, a funeral of a young man that's committed suicide, what do you do?
Charlie LeBlanc:We have some dear, incredible musician's friends that their daughter committed suicide. The pain, the heartache, the condemnation that they go through, I mean, it's just beyond words. And so that kind of a funeral, those are the kind of things that you either prepare to say something that is worth saying, which many times, like you say, there are no words. And I think in a lot of situations where there are children that have been lost, really, it's not what you say. You gotta be very careful. You've got to be really careful.
Charlie LeBlanc:All the things that we've heard, and we've talked about this so much on these podcasts, but all the things you hear of, Well, praise the Lord, they're in heaven. Oh, aren't you rejoicing because your son's in heaven? Well, I'm happy for him, but the pain on the inside of me is what I'm working on trying to get healed, because the pain on the inside of me has nothing to do with the fact that my son's in heaven. I praise the Lord he's in heaven.
Charlie LeBlanc:It has to do with the ripping and the tearing away of my heart and my soul, because my son and I were one, we were one flesh, my wife and I are one flesh, we gave birth to this boy, and so when he passed, a part of me was ripped out, a part of me died when he died. And so these are the things that you have to understand when you run to be a good responder. But back to the point that we should be though, we should run and try to get in the middle of situations, and we just ran to this last funeral, memorial service, celebration of life, you know, and I, the main brother that was in charge of the whole celebration, who we love very much, we've known him for years, a great man of God. I texted him this morning and just
Jill LeBlanc:And he served Pastor Bob so loyally.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, he he did, he did. So amazing. I've never met any more faithful...
Jill LeBlanc:Couple.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, couple than them two in serving Pastor Bob and Joy. But I texted him this morning, loved on him, and thanked him for the amazing person he is, and how beautiful the celebration of life was, and he came back to me, and he said this, he said, Your presence was a source of strength and encouragement, amongst a few other things he responded to my text. But your presence was a source of strength and encouragement. And that's what we're trying to get across in this theme of being a good first responder. First of all, respond.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, if it's a text or a phone call, whatever it might be, respond immediately, and people are really helped by it. And there's that scripture in Timothy we talk about a lot, that Paul was comforted. When he came to Macedonia, he had no rest. This is in 2 Corinthians 7:5-7, he said, We had no rest, we were harassed on every turn, conflicts on the outside, fears within, but God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. And I tell you, that's just a beautiful scripture.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, it is, I love it.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, the God of all comfort, but how did he comfort him? By the coming of Titus. So praise the Lord. I pray that when we went, that it was a form of comfort, I know it was, for those who were bereaved. And that's what you can be as well.
Jill LeBlanc:That's right.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:So, you know, we've had friends that have said, you know, I don't go to funerals, you know. I just don't do that. I can't handle that. I can't handle that. Well, that's selfish. If you can make it, go. You don't do it for yourself. You don't do it for the one who's passed, you do it for the family and the friends that have had a loss and that are weeping and hurting.
Charlie LeBlanc:You do it for them, you minister, you show up, as the old preacher, Gruffy Peacher says, show up and shut up. So, you know, Jesus went to the funeral of his friend Lazarus. Of course he knew that he would raise him from the dead. He knew in his spirit that that's what his mission was. But at the same time he approached that funeral, and they were all weeping.
Charlie LeBlanc:The last person was already in the tomb, but they were all weeping, they were crying, but the Bible says he went there, and it jumped out of the page to me again today. I know we talk about it a lot, but Jesus wept. It jumped out of the page this morning, and I just thought, wow. That's how much Jesus cares. Jesus is aware of everything that we do in our life, and he has such compassion for the broken, for the poor, for the orphans, for the widows, for those who have lost loved ones. He has such compassion for those. He gets in the middle of brokenness and pain. And we should do the same thing.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:We should do the same thing.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. I was I was wanting to refresh, refresh my mind on the Isaiah, is it 54? Was that was the prophecy about Jesus, you know, the the servant of Lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, It's Luke, and it's it's Isaiah 60, I think.
Jill LeBlanc:Okay.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I got it right here.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, just I just wanted to reread that this morning because it was it was a prophecy of Jesus coming and what he would be like. You know, Jesus came to earth in the form of a servant. He came on a mission to redeem us, to show us the love of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:It is 61.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, go ahead and read that.
Charlie LeBlanc:The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, this is New King James, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good tidings to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of prison to those who are bound, proclaim the acceptable deed of the Lord, to comfort all who mourn, and to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, and so on. But yeah, that's the same as Jesus stood up in Luke 4:18 and he began to say the spirit of the Lord-
Jill LeBlanc:He opened the scrolls to that passage and began to read, and then put it down and sat down. And so that was Jesus' calling
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:and mandate, and that's what he was. And that's just who we should be. We should you know, the Bible says, as he is, so are we in this world. And we need to be the ones that help to heal the brokenhearted. Let him work through us to bring that about because he is the healer.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. But to comfort those who mourn and all of the rest of it. That's, that's our calling now.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:His representatives.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, it is. We're his hands, we're his feet, we're his mouthpiece. And I noticed here in my notes, I don't know if this is a quote from our book or not, but it says, People need your presence, not your solutions and your theology. There's a time and a place for everything, and when someone is grieving deeply, being there for them is huge. Listen and let them bleed as they share their broken hearts and memories. This is part of the process they need. They need listeners, not instructors. I think that's so powerful.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:I mean, listening is so powerful.
Jill LeBlanc:Huge.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Go to a funeral not to talk to them, not to give them your advice, not to give them your scriptures. You go there to be the arms and the heart of Jesus, and if the bereaved comes to you, you know, yeah, you put your arm around them, you give them a hug, whatever, but you listen. You listen. Let them talk about the bereaved one. And don't say, Oh, but you're gonna be okay. Oh, but it No, don't say any of that. Just listen.
Charlie LeBlanc:And in fact, you know, we quote it so often, weep with those who weep.
Jill LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and when someone is weeping, then we are to weep with them. We are to we are to have that same compassion.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. And that's New Testament.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:This is not Psalms. You know?
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. Right.
Jill LeBlanc:This is not, you know, just things in the old covenant.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:It's New Covenant. It's New Testament, the first half. We've got the first half down, which is rejoice with those who rejoice. That's easy.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But the second half of that passage is and weep with those who weep.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And in our modern church cultures, we don't do that so easily. Right. It's because we don't who wants to become sad? I mean, you know, some people just don't let themselves ever get sad. You know, they just if something comes to them, they just start thinking about something else. They'll, you know, they'll focus on a scripture or, you know, on something else. They'll just get their minds off of it, but we need to go there. Yeah. And it's not always comfortable. Certainly isn't always easy.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But this is the word of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, you know, the scripture just tells us that these difficult times do come in people's lives, and even when Andrew Wommack was writing the forward in our book, I was really blessed, he said something like, you know, let me see if I can find this so I can quote it properly, but he said that everyone suffers loss, some more than others, and Jesus said we would suffer tribulation. It's part of living in a fallen world.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when and how we deal with it. So loss is prominent in the world. It's prominent, I don't if I put it back, but know, everywhere you turn you've got people suffering and hurting. And as we said on the last episode, you know, people are suffering and hurting, but they're afraid to talk about it, because they're afraid they're gonna get condemned or judged.
Jill LeBlanc:Corrected.
Charlie LeBlanc:Corrected, right. But we wanna encourage you to just love people. As you were reading a little bit earlier, the greatest of these is love. You can have faith to move mountains, you can have hope, love is the greatest thing that you can do in any situation. I think we've talked about this many times, but the Lord spoke to me, he said, Charlie, tell the people, you do the love and let me do the fixing.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that is such a powerful, important lesson as a first responder, is that you are to come as the love of Jesus, with the compassion of Jesus, with the comfort of the Holy Spirit, but let God do the fixing. Don't try to fix your friend. Don't try to tell them what they should be doing next. Even if you've experienced loss, don't try to be the fixer. That's the temptation that we have because we've been there, we understand the pain, we know the journey, It's been rough, and we know when we see people at a memorial service with their loss of their loved one, we have a whole book worth of things we wanna tell them.
Charlie LeBlanc:But the Lord tells us to do the lovin' and let him do the fixin'. The Lord tells us to zip it up and be a good listener. So we're very careful, even with the experience that we've had of having our hearts broken, and having God begin to heal our hearts, and having written a book about it, we still have to learn this lesson as a good first responder to jump in the middle of situations not thinking we have the answers. My gosh, because we don't. And, you know, yes, we have experience, and we have the word of God, but the point is, every situation, it's so unique, and so special and it's so holy.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's another thing we don't touch on too often, but grief and pain of loss is a holy thing. It's a holy thing between that person and his God, and her God. And it's a thing that it's an experience that is very, very deeply painful, but it becomes a special holy moment between that person and the Lord Himself. And so we need to be very respectful of that.
Jill LeBlanc:We were in a store the other day, and dealing with a store clerk
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Was helping us.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm not sure how it came up because I had to run out for a minute, but but I have I have worked with this person before in the same store a year or two ago, and she lost her son. And so, like I said, I don't know how you and her got into the conversation...
Charlie LeBlanc:I think she actually did, and I told her how we've been in ministry and that we've been in music ministry and how we now feel a real burden to start helping people in the bereavement area because we lost our son. And she just about froze because she had lost her son.
Jill LeBlanc:I think it was suicide, wasn't it?
Charlie LeBlanc:-I don't know.
Jill LeBlanc:-Or else drug overdose. I think it was suicide.
Charlie LeBlanc:I don't recall that she told me.
Jill LeBlanc:-But, yeah. And so we had to be very careful in that situation to not act like we knew it all.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:We don't know it all, but, you know, like what he was just saying about, you know, wanting to just tell everything we know to help her get on with her life. And, you know, she's a few years down the road now, but, yeah. We just really tried to walk lightly so that we didn't say the wrong things. And we could just be a support to her and hope to impart something that might help her.
Charlie LeBlanc:Absolutely. But, yeah. Well, the scripture tells us to be slow to speak. And that's very important in so many situations, that we need to think before we speak, you know, be careful what we say, let our words be seasoned with salt, the scripture says. Seasoned with salt, so that it may bring grace to the hearer.
Charlie LeBlanc:Not grace to my ears. Oh, I think I said something great, you know? No, we need to pray that our words can bring grace to the hearer. Because, I mean, we've done it before where, you know, we have a dear friend, well, of my best friends ever passed about two years ago, and his wife and us, we were all best friends. We did a lot of stuff together through the years, raising our kids and everything.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it was an interesting journey because when we lost him, of course there we were, because we were that close of friends, we wanted to be there. And actually what was really weird, was that was like the first week or two that our book had been released. It was at the exact same time. And so here she was, bereaved, broken, hurting, in pain, doing her best to be strong with her kids and her grandkids.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we were there to support her, to love her, to do whatever we could. We stayed there many weeks. But it was an interesting journey because we weren't able to talk to her about the pain of bereavement much. She didn't want to talk to us about it. And that was a very interesting journey, because we wanted to help her, but she didn't want our help in that way.
Charlie LeBlanc:What was interesting was we had been best friends for probably thirty plus forty plus fifty plus years, you know? There you go. Really some of the best of friends. And in this situation, she just wanted us to continue to be those friends. Not her counselor, not her teacher, not her bereavement coach, all this stuff.
Charlie LeBlanc:It was just interesting. So it took us a few days of stumbling around with saying little things and realizing that those things weren't really being received well. And so our words were not seasoned with well, let's put it this way, we thought they were seasoned with salt, but they weren't bringing grace to the hearer. She wasn't able to receive it at that Now here we are, a year and a half, two years later, we are able to sit down and talk some about Larry and talk about our past and talk about the beauty, and she opens up yet to the pain that she's experienced.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, so, man, I tell you, there's so much that we wanna talk more about this. We have a couple more episodes we're gonna be talking about of being a first responder.
Jill LeBlanc:That's a good first responder.
Charlie LeBlanc:A good first responder. Yeah, Jill corrects me with that. But we need to be a good first- Let's just leave it at that.
Jill LeBlanc:Just gotta leave that in there.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Why don't you tell them a little bit about this? This is our new, something brand new.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. It is a USB flash drive right in here. And it's called the God of All Comfort. And it's a collection of resources to help people that are struggling with loss. And in here, we have a PDF of scriptures that you can download and print out all kinds of scriptures on comfort and just, you know, similar to what we read earlier about how Jesus is the healer of broken hearts and many others.
Jill LeBlanc:Charlie does about a twenty minute teaching on the God of all comfort. Because when we were first in this journey, Charlie writes about it in our book, he said, knew the Lord in so many ways. But I didn't know him as the God of all comfort. But I came to know him as the God of all comfort, as it talks about in 2 Corinthians chapter one. So he teaches on that. We have some song we have a a song that we feature called the God of All Comfort.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It's beautiful.
Jill LeBlanc:And we have a beautiful nature video that that you can watch.
Charlie LeBlanc:And a five day devotional that you wrote.
Jill LeBlanc:Yep, yep, beautiful. So it's just a lot of resources to help you in your grief journey and to receive help from the God of all comfort. So this is available. You can go to our website, charlieandjill.com, and you can order it there. And I think there's probably a link that'll be either down below or coming up at the end or something.
Charlie LeBlanc:So it's in USB and it's downloadable, just like our book is The book's not on USB, the book can be purchased as a hardback or softback, and as a download, right?
Jill LeBlanc:You can get an audiobook.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, that's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And you can get the download ebook.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. And you can get these two as a bundle on our site you can. So we'll talk more about this on future broadcasts as well, but yeah, this will bless you and we encourage you to take advantage of these, especially of the bundle.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, so thanks for joining us today. We appreciate you, God bless.
Charlie LeBlanc:God bless you.