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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 everyone and welcome to another episode of Finding Hope, Getting Through What You Never Expected or you never asked for.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's what this podcast is all about, is trying to help you get through difficult times as the Lord helped us get through. And also just trying to help educate others about what it's like to go through a grieving process and how you can be a better help to your friend. We always get that question from people like, what do I say? What do I do? How do I help someone when they're in this difficult time?
Charlie LeBlanc:And so we're trying to address things like that on this program that we believe are so valuable. Were talking this morning about how that, you know, this area of loss and grief and death is so prominent. I mean, everywhere you turn, there's another news heading headline of someone being killed, murder, dying in a car crash, dying of cancer, dying of heart disease, whatever, every single day. And so it just shows me how much pain there is in this world. Every day, there's so much pain.
Charlie LeBlanc:Now, we don't want just live in the negative. We know there's so much joy every day. Someone's getting married, someone's having a baby, someone's winning the lottery.
Jill LeBlanc:Being born again.
Charlie LeBlanc:Being born again. Yeah, there's so much great. But to be fair, every moment of every day, someone's dying, there's pain, there's tragedy beyond words. And so, we really feel it's right to address both sides.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we've been asked by the Lord to address this side of in this new season of our life, to address those who are hurting, in pain, to comfort others, as we said via our book, comfort others out of second Corinthians, the first chapter, third and fourth verse, to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we have received from the Lord. So we received his comfort and his help in these sixteen years after losing our son Beau. And so we have, we feel very strongly that this subject is not talked about enough.
Jill LeBlanc:That's so true.
Charlie LeBlanc:Especially in the church and amongst our friends. It's just, it's just covered over real quickly.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, it's it's covered over. It's like, well, the Lord. You know, he's in heaven. And and we're Christians and we don't grieve like unbelievers. So, praise the Lord. Just move on. And and this side of grief is not acknowledged. It's not acknowledged what really you go through even as a strong believer, what you go through. It's just not talked about and so therefore, there are people grieving. Sorry, I keep talking.
Charlie LeBlanc:You keep trying to talk but there's a there's people sitting in the pews that are hiding.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:With their grief and their pain because they're afraid to say anything.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. They don't feel like they can.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:They're gonna be considered weak.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Be carnal.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. A friend of mine was so involved in her church, and then her husband passed away suddenly. And it was just the strangest thing because after that time, she was practically invisible. And a couple of people reached out to her in the beginning, but but that did not last very long.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And so she quit going because there was no support there.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:It was so sad.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And that's what we're trying to educate. We're trying to help you, those who are listening, maybe that have not had loss, but you're interested to know what to do. People don't really know what to say. People are afraid. They're afraid they're gonna say something wrong, and quite often they do. But nonetheless, they're afraid to get involved in tough stuff. And thank God Jesus is a master of tough stuff.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes, He is.
Charlie LeBlanc:He's one who runs in the middle of people's pain. He never rejects anyone that's been through a tough time. In fact, he goes after those lost sheep and goes after those who are broken. As we mentioned quite often the woman that was caught in adultery. He he was ready to just you know forgive her and release her and and bring value to her life.
Jill LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and the woman that wept at his feet. You know, and they said, rebuke her. You know, she's a sinner and and Jesus said, oh, you don't know. You know, her sins are forgiven and you know, anyway, there's a lot of good stuff there but but people don't really know how to deal with that.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it's an awkward situation. People who go through divorces, we talked about that a lot too on this program. And people who have had losses, you you get to where you don't know what to say. But listen, love is the greatest gift of all. This little song we heard years ago but you don't have to have it alright.
Charlie LeBlanc:You don't have to have all your words right. You don't have to even say necessarily anything or much less the right thing, but if you come in love, if your heart is to I just wanna be there. I just wanna support you as as a friend. If you come with that kind of heart, I'm telling you what, the people will feel it.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that reminds me of that little quote that they attribute to Theodore Roosevelt that says, people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. And boy, is that ever the truth. We were not in the least bit interested in what people knew in scripture, what the Bible says. The Bible says it, the Bible says he's in heaven. The Bible says, you know, he has eternal life, praise the Lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, we didn't give a rip what people knew. What we were interested is do they really care? We needed people who cared for us. We need people who would hold us, who would walk with us, who would we talk about safe friends and we can talk about that more later today, but we just needed friends that that could really just we could be transparent with, that we could cry with. Scripture says, weep with those who weep. And we don't find a lot of Christians that know how to do that. And we didn't know how to do it. So I'm not judging. We didn't know how to do it before we had this loss either.
Charlie LeBlanc:But, yeah, we we need to learn. We need to learn how to comfort the brokenhearted.
Jill LeBlanc:Listen to this that Paul said, our beloved big super spiritual giant apostle Paul.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Okay? He's in a jail in Philippi, and that was like hell on earth.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:It they there was sewage running through the prison. It was the lowest of the low, and he's thrown in there. And he said, in Philippians four fourteen, he said, you've so graciously provided for my essential needs during this season of difficulty. I mean, people that are going through hard times need support. And so again, this is why we're here today. We wanna talk to you how you can be a better support to those that are walking through difficulty.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And earlier this week, I received a phone call from a very dear friend, and, I I don't I don't talk a lot on the phone. And and, so this friend, when she called, I thought she wouldn't be calling me unless there was a good reason to call. So I picked up, and I I was doing a lot of things, which I'm like, oh, should I answer or not? But I thought she needs-
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. She wouldn't call unless it was something to call.
Jill LeBlanc:And she said that a a very, very close friend of her husband, their daughter died the day before. You know, she said yesterday, their 26 year old daughter dropped dead from a blood clot. The daughter was on a FaceTime call with the mom, and suddenly she passed out
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh my gosh.
Jill LeBlanc:On their FaceTime call.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh my gosh.
Jill LeBlanc:The girl's roommate was there and called 911, and by the time they got her to the hospital, she was gone.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh my lord.
Jill LeBlanc:Just that fast. So they were reeling these parents. And a mutual friend of the of the parents reached out and told our friends. And so she was calling to say, what do I do? You know? So this is someone that was very close to them, and they just wanted to know that what do I do first? What do I say? Do I call? Do I text? What what do I do? And because these parents, they were just they were so shocked. I mean, you have your child one moment, and the next moment, they're gone-
Charlie LeBlanc:Wow.
Jill LeBlanc:From this life.
Charlie LeBlanc:Wow.
Jill LeBlanc:And and so she they knowing the you know, knowing what we're doing in this season of our lives, you know, they're they helped us get our book finished. When Loss Comes Close To Home, they were they were big, very instrumental in helping us get this finished. And so so they know what we're doing, but but she called to say, what do we say? What do we do? When do we send them your book? She said.
Jill LeBlanc:And so so we wanted to talk a little bit about that today, just a real practical approach. And we don't have all the answers, and there is no book that that gives all the the answers.
Charlie LeBlanc:Because every situation is so different.
Jill LeBlanc:It is. Yeah. From our perspective, we have some offerings for you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And there's a scripture that that is a good springboard into this and it's Paul again. It says, when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn. Conflicts on the outside, fears within. So here's Paul in a very difficult situation. He said, but God who comforts the downcast comforted us how? By the coming of Titus.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:God comforted him.
Jill LeBlanc:Titus showed up and god was right in the middle of that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Come on now. Titus showed up.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, he needs to be the head of a title of a new book.
Jill LeBlanc:Titus showed up.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:Maybe a subtitle or something.
Charlie LeBlanc:And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me so that my joy was greater than ever. There's so much packed into this scripture that I just love. But the first thing, he was comforted in a dire situation. He was comforted by a friend showing up.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:Man, that's powerful.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. It's powerful.
Charlie LeBlanc:I've referred to preachers say show up and shut up, you know, but showing up
Jill LeBlanc:Is huge.
Charlie LeBlanc:It really is.
Jill LeBlanc:And yeah. You know, so after I got off that, I talked with my friend for a good twenty minutes and just shared everything I that the I felt like the Lord was leading me to share. And after I got off the phone, I thought, you know, people need to know how to be a good first responder. What can be our first response in these situations?
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, that that has been a personal prayer of mine for a long time, just being Lord, help me to be a good first responder to my husband. If he if he says something, help me respond in a way that's Godly. Now I don't, I don't always get it right, but I'm believing God to get better in that.
Charlie LeBlanc:I'm praying. And you do great, baby. You really do. You do really good.
Jill LeBlanc:I have have room for improvement, but
Charlie LeBlanc:We all do.
Jill LeBlanc:I know. A lot of room for improvement.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know that.
Jill LeBlanc:But in this situation, we need to be good first responders, and the Lord will help us if we open our hearts. So like, practically speaking in this particular instance, she said, should I call? And this was the second day after that their daughter had died the day before. And I said, you know, today, what they're walking through is they're having to plan a funeral. They're having to figure out what they're gonna do with her body. Are they gonna bury her? Are they gonna cream have her cremated?
Charlie LeBlanc:That was so hard.
Jill LeBlanc:And it and it's what happens. All of a sudden, you're faced with these cold water in the face types of decisions that that you never thought you would ever have to think about.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:I mean, we had little when we got life insurance, we got little $5,000 policies on each of our kids, thinking we'll never have to use those.
Charlie LeBlanc:Of course.
Jill LeBlanc:You know?
Charlie LeBlanc:They just came as freebie. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Well, we used our we used it for our son. But so so I was saying to her, you know, you might you might not wanna call today because they've got a ton on their plates, but definitely reach out, maybe via text
Charlie LeBlanc:Mhmm.
Jill LeBlanc:And and just share a very sincere, like, oh my gosh, you guys, our hearts are broken for you. We heard about your daughter. It's something very sincere and and deep. And let them read it as they can.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But don't ask for a response.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Just give them some love and support that way and say, call me when you want to.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:You know, just just to take the pressure off of them to feel like, my gosh, I have to I have to work that into my schedule. So that was one first response.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, and that's good. I think that was some good healthy advice. And a lot of it depends on your relationship with the person. If you are really close, if this is your best friend, you know, then I say give them a call, jump in the middle of it, you know, because it just it it's like Paul. It's like Titus showed up.
Charlie LeBlanc:But it depends on your relationship, just how close are you with the situation. You don't wanna be a bother and just start getting texts from everybody, oh sorry, church, sorry, church. But your best friend, mean, texts are, like I said, they're fine, but phone calls from everybody when you're just, you've got to deal with this situation because you know you've family to deal with, you know you've got local people that are calling and stopping by to comfort you, to help you, and so you don't want to be bothered with a bunch of phone calls. But again, it depends on how close you are with the situation. We recently, a good friend of mine in St.
Charlie LeBlanc:Louis recently lost his son and I didn't I hadn't heard about it, but I was talking I got a text from a friend of his who's also a friend of mine and he said, Charlie, I don't know if you heard, but so and so lost his son. And I went, no, I had not heard. So I called him right away and I said, what? Tell me what and he told me what he knew. I said and so I said, I think I have Steve's number. Can you give it to me again? And he gave it to me again. And I just called him. I mean, just out of the blue. I just and we hadn't talked for years.
Jill LeBlanc:And this was a few weeks afterwards.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. It probably was because I didn't know the timetable at the time because it had happened earlier. But oh man, he was so grateful for my call and we wept together on the phone and we talked sincerely about this pain. And he really, really appreciated me calling because he knew that I understood.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's another interesting part of this is that if you have lost a loved one and a friend has lost a loved one, you should try to get ahold of them right away because they would wanna hear from you. Because they said, you understand. They know that you understand.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And, you know, it's very interesting in our journey with losing Beau, losing our son Beau. Having gone through pain like this, it's interesting to me how our book and even just our experience has been a help to so many people, even that haven't had losses, but that are going through difficult times or have a friend that's had a loss or something. I had an interesting situation recently, we're at a church ministering and we taught on this message of healing broken hearts and God comforting those who mourn and trying to be a good comforter to those who have had loss. And I had a gentleman walk up to me at the end and he said, he was a very frail gentleman, he was probably my age but he was looking well.
Charlie LeBlanc:And he just said, Charlie, he said, thank you so much. He said my name so and so, he wanted to meet me. Thank you for sharing. He said, It really touched me deeply. And he said, I've got stage four cancer and doctor saying only got so much more time to live. And he said, but I'm getting your book because this really helped me and I know it will help my wife when I'm gone. And of course I said, can I pray for you? And so I did and I prayed for healing and prayed for him to be able to be strong through this situation. And so that was it.
Charlie LeBlanc:I didn't know anything about it. And later the pastor of the church told me, he said, Charlie, he said, he's a great musician. He's been a musician all his life and he was so blessed by you and Joe singing, for having the music ministry and having an understanding of pain. So I went ahead and called him a couple of weeks later and we had the best conversation and over and over again he was saying how much the book helped him, and how much my phone call meant to him, and how much just meeting me at that church service meant to him. And so people who are going through difficult times, know, they appreciate it when understanding people walk into that situation.
Charlie LeBlanc:And again, like you're saying, being a first responder, there's a timing, there's a Holy Spirit led timing in every one of these situations depending on how close you are with them. But I asked the pastor, said, Should I call him? You think he'd be okay with me calling him? He said, Oh, he would love for you to call he really liked you a lot, he would love for you to call him. I did and it was a great conversation.
Charlie LeBlanc:So I responded as quickly as I could under the circumstance, I'd never met the man before, but it really comforted him. And it blessed him, as Titus blessed Paul by just getting, that I cared enough to get in the middle of his pain and his situation. Although he's dying of cancer and he's got his wife there. Spoke with her for a few minutes too. But yeah, it's real important that we get involved.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, well, know that when we were walking through all of that, our church was very, very supportive-
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:of us. And they they sent so much food to our house, catered catered food because, you know, typically, that's not always the this way, but typically, when when someone has passed away, there a lot of times your home fills up with people. They just wanna come and support you or just just come and be together. And so our church just sent a lot of food over because they knew that we were gonna be having a lot of people pass through. And so we've taken that on.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes.
Jill LeBlanc:I I can think of at least three times where someone died and then just right away, we would we would eat. It happened when we were when we were working in Colorado, someone's son passed away. And and so we just went to Costco and filled up a bunch of stuff in our cart and and just took it to their house because we knew that people were gonna start just flooding in and they would they didn't we didn't want them to have to be bothered to try to feed all these people coming over. So we just got all kinds of stuff and just brought it to their house.
Jill LeBlanc:And we said, you're gonna be having a ton of people come over, so here here's some stuff just to have that you can put out for them. And we've done that a couple of other times when we when we heard about a situation and we couldn't be there. We couldn't just leave.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Like, they are in another part of the country, and we couldn't go ourselves to be there, but we knew that they were gonna need food for all these people that were already there
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:Waiting on the person to pass away.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And because they're not once the person passes, they don't wanna have to think about all that. So we would we even I think we contacted, what one of those delivery services. I can't remember what they're called.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:And and they worked with Costco. So I went on Costco through their site and just we bought a bunch of stuff, and then that that company delivered it all to their house.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yep.
Jill LeBlanc:They were blown away just just made it so easy to not have to think about fixing food for all of this extended family that were there at the house. And Yeah. And we've done that a few times. And so that's that's a great way if you have the means to be able to support someone, especially out of town. But even if you're there in town, you know, just just send some food because people generally come over and flood your home.
Jill LeBlanc:And you don't want they don't have to they shouldn't be the ones to have to think about providing for all these people coming by. That was a huge help to us.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, there's so many ways you can support people and help people. You know, we only have a few minutes left of this program, but I wondered if you had time to share about, the aspect of Jesus with skin on.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. We talked about this, in one of our earlier episodes, but there was a story about a little boy who who, was in bed trying to go to sleep, and there's a thunderstorm stirring up and and he calls out to to his mom and said, mommy, I'm scared. And she said, don't be afraid. It's it's just a thunderstorm. You're you're fine. Everybody's good. Just go back to sleep. And so, you know, the storm's building in intensity. He said, mommy, I'm still scared. He he he she said, don't be afraid. Jesus is there with you. You don't have anything to be afraid of.
Jill LeBlanc:And so the storm continues and and, so all of a sudden he shows up next to her bed. And and, he said, mommy, I know Jesus is with me, but but I'm still scared. And and she's like, can I get in bed with you and daddy?
Jill LeBlanc:And so she just she's just about to blow blow her cool. And he says he says, I know Jesus is with me, but right now I need Jesus with skin on. And and it's such a cute story, but that's what we needed. The night that our son passed away, we Jesus with skin on showed up at our house in the form of so many beautiful people that just wanted to be there to support us.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:And and so many times, that's what we can do. We can just be Jesus with skin on, not to try and go fix them, not to try and cheer them up, but to weep with them, to hold them, to serve them.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh my gosh. People served us in so many ways for for weeks after. One friend of ours has a painting business and she said, let me know if I can come over and paint a room in your house. You know, she was like, I just wanna do something for you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. And we had our Christmas decorations up still.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh my gosh. Well, friends came over to put those up for us.
Charlie LeBlanc:They took it all away for us.
Jill LeBlanc:But they they first put them up
Charlie LeBlanc:They put them up for us because we were out of town or or something coming back in town.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And and then after Beau passed, they took them all down, didn't they?
Jill LeBlanc:They did. They put them away.
Charlie LeBlanc:Wow. It's crazy.
Jill LeBlanc:And the day that he passed away and we left the house, they they cleaned up all the medical equipment in our basement, which is the room that he was staying in. It's a finished basement. And I never dreamed.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc:I was so speechless when we got home. I I just couldn't think of the right thing to say.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, the depth of love and they really had no idea how much that helped us.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh my gosh.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh my god, we could have never faced that.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, after the pain and so many people have to, so many people, you know, we could go on. Anyway, so yeah, just be Jesus with skin on the people. And Jesus, the parable says, in as much as you've done it into the least of these my brethren, you've done it to me. So when we love hurting people, we're actually loving Jesus as well. So we encourage you to just, you know, be Jesus with skin on.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. And one more thing, know, one more plug for the book. I'm not trying to just sell a book, but we talk about this stuff so much in the second half of this. It's basically how to be a good supporter to your loved one that's walking the grief journey.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yep.
Jill LeBlanc:And, there's just a lot more tips that we weren't able to get to. But, you know, things to say, things not to say that are not helpful. Right. And as well as other practical things. So so please get ahold of the book.
Jill LeBlanc:It'll really help you even if you don't feel like you need it right now. You will need it someday. Someone you know, you'll need it for them.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yep.
Jill LeBlanc:So anyway, thanks for letting us share with you. We appreciate you joining us today. And please share this episode with someone that you feel like would would benefit from it. And subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any other episodes and sign up for notifications and we just we're so glad to be able to share this with you here today. So thank you so much for letting us be a part of your life.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes. And God bless you.
Charlie LeBlanc:God bless you. Thank you.