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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 the Finding Hope podcast. Charlie and Jill LeBlanc here and we're excited to be with you. We're so grateful that God has given us this mandate to reach out to those who have had broken hearts, to comfort those who mourn. It's something that we never asked for, but God has given to us this calling and this mandate and we're hoping that the things that we share are helpful to you. We're getting a lot of testimonies of people saying thank you for speaking up for us.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know there's a scripture in Proverbs 30 I think it is or 31 that says, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. And so that's our heart here. It's to speak up for you if you've had a loss because there's just not a lot of people talking about it today.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, it's true especially in our word of faith and charismatic circles. It's not a popular message because it deals with pain. And Christians, we don't want to talk about pain. We want to talk about joy and praise Jesus and healing testimonies and all these things that and feel all this, but some of us have experienced pain that we never dreamed we would ever experience in our lives.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:And it's a lot of people.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, it is. And it's a privilege for us to be able to address it because as you were saying that I was reminded of the scripture in Romans that says rejoice with those who rejoice but weep with those who weep and we talk about that quite a bit on this broadcast podcast and yeah, because it's the thing that the church, as you said, Jill, doesn't have that part of it down, the weeping with those who weep. We seem to avoid those who are hurting. We seem to kind of just, you know, when it comes to Sunday morning, in fact, sometimes I've noticed in some churches where there'll be a major national or international crisis like a terrible tsunami or a war that breaks out or or terrible hurricane and that's killed many people or a flood or whatever. And we'll get to a Sunday morning service and, you know, they'll do the regular praise and worship time, everybody worshiping God, getting intimate with Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:The pastor come up and say, boy, this is the day the Lord has made. And and then they'll go in and preach the sermon. And it's like nothing has been mentioned about this terrible tragedy that just happened in our nation. The least we could do is stop and recognize the pain that other people have and pray for them. And I'm not trying to be critical churches.
Charlie LeBlanc:A lot of great churches that address the issues every Sunday. Our church prays for another church every Sunday that's in need. And we address things like this, which I appreciate so much. But there are a lot I've been to churches where I've just been sitting there going waiting for them to address this issue because it's a painful, horrible that the rest of the world is is is aware of. And they're all going, oh, my gosh, this is horrible.
Charlie LeBlanc:And then we get to our Sunday and we get in our little bubble. And you know what? The thing about it is Jesus is not that way. Jesus is in the middle of all this pain.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:He's in the middle of hurt. He he loves to get in the middle of painful, hurtful situations.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes, he does.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's a big theme of this podcast is just how much God loves us in the midst of our suffering and how much he jumps in the middle of the boat with us when we're crying, when we're hurting, when we've lost a loved one. Jesus doesn't shy away from that like some Christians do. I'm not trying to be bitter or harsh against Christians because I love Christians.
Jill LeBlanc:We are are one.
Charlie LeBlanc:I am one. But Jesus he loved the poor. He loved the orphans. He loved the widows, the widowers. He loved the broken hearted.
Charlie LeBlanc:He comforted those who mourn. He actually was a friend of sinners, publican and sinners. He went to the broken and his heart with compassion was to help hurting people.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, I'm so grateful.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, and I'm thankful for that because when we lost our son, we were hurting really bad and thankfully we had some beautiful Christians around us that did understand and that did love us and did help us get through it. But there were a lot that didn't understand. It was surprising to us how some of our friends just did not understand what we were going through or at least they were uncomfortable, too uncomfortable to address it. And so I'm grateful to the Lord that He helped us through that difficult time. And we're praying for you if you've had a recent loss.
Charlie LeBlanc:We get messages every day, emails, texts from people who have just lost a child, a mother, a father, someone very dear to them. We just recently lost one of our closest friends just within the last month. Horrible. It really tainted our holidays because we know we wanted rejoice with those who rejoice like our grandkids and our family over the Christmas holidays. But our hearts were heavy through the whole season because we just lost a dearest, dearest friend.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we're mourning not only for our loss, but we're mourning for our dear friends who have lost their mother, their spouse, the grandkids that have lost their grandmother. It's just it's just a rough time. And we've addressed a lot of this in the last month about hope for the holidays and now that we're in this new year, it's already moving ahead and I know for us when we first entered into the New Year's after we had lost Beau, it was some difficult times. It was hard for us to focus to have any kind of hope
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:for the New Year.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. It was.
Charlie LeBlanc:Why don't you share a little bit about how your heart was so broken and you're having a hard time finding help?
Jill LeBlanc:Well, wanted to say first of all, that I feel like after having come through the holidays recently, I have to say that it's been almost seventeen years. This is our sixteenth Christmas without Beau. And normally that has been a really hard time for me. And we've talked about it before, just getting the decorations out and the different ornaments, and then just going through all of it without him, with his sisters and just feeling the weight of this tremendous loss in our lives. Has always the fact that he passed away just right after then.
Jill LeBlanc:So it was
Charlie LeBlanc:Well, actually this is being aired on the thirteenth. And he actually passed on the fourteenth.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. But as far as Christmas goes, he was very ill at that time. So, it was a tough time, a lot of memories, just can't help but go there. So, it has been a really difficult season for me every single year. But I must say that this year, I feel like I didn't have that heavy blanket of just grief and mourning. And maybe because our friend passed away two months ago that just kind of took the place.
Charlie LeBlanc:It kind of overshadowed.
Jill LeBlanc:I'm sure, yeah. Because it was just so hard on so many levels and so fresh. But as far as the loss of our son, I feel like I got through this year a little stronger, a little healthier. You know, just, I guess, there's just more healing taking place in my heart. And there is obviously, but I felt it. We don't always feel everything the way it is. The Lord is so wonderful, so gracious, is so loving and patient, but we don't always feel that.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:If our soul is upside down with different feelings, grief and whatever. But thank God, what has been a very, very difficult season every single year for me this year was better.
Charlie LeBlanc:Praise God.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm grateful.
Charlie LeBlanc:I actually noticed that because every year when we come to this time obviously being the father and the husband, I'm very aware and sensitive to your needs and sensitive to how you're feeling during this time. And I try not to push it too much. I have my own grief journey. I have my own hard times through these seasons. And we all process our grief just a little bit differently.
Charlie LeBlanc:But but I was aware that that you had a little bit lighter heart, a little bit lighter spirit, although we still did get overwhelmed with all that we had to do.
Jill LeBlanc:As it does.
Charlie LeBlanc:We do every year, everything that we have to do with getting out Christmas cards and emails to our to you guys, to our partners, to our friends, you know, and all the Christmas cards, all the decorations, all the grandkids and the day of cookie baking and everything. All of it was wonderful. But yet when it was all said and done, when it was all over, our pastor opened up with a sermon Sunday morning and he said something about you kind of feel a letdown sometimes after Christmas because of all the expectation and then the letdown. Turned to Jill. I said, yeah, we feel a relief.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, it's a letdown in all the best sense of the word.
Charlie LeBlanc:I was kinda like, thank God this is over.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank you Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:But you know, we celebrate the birth of Jesus every day in our life in the word. Hallelujah. The word is alive. It's living. It's the birth of Jesus Christ, the word of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so the celebration of Christmas to celebrate his birthday. Yeah, it's so commercialized and it's, you know, it's just a but you know, we do it for our kids. We do it for our grandkids and they're so sweet and they just bring such delight to us and such a joy to us. And we have four grandsons and two of them still I think believe in Santa, kind of.
Jill LeBlanc:Oh yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:So yeah, and then our two older ones they stayed with us. They're staying with us right now with their mother and they actually bake cookies the night before for Santa. They know. Then the next morning I got up early and I was tempted to eat one just to tell if I had one.
Jill LeBlanc:Or just to think.
Charlie LeBlanc:Anyway, yeah, you know time doesn't heal because there are some people that fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years in are still in a lot, a lot of pain. Jesus heals, right? He heals broken hearts and he's there to rescue us in our brokenness. And but but there's a part we have to play.
Charlie LeBlanc:There's a part that that we do have to engage with him. We do have to give our pain to the Lord. That's one thing that I embraced early on in my journey is, first of all, I embraced tears, I embraced the grief, I embraced the pain and and I didn't try to rebuke it. I didn't try to cast it away from me. I embraced it, but I embraced it with Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's the difference. You can get in your own little world of grief and pain and not involve Jesus and his comfort. And then you can just stay there the rest of your life. And I just wanna encourage you to go ahead and grieve because it's part of loss. The scripture tells us that we don't grieve as those who have no hope, but it still doesn't say that we don't grieve because the scriptures are full of examples of great men and women of God who grieved Godly men and women of God.
Charlie LeBlanc:But you know, but you don't want to get stuck. You wanna give your tears to the Lord because it says he collects them in a bottle. They're precious to him. Our tears are precious to him. And I learned that early on in my in my grief journey where I just wept and I cried out to God.
Charlie LeBlanc:Said, God, you know, thank you for being with me. Thank you for not condemning me for crying. Thank you for understanding my pain. Thank you for understanding my grief. You know, it's like that scripture that I've quoted many times out of Isaiah says that he suffers when we suffer.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that has really ministered to me so much.
Jill LeBlanc:That's so true.
Charlie LeBlanc:That the Lord suffers when we suffer. And so I just wanna encourage you, don't get stuck in your grief journey. Now, if you're just a year in or two years in, it's normal and it's okay but I was reading a journal about a year and a half after I lost Beau, I journaled and the Lord spoke to me and said, Charlie, I have I am going to turn this tragedy into something that you're going to be able to help people with. That was in 2010. I wrote that down. I couldn't believe it when I reread it. I thought, oh my gosh, it was a year and a half after Beau passed and I was got the spirit of God was already speaking to me that Charlie, I'm gonna help you.
Charlie LeBlanc:I'm gonna make you better. I'm gonna heal your broken heart and then I'm gonna use this so that you can help others. That's what we're trying to do right now. But I'm just selling you that God wants to be involved with your grief. He wants to be involved with your pain.
Charlie LeBlanc:He's in the middle of it but you have to acknowledge Him in the middle of your pain that He loves you so much. He's the God of all comfort and he wants to be with you in the middle of your pain.
Jill LeBlanc:He does. And interesting you're saying that because I was just writing some things down this morning. I was listening to this one guy that I listen to sometimes who lost his son in recent years. I'm not sure how long it's been, but he shares the most poignant things about grief. And he was sharing about his own story, and he finally came to the realization that he didn't have to be strong in himself to survive this.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm not sure that he's a Christian, but he was saying, We can't avoid it. We can't treat it like it's not there. We can't just power through. We have to face it, but we have to be real and authentic with it. And he said, sometimes the most sacred healing doesn't look like peace, but it looks like others that are holding you up while you're falling apart.
Jill LeBlanc:I thought that was really, really sweet because we need each other. We can't be an island and get through this in a healthy way. We have to let others come and surround us with love and support during these times. And we just have to let Jesus in others come and help us so that we can get through in a healthy way.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Amen. I was reminded of the scripture when you just said that, where Paul said, when I'm weak, then I am strong because Jesus spoke to him and said, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. And that's part of the paradox of our charismatic faith filled Christianity is that we have this thing that we're more than conquerors and we can do all things but we sometimes get into more an aspect of we can do it. But it's very clear to us as we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
Charlie LeBlanc:There's absolutely no way to get through these things without Christ holding us, carrying us. As we've talked so many times about, he carries us in our weakness, footprints in the sand. We've talked about it so many times, carrying us through the hard times. And you know, I didn't feel it. It's just like the footprints. I didn't really feel like he was carrying me. I felt like he had abandoned me. You know, I felt like Jesus on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Charlie LeBlanc:I felt forsaken. I felt, you know, that everything I had hoped for. In fact, that scripture and Lamentations, I just have read it so many times but I'm gonna read it again because it's so relevant where he says, I cry out my splendor is gone. Lamentations :18-24. He said everything I had hoped for from the Lord was lost.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, the theme of this podcast is finding hope. You're getting through what you never asked for. And I think as a new year approaches, sometimes we're reaching out saying, I'm hoping that this new year is going to be better than the last year.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And hope is very important. In fact, the scripture says that faith is the substance of things hoped for. So there remains faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is love, but we need hope. We to have a hope for our future. And scripture says in Jeremiah 29:11 it says that there is, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's Jesus is hope. He is the hope of glory. And you as we said at the beginning, we grieve, we don't grieve as those who have no hope. We do have hope. We do have hope for our future. And you know, I think a dear friend of ours who who lost her husband, my best friend lost, I lost. And she said the hardest thing was just finding help. She said, I just I just didn't know how I was going to make it. I didn't know how I could make it the next year, how I would pay the bills, how I would do the finances. How would I handle the house?
Charlie LeBlanc:How would I handle all the details of life that he handled? I'm going to handle the cars, the mechanics. How am I going to handle this and the pain and and the loss and being alone every night in bed, how am I going to handle the loneliness? You know, she had lost hope. And and but Jesus is the hope that we have.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:The hope in Christ. And he is our only hope. We don't grieve like those who have no hope. We do have hope, thank God. It doesn't mean we don't grieve, we do. But we grieve with hope, we grieve with him. So let me get back to that scripture because it's so this scripture came so alive in my heart because, you know, when you're going through pain, you're you want people to understand what you're going through.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And most people don't understand it. And there's a scripture that I quote quite often that says, No one can fully understand both the bitterness and the joys that you have. And it's true, it's a sober scripture because it makes us say, you know, no one's gonna really fully understand. So it's okay. It's okay, you know.
Charlie LeBlanc:But this scripture when I read it, I thought Jeremiah, I think it's Jeremiah, right? Lamentations. Jeremiah understood this. He expressed my feelings. Lamentations 3:18 again, I'm gonna try to get through it this time.
Charlie LeBlanc:Everything I had hoped for from the Lord was lost. Boy, did I experience that. We both did. The thought of my suffering is bitter beyond words and it was bitter. And then he says this and I appreciate it. I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. And that's the bottom line.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:We will never forget it.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And I don't I don't want to forget it. And the reason I don't want to forget it and the reason why we wrote this book, When Loss Comes Close to Home, is because we didn't want to forget how hard this was so that we can help others. You see, when you're in pain, I can understand that because I went through it and I'm I have not forgotten it.
Charlie LeBlanc:And now, yes, seventeen years later, the pain is not as real. But oh, my God, I look back at my journals sometimes and I think I was broken, a broken man. I was hurt. I was bitter. And I don't want to forget that. And the prophet says, I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this, the faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning.
Jill LeBlanc:Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc:I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance. Therefore I will hope in him. I don't know, there's just something about that scripture.
Jill LeBlanc:It's so powerful.
Charlie LeBlanc:That just really lights me up because he understands. I see a prophet that understands my pain.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:And the scripture tells us that Jesus was touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He suffered when we suffer. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He understands too. He understands.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, he does. You And I wanted to mention about our friend that you were just speaking of about, it's been two and a half years I think since her husband passed away. And I mean, coming from that place of fighting hopelessness, to see where she's at today in the last two years, it is just miraculous to see how the Lord has directed her in different areas. She stayed tight with Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:She did.
Jill LeBlanc:And she always was really tight. She's a woman of the Word of God and always has been. And she stayed there during this time, but it was so cloudy for a while that she couldn't see through the fog. But the Lord has brought her through the fog and has just been opening so many beautiful doors for her. And it's just been really a beautiful sight to see about, God is faithful.
Jill LeBlanc:And like we said, even if we don't feel it or see it sometimes, He's still always there. And he's always holding us and carrying us, walking with us through these times. And he never will not do that.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:He will never not do that.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right. He'll never leave us or forsake us. He's with us always even to the ends of the earth. Yeah. Praise the Lord.
Jill LeBlanc:Thank God.
Charlie LeBlanc:Well listen, do wanna say another word about our book. I was just looking through testimonies today. People write us all the time and tell us how much the book helped us or how much, the podcast has helped them. And we appreciate those testimony. I want you to know. So please leave us a message on this podcast. Let us know if this touched you in any way. Give us a thumbs up, like it, share it with a friend. That's very important. But we do want to encourage you to get this book.
Charlie LeBlanc:This is our book, When Loss Comes Close to Home. And after reading these testimonies this morning, so many of them saying thank you, thank you, thank you for being transparent. Thank you for being honest. As many of you maybe just saw, if not, we want to encourage you to go back and see. We just did two episodes with an interview with Andrew Wommack and Jamie Wommack.
Charlie LeBlanc:And they're sweet, friends of ours and they walked with us through that devastating loss. They were there at our house just within hours of the loss of Beau. I talked to Andrew on the phone as we were praying for Beau to be resurrected. It was a difficult time, but they sure stood with us through all of that. We would love for you to go back and see.
Charlie LeBlanc:We broke it up into two different days. So two Tuesdays that you can see the last Tuesday in December, the first Tuesday in January with Andrew and Jamie Wommack interviewing Jill and I. I think it'll really bless you. But he promoted our book as well as Joyce Meyer promoted the book. These men and women of God, they understand the need for this kind of ministry.
Charlie LeBlanc:And we encourage you, get some of these books so that you can give them to your friend. That's one thing we get a lot is people saying, I got your book and I gave it to my friend and they've been so helped. And that blesses us so much. As you know, we poured our heart out into this book and we just really want to help people. This is just the beginning of us helping more and more and more people and you're a big part of that.
Charlie LeBlanc:We appreciate your support, your love and your prayers. So God bless you. Do you have anything you want to say in closing, babe?
Jill LeBlanc:Nope. You're good.
Charlie LeBlanc:Get the book. God bless you. Love you. We'll talk to you next time. Bye bye now.
Jill LeBlanc:Bye.