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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.
So glad you've joined us today. This is the Finding Hope podcast, getting through what you never asked for.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right, we're Charlie and Jill LeBlanc. And it's great to be here. If you're not on video, you're just listening. It's just a joy for us to be able to come and share our hearts with you, share our experiences with you and to hopefully comfort you at the same comfort that the Lord has comforted us through the loss of our son.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, were talking last time about just keeping our hope in the Lord because He is so faithful and He's so kind and compassionate. And He will bring us through these situations. And we were talking about also about how like this past Christmas was probably the lightest Christmas that I've had in sixteen years in regard to the loss of our son, because he passed away just after Christmas. And so, was really ill during his last Christmas. And so, every Christmas has just been such a heavy load for me personally, emotionally, and just feeling this blanket of grief every year, but thank God, this year, I'm hoping it's a new beginning that I felt lighter this year.
Jill LeBlanc:And I'm just saying that to say that God is faithful and He's always walking with us through difficult times. But I wanted to say that healing takes time.
Charlie LeBlanc:It does.
Jill LeBlanc:It takes time. It does. Just like when you had your shoulder surgery, and that's been twenty five years maybe.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:But they were intending to do arthroscopic, which is just, you know, get in there with robotic thingies and fix it all. And once the doctor got in there, he saw that the tear was too big and he had to cut him open and just do this whole major fix, which made the recovery really much more intense and much more prolonged than it would have been. But it took a lot of time, but it eventually got to where you could use your shoulder pretty well again. And then now you've got full range of motion. Thank you, Jesus.
Jill LeBlanc:And no pain. And our hearts are very similar. It's very similar with our hearts. It just takes a lot of time for our hearts to heal from a traumatic injury. So, it's the same in some ways, but then it's not the same in that our heart is like the captain of a ship.
Jill LeBlanc:The Bible says that to guard our hearts with all diligence, because it controls the course of our life. The course of our life flows out of our hearts. And so it's a little more serious than a shoulder injury or repair. Yours wasn't an injury, but repairing something that deteriorated. But our hearts are, oh my gosh, it's so crucial how we walk through this time of healing.
Charlie LeBlanc:Exactly. I remember specifically crying out to God and calling friends of mine who had lost children, minister friends, and my cry was I wanted to get through this in a healthy manner. I didn't want to end up on the trash heap. I didn't want my heart to become destroyed and and be bitter. You know, as I say, you can become bitter or better.
Charlie LeBlanc:I didn't want to be bitter. I knew that my life depended on the state of my heart, although it was broken. But like you said, Jill, it can be healed. And the Lord wanted to heal. And he began the process of healing our broken heart.
Charlie LeBlanc:But but had I not let him, then I could have ended up bitter and angry and mad at God, mad at the world, mad at everything because that's the tendency that you wanna do is just get really angry with everything. Including God.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. Oh, man.
Charlie LeBlanc:But yeah, I remember crying out, like you say, guarding your heart. I remember crying out saying, God help me. I don't want to end up a statistic of another one that lost his marriage or lost his family and or committed suicide or whatever, you know, because you have all these temptations, all these temptations to give up and
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, because the pain is so intense.
Charlie LeBlanc:Oh, it's so hard.
Jill LeBlanc:It's so intense. I wanted a do over so bad. After we were a few months down the road, just kept thinking, I just want to go back and do it all over again and change something that we didn't do right. Just wanted to go back so bad, get in a time machine and relive the previous year or previous few years or whatever, you know. I couldn't though. I was stuck and so thank God for His grace and His help in our time of need.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, that reminds me of this prayer. And I know in some ways it can sound a little bit religious, the serenity prayer, but it really is a healthy thought and it says, grant me the sincerity, the serenity rather to accept the things I cannot change. And that's a very powerful thing right there that we have to figure out how to accept the things that can't be changed. And more when our loved one dies, we know if they didn't rise from the dead, there's no way to change this. And then it says the courage to change the things that we can change.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's one thing that I've thought a lot about our hearts, our our journey forward is is something that, you know, we can we can change things. We can let God change us. Our future is in God's hands but it's also in our hands. We can allow him to do what he wants to do in our life and it says in the wisdom to know the difference and so there's some things that we can't control, there's some things that we can't change but there are things that we can and we do need to do all that we can to guard our hearts, to keep our hearts healthy, to think on the good things, the better things, to do our best to grieve in a holy way, grieve in a healthy way, to cry with cry in the arms of Jesus, things like this that we've talked so much about.
Jill LeBlanc:But some of that doesn't come very easy and especially in the beginning.
Charlie LeBlanc:No, it doesn't.
Jill LeBlanc:Those things come in time. But in the beginning
Charlie LeBlanc:It was rawness.
Jill LeBlanc:I remember a time that I thought my physical heart was going to explode. The pain was so intense, just thinking about just different pieces of the journey. And since then, we have learned that there is an actual condition called broken heart syndrome.
Charlie LeBlanc:Wow.
Jill LeBlanc:And it's not just an emotional thing. It is a physiological diagnosis. It's something that physiologically happens. It's called, wrote it down. It's called Takotsumo Cardiomyopathy.
Jill LeBlanc:Woah. And happens from severe stress, severe trauma, just really intense situations, and it can actually damage a heart. And we learned recently, a friend of Charlie's that he grew up with, sent a Christmas greeting. And actually, two years ago, he said, my sister lost her adult daughter. Didn't say what happened, but he said, Please pray for her.
Jill LeBlanc:She's really having a hard time. Well, this year in his Christmas greeting, he said, My sister passed away. And it was this broken heart syndrome. And she had gotten therapy, she had gotten counseling, she had been in the hospital, just trying to strengthen her heart, but her heart was so damaged that it couldn't sustain her any longer.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's so crazy to think, you know, because when we do lose a loved one, you know, people a lot of times I think, you know, we'll get over it, you know, hurry up, get over it. But they don't realize the pain and the physical, the spiritual, the emotional and how it affects your actual body. The stress that we couldn't do some of the things we used to do packing, like you said, for a trip was was easy before, but then we couldn't do it. Our nervous system, our stress level, everything. It was like it was like getting in an accident, being hit by a train or a truck. You're you're just you're in shock. You're paralyzed.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. Or a season and in your heart can really it's a broken heart spiritually or like in your soulish realm, rather your heart is broken, but there's also a physical ramification of a broken heart syndrome is actually something that has called cause people to die.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah. It's very rare that people die from it. But but it happens. And now we know someone who lost a sibling to that.
Charlie LeBlanc:I'm just- I can't I can't even believe it. And, you know, we we use that term brokenhearted.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:You know, a lot, but it's like, it really is something that can happen to someone if they don't get their heart healed in a proper way after a painful loss or trauma of any kind in their life. They could actually die from a broken hearted syndrome. And we need to pray and help people so that they wouldn't let that overtake them.
Jill LeBlanc:Right. Yeah. We have to guard our hearts. Like we said, in the beginning, it's really hard.
Jill LeBlanc:It's hard to think about anything else except for what's right before you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right.
Jill LeBlanc:The here and now, and my son is dead. He's not coming back. And we're all brokenhearted. You know, when I say all, I'm specifically referring to our family. But of course, his friends and relatives were all as well brokenhearted.
Jill LeBlanc:But, you know, we thank God we survived, and we've seen the goodness of God now in the land of the living. But we didn't know if we ever would again. And our hearts were so shattered. Yeah, we were so shattered.
Charlie LeBlanc:And you know, it's like you really have to surround yourself with healthy situations when you go through this kind of difficulty. You have to surround yourself with loving friends that understand we talk about in the book, safe friends, people that understand people that are gonna walk with you, weep with you, comfort you, not try to fix you. And that's very important because your heart can get even more damaged if you if you expose yourself to the wrong type of friends, the wrong type of people, the wrong theology even, people saying, well, God did this to your son or whatever, you know.
Jill LeBlanc:Everything happens for a reason.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, everything, you know, these different things, you know, you gotta protect your heart and your relationship with God and protect your relationship with your friends and protect, you know, like that one pastor that lost two children told me, he said, Charlie, be kind to yourself. And you do have to walk very carefully. Our dear friend Grady who's walking through this very, very difficult time of losing his wife. You know, I'm watching him carefully. I text him almost every day.
Charlie LeBlanc:We talk to him pretty regularly. But you know, he's being very careful. Yeah. He's being very careful who he hangs out with, what he does. He's staying real close to his kids and his grandkids.
Charlie LeBlanc:His grandkids are over all the time. I love it. We know it's so sweet. We text him and send love and send some prayers and he'll come back and say, I've stayed with my grandkids last night. They stayed over last night.
Charlie LeBlanc:And, you know, our friend Terry, who lost Larry, she did the same thing. She spent a lot of time with her grandkids and her children. And I think that's probably one of the healthiest things to do if you're able to. We had another dear friend who lost her husband in California and none of her kids were near her. None of her grandkids were near her and she was all alone.
Charlie LeBlanc:Thankfully that was just recently she got remarried after three years of being alone and feeling lonely as can be. She just got remarried by the grace of God. So, but you do have to protect your heart and protect yourself, in this journey. You don't want to you don't have to say yes to every invitation. You don't have to say yes to every party because, you know, you know, sometimes they're going to just want to make you be happy and make you try to forget.
Charlie LeBlanc:Now, we invited Grady, our friend over for New Year's Eve
Jill LeBlanc:Christmas Eve
Charlie LeBlanc:Christmas Eve, sorry. And with with a couple of his his daughter and his daughter-in-law and some of their grandkids and but he knew that we were safe, you know, he knew that we were safe friends. He knew that that he would be surrounded with people that understood loss and understood pain. In fact, a friend of ours came also that had lost his wife and through cancer. And so he was there and he was there to comfort Grady.
Charlie LeBlanc:And of course, and we didn't you know, we were just there just hanging and talking and visiting. And yeah, we talk about his loss some and we talk about Yvonne who we lost him here and there, but it was a safe environment for him. And yet he wouldn't do this to just anyone, you know. So it's important for you to choose wisely, how you're gonna protect your heart because you don't wanna end up with this broken hearted syndrome where it starts in your soul but then it affects your entire body. And before you know it, you know, you've got a serious illness that you're fighting off.
Charlie LeBlanc:So you've got to put the brakes on somewhere and find a way to fight back from your heart getting to Christ. But like you said, Jill, in the beginning, is you're just totally on the mercy of God because you're angry, you're upset, you're hurt, you don't even wanna talk to God at first, you don't even know where to go, you don't know what to do, you can't trust anyone. You can't trust anything.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's a dark place at first, but just hang in there.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:Hang in there. Just just just one day at a time. Don't do anything crazy. Just hang in there. And Joyce Meyer, when we were on our podcast with her, she said something that it did make sense to me.
Charlie LeBlanc:And she said, she said, you need to learn to embrace the pain sometimes rather than fight the pain. And that makes a little sense in that, like for instance, if I cut myself, if I just keep touching it and saying, stop hurting, stop hurting, stop hurting or it or an itch is the perfect thing. Itching it to stop it. It gets worse, worse, worse. But if you just say, okay, it's going to get better in the name of Jesus and you just let it go, then eventually it'll settle down.
Charlie LeBlanc:You don't irritate it. And, you know, that's one thing that that I experienced when I lost Beau, when we lost Beau and what I my journey was, I realized that I had to go through this. There was no way around it. This pain was so hard that I knew I had to go through it and no one could go through it for me and there was no way in or out of it except through it. You know, like what's the old you can't so high, you can't get over it so low, can't get under it so wide, you can't get around it.
Charlie LeBlanc:You gotta go through the door. And I knew that I had to go through the door of grief and through the door of pain and I knew that God would be there on the other side to help me and He would be there walk me through it as well as be on the other side of my healing. So yeah, we need to protect our hearts so that we don't fall into this broken heart of syndrome. And also, you know, this is 2026 and God promises us that he does have a hope for our future.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, thank God.
Charlie LeBlanc:And He does have things better in store for us. And I know that's not easy to see when you're hurting but you have to trust God that He will bring you through this pain and He does have better days ahead for you. And, you know, sometimes people feel guilty for getting better because they feel like they're abandoning their loved one. But listen, you know, I want to I don't want to sound cliche-ish because we hear this a lot. You know, your loved one would want you to be happy. Your loved one would want you to do this. Your loved one. I know that there's there's truth in that. There's no question. But it's also when you're hurting it doesn't always help to hear But nonetheless, that's kind of what I'm saying right now.
Charlie LeBlanc:It's that, you know, one friend put it this way to me. He said, Charlie, Beau is in your future and so you need to move forward and live your life knowing that you'll see him again, knowing that he's waiting for you. In fact, I had a little dream that he's building a mansion for me. He's helping, you know, helping Jesus, helping Jesus.
Charlie LeBlanc:Jesus said, I'll prepare a mansion for you, but those in there with a hammer helping. And so it is good to recognize that that we do have a future that that God wants us to move forward. Our loved ones do want us to move forward and they want us to live our life to its fullest and to not get buried in grief, to not grieve as those who have no hope but to grieve with the hope of Christ, the hope of God given us a better future, the hope of God strengthening us to show us things to come and to turn this pain into purpose. You know, I just got a text today from a friend of mine who said, Charlie, a close friend of mine just lost her son and I ordered one of your books and I gave him your book and it's really helping them.
Charlie LeBlanc:And that's purpose. He lost his son. My friend lost his son. He found someone else that lost the son and he ran into this person and now he's ministering to them. And that's a there's a lot of healing in that. There's a lot of healing in helping others get through their pain. So don't get caught up in the broken hearted syndrome.
Jill LeBlanc:Yeah, amen. Jesus is the strength of our hearts.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, He is. Yeah, you know, the Bible talks about being crushed in spirit and, it even says that in Proverbs that you can you can handle a sickness, A heart can handle a sickness but who can handle a crushed heart, a crushed spirit.
Jill LeBlanc:Right.
Charlie LeBlanc:And it's like it shows you that the protection of the heart is so much more important than anything else. Like you said last podcast too, above all guard your heart for out of it flows the issues of life.
Jill LeBlanc:And that's huge.
Charlie LeBlanc:You can grieve, you can be sad, you can be sorrowful over your loss, but you can still protect your heart. And I've said it over and over again by doing it in the presence of the Lord and to weep with the Lord holding you and to mourn and grieve with the Lord grieving with you. He weeps with those who weep. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus like I said last podcast and he does weep when we weep. He suffers when we suffer.
Charlie LeBlanc:And so it's good to know that He's there with us. There was another scripture that I ran across yesterday as I was thinking about this. And this is an exodus. It says, then the Lord told him, I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians. But isn't that amazing that the Lord is speaking, I guess, to Abraham here or Moses, whoever it was, probably Moses. He him out of Egypt. I have heard the cries and their distress because of their harsh slave drivers and I am aware of their suffering.
Charlie LeBlanc:So I have come to Jesus, God is aware of our suffering and he is close to the broken hearted. We have to remember that he never abandons us in our pain. He is close to us in our pain. Jesus is not afraid of our suffering. He comes and he suffers with us and he holds our heart and he protects our heart from it getting super damaged.
Charlie LeBlanc:And he just walks with us through the pain and he just loves us. As we said before, he's the God of all comfort. And I ran across another scripture that said, He's the God of all hope as well. Where did that one go?
Jill LeBlanc:Isn't it Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5, may the God of hope.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah, Romans 15:13, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him. The God of hope.
Jill LeBlanc:I love that. I was thinking about when Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan, you know, that was that was totally a a story of him with humanity. You know, he he came and saw broken humanity, and he picked picked us up, you know, and in the story carried him to an end. And he said, you know, if I I'm going to leave him here, take care of him. And if if I owe you any more of a time I get back, I'll pay it then.
Jill LeBlanc:And, And it says that he poured wine and oil into the man's wounds. And I think wine is a symbol of healing, and oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. He was just all over this person, healing him up. And then that's Jesus, that's Him and us. And He carries us when we are so broken. He just cares for us. He's all about getting us well, but He understands that it takes time and healing takes time. But he's there to do it, to bring us along, not to rush the whole process, but just to help us along so that we can heal up in a good, strong, healthy way.
Charlie LeBlanc:There's no one like Jesus to help you get through this. You know, people will want to rush you. They want you to get better quicker. They want to rush you to hurry up and get better, you know. And yet Jesus is very patient with us and he knows the amount of time it's going to take us to get through these kind of difficult things.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. So let us encourage you to just be patient with yourself.
Jill LeBlanc:Yes.
Charlie LeBlanc:Grieve as much as you want to grieve, mourn as much as you want to mourn, weep as much as you want to weep.
Charlie LeBlanc:Keep it together with the Lord knowing that He comforts you, knowing that He's the God of all comfort, He's the God of all hope. There is hope for your future. God will turn this thing around and He'll use it to help you be a better person, help you help others as well. I know it's painful. I know it's dreadful.
Charlie LeBlanc:I know it's beyond belief sometimes. I know it feels like a nightmare sometimes the fact that you've lost your loved one. But God will get you through this. He will. It's darkness but He's the light of the world.
Charlie LeBlanc:He will bring light in darkness. He will lead the blind in a way they do not know and paths they do not know. He will guide them. He will make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert and He does that. It takes time. We don't always see it but He's there to help you and to comfort you. Amen.
Jill LeBlanc:I hope you can receive all that and we hope it's a help to you.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah and I wanna make mention of our book again When Loss Comes Close to Home. Please get a copy of this for yourself, your friends, and have a couple on hand when someone does have a loss, they'll be able to, you'll be able to give this something to them to help them as well.
Jill LeBlanc:And I just wanted to say, you know, if you have found a lot of help and you realize what we're saying is true, and maybe you've already given some to others, we do have bulk discounts available through our office. If you order on our website or if you go on our website, call our office and we can work out a bulk discount for you if that's something that is of interest to you.
Charlie LeBlanc:That's right.
Jill LeBlanc:That you can be a help to others with.
Charlie LeBlanc:Right. Go to our website, charlieandjill.com. We have lots of resources, brief resources. We have a download as well.
Jill LeBlanc:Lots of blogs to help you in your walk with the Lord.
Charlie LeBlanc:Scriptures to encourage you.
Jill LeBlanc:And lots of music.
Charlie LeBlanc:Yeah. We've been in music ministry for over thirty years and we forget about it because we're so focused on helping people with this God of all comfort. But our music continually has gotten testimonies of people's hearts being healed through listening to good worship and good inspirational worship music.
Jill LeBlanc:Word of God in song.
Charlie LeBlanc:Our our website's full of it. Go get blessed on our website. Like this program. Share this podcast and thank you for supporting us in this. Monthly partners are always welcome. We appreciate you so much and we're believing God for a really good year for you.
Jill LeBlanc:Amen.
Charlie LeBlanc:In Jesus name.
Jill LeBlanc:God bless you. Hope to see you soon.
Charlie LeBlanc:Amen. Bye bye.