Episode 74
Facing What Cannot Be Changed

Jill:
00:09

Hi, thanks for joining us on the Finding Hope Podcast, Getting Through What You’ve Never Asked For. We’re Charlie and Jill LeBlanc, and we’re so glad that you’re here today. We’ve got a new episode that we believe will bring, hope to the listeners and, help to understand the journey more. Thanks so much.

Charlie:
00:32

Yeah, this, this thing we want to talk about today, it kind of hit me just earlier in the week, just about the finality of death. And I know this may be a little bit touching, maybe a little hard to listen to or to talk about. But those of you who have had, losses, you’ll understand where we’re at and why we’re talking about this. I know that Jill and I after we lost Bovee, you know, obviously we went through all the pain and we’ve talked about that a lot. The unbelief the paralyzation the just the gut wretching, you know difficulties, but we also read a book by Earl Groman, and we quote him quite a bit.

Charlie:
01:24

And there were a couple of phrases in that book that independently we read it. And and, Jill, you said that, you know, in the same way that I broke in tears when I read a couple of things about death, you did as well.

Jill:
01:40

Mhmm. Instantly.

Charlie:
01:41

Yeah. It affected you as well. And there was something very interesting about the way he spoke of death that hurt us but helped us. And that’s an interesting paradox because it’s kind of like he made us come to a place of accepting the reality that our son was dead. And I know those are really, really hard words to say about your loved one.

Charlie:
02:13

And and because we know as Christians, of course, that our our loved ones went from death into life. You know, Jesus is very clear that if you know me, you know, you’ll live forever. And that’s beautiful and it’s real. It’s real for us. It’s real for our loved ones.

Charlie:
02:31

But there’s also something that helped us just to realize the finality of death, that this is it. This is the end of him as far as our life. You guys, please, you understand what we’re saying. We are We believe in eternal life. Glory to God.

Charlie:
02:51

But to just come to grips with the fact that, okay, this is it. It’s done. Bovee is dead. And, and, you know, although, you know, he’s more alive than he’s ever been, and I’ve heard that in my spirit many times, But in this side of life, and that’s what we’re talking about, we’re talking about this side of life. And I think we talk about that quite a bit in this podcast because we all know, thank God for the hereafter.

Charlie:
03:25

We we all believe in heaven. We all believe in eternal life, but it’s what we’re left with on this side. That’s what people don’t understand. That’s why they give the pat answers of, well, praise the lord. He’s in heaven.

Charlie:
03:38

Or praise the lord. You have a couple other kids. Or praise the lord. You can have another kid. You can have another boy or whatever.

Charlie:
03:43

And that’s what we talk about so much in this podcast, is how do we get through this tough stuff? How do we get through this pain? And you know, Jill, I have been looking through my journals, which is really hard to do, but yet it’s healthy. It’s an interesting thing because I went back and I could see my journals in January 2009 after Bovee passed and what I was saying, what I was feeling, how hard it was. And, you know, part of the reason I go back to these is so that I can help you, our listeners, better because it’s been seventeen years now for us, and the pain, the deep agonizing pain, the deep agonizing tears are not there anymore.

Charlie:
04:32

Yes. We still cry. We’ll still little something will happen. You know, I’ll read something in scripture. Whatever it’ll be, it’ll it’ll make me cry.

Charlie:
04:40

We’ll get a little text from one of those friends. But that deep, deep

Jill:
04:44

pain Sobbing.

Charlie:
04:46

Sobbing and and just

Jill:
04:47

grief. Yeah.

Charlie:
04:49

It is not as much. Thank God. Mhmm. And but but I I I’m glad I go back to these journals because it reminds me, oh my goodness. I mean, years, years later, I look in my journals and I see still that there are these moments where I’m just fall apart.

Charlie:
05:08

And that’s normal. And I think that’s why we love to share with you that, you know, grief and mourning is normal and it’s painful. And the more you love, the more you grieve is the bottom You know, if you really, really love someone and you had a great relationship with them, then, you know, you grieve harder.

Jill:
05:32

And especially if if their death was untimely, like they died young, like our son and even someone in their sixties is, you know, sixties are the new fifties,

Charlie:
05:46

right?

Jill:
05:47

And, or 40s, as some say, you know, losing someone before they should die, you know, as an elderly person who’s lived a full life can oftentimes be so life altering and turn your world upside down.

Charlie:
06:07

Yeah.

Jill:
06:08

So we’re thankful for for people that helped us along that journey and we pray that we can be a help to you as well. Absolutely.

Charlie:
06:18

And you know, it was interesting as we started to consider talking about this subject of death being final that we got a text from our sister-in-law who’s having some difficulty with her. One of her daughters is having some health issues and the doctor is wanting her to fill out a report of all of her family history of illnesses and difficulty and her cousin Bovee of course died. And so our know my sister-in-law very delicately and very carefully said would you mind telling me what type of cancer it was that Bovee had and so that got us and here we were we’re gonna we were already gonna talk about death and the finality of it on our podcast and so she asked this innocent question and she says I certainly don’t want to cause any more pain in you guys. We said, No, it’s fine. We want to know too, because there’s confusion about the different types of cancers.

Jill:
07:21

There’s four different types of thyroid cancer. And it’s been so long since we’ve talked about, you know, all of the details and intricacies and everything that we’ve kind of forgotten. So we

Charlie:
07:35

had So to we started to text a friend of ours who was close to us in the medical field, and he was close to Bovee and tried to get some information from him as well. But anyway, so we’re seeking all this out, I’ve got my medical records not with me, but they’re in storage, so I didn’t have that detail. So I decided I’m gonna go look at his death certificate in our safe. And boy, was that a moment. And so there I was, and I have his birth certificate right next to his death certificate.

Charlie:
08:12

And I thought, wow, here I am. We’re going to talk about the finality of death. And here I am having to look and I hadn’t planned to, but having to look at my son’s birth certificate and then his death certificate. That’s that’s hard. That’s that’s really reality.

Charlie:
08:34

And, you know, Earl Grumman said this, Jill. I I I wrote some of this down. He said, what you what cannot be changed must be accepted. And and I I like that because on this side, we have to accept it. See even though it may be the most difficult thing you’ve ever done, you must now face this reality.

Charlie:
09:00

Then he goes on to say the denial of the tragedy is not mental health. Mental health is the recognition of pain and the attempt to live with it afterwards. So in other words, it’s not denying the tragedy. I don’t want to go. It’s accepting it.

Charlie:
09:17

Mental health, being healthy mentally is what we’re doing in this podcast is talking about it. It’s realizing it. It’s recognizing we do have pain, we do have heartache, we do have mourning, we do have grief. That’s healthy. Yeah.

Charlie:
09:32

And people think it’s not. They don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it. Know, all this. No, no.

Charlie:
09:37

It’s good to talk about it. We have to express our pain and our grief and accept the fact that our loved one is gone. He’s passed. The funeral’s over, the flowers have withered. Now the loss becomes very real.

Charlie:
09:55

Earl said, your loved one is dead. And interestingly, I was flipping through the news this morning, and I saw a little article about Lindsey Graham, and it said Lindsey Graham is dead. And, of course, again, you guys are Christians. Those who are Christians, you understand our we know we know where our side is. But still, there’s a healthy important thing on this side to accept that that, you know, as hard as it is, that, you know, Bo won’t come bouncing into the front door again, and and we won’t have any more pictures, of Bo to take.

Charlie:
10:36

We won’t have any more birthdays, although we do get together to celebrate his birthday. But but yeah, it’s, it’s the finality of it. And you know, there are other losses that are horrible, you know, the loss of a job, you know, loss of a

Jill:
10:53

home,

Charlie:
10:54

burned down or

Jill:
10:55

or loss to foreclosure. Yeah.

Charlie:
11:01

A career, a four zero one ks, just the stock market crashes. And a lot of people have committed suicide after their savings were gone. But these are all losses that are hard. They’re terrible. We were very, you know, empathetic about that.

Charlie:
11:18

But those kinds of losses can you can you have another chance. You can recover them. You can fix that, you know, in time with the grace of God and with the help of God. But when your loved ones died, it’s done. And and you know, the old was a serenity prayer.

Charlie:
11:40

It says help me to accept the things I cannot change, you know, and that’s one of those things that we have to realize that we just have to accept. And so having said all that, that gives you the permission to sorrow, to cry, to grieve. Because what you’ve experienced, what we’ve experienced is really one of the worst things that can be dealt to a human being is the death of a loved one. You know, it’s something that is is hard to describe until you experience it, but the pain of the loss is is is deep. And that’s that’s why we harp on here that it’s okay to cry.

Charlie:
12:33

It’s okay to grieve. It’s not weakness when you’re grieving. In fact, you know, we talk about this a lot, but David’s great men, you know, they wept until they great warriors, they wept until they could weep no more. And so that’s why we like to hit on this thing a lot and let you know that you’re not weak, you’re not lacking of faith because you’re still crying, you’re responding to one of the deepest wounds of a human heart can experience. The deepest wound.

Charlie:
13:06

And that’s why Jesus said I’ve come to heal broken hearts because He knew there’ll be a lot of them around.

Jill:
13:12

And he said to mourn with those who mourn. Jesus said that because he knew that people would need support.

Charlie:
13:19

Yeah.

Jill:
13:20

As they’re walking through tragedy.

Charlie:
13:24

And I love Yeah. I love when he was at the tomb of Lazarus and we talked about this a lot too, but that you know, he wept he saw Mary and Martha weeping because their brother was dead. He saw all the Jewish people weeping around the tomb and and, you know, we he knew he was gonna raise him from the dead, just like we know that our son has eternal life. But, you know, we can know this, but Jesus knew it too. He knew that Lazarus was gonna be raised, but he also was touched with our feelings.

Charlie:
13:58

He understood he was touched with their feelings. And so he actually wept in his humanity. He wept and I I did a little quick search on this that there were three times in the Gospels that he wept. Another time was as he entered to the city of Jerusalem and said he wept over Jerusalem because because you know it was a city that was lost and they were not finding him their savior. And then another place in it talks about in Hebrews that He wept uncontrollably.

Charlie:
14:34

And they were referring I think to Gethsemane where He was in agony sweating drops of blood, you know just going through that pain of understanding that he was gonna have to be a sacrifice of sin for the world. He was the lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. So I think Jesus was in the garden getting a picture of what he was about to go through. Not just the physical crucifixion, which is bad enough, but I knew I know that Jesus knew he said he he knew he was the lamb of God. He knew he was the son of God, and he knew that he came into this world to die.

Charlie:
15:15

He knew that he had to face the cross and take upon the sin of the entire world and the sicknesses of the entire world. So, yeah, in that garden, man, he was, you know, he was in a in a difficult place, and, and it it was hard. You know? So we just want you to know that that you’re okay to be, to be crying. You’re okay to miss them even years later, even six years, ten years.

Charlie:
15:44

You know, there are some of some that are still now now we have to be careful. In fact, I’ve noticed in my journal that, you know, have to be careful not to allow the enemy to destroy us with with sorrow and with heartache, you know, because Jesus is healing came to heal our hearts. So we’re to relate to him in prayer and in worship into a place where he can heal our broken hearts. He is he longs to meet with us so that he can show us his grace and his love and his favor as scripture says. So Jesus is always reaching out to us to help heal our broken hearts but our sorrow is wrapped up in hope.

Charlie:
16:31

Hallelujah.

Jill:
16:31

Yeah. So great.

Charlie:
16:33

And that’s what the scripture says. It says, we don’t grieve as those who have no hope. So we grieve and it’s okay to grieve, but we grieve our grief and our sorrow is wrapped in the hope of eternal life and not only of eternal life for our children or our loved ones that have gone, but also, the hope of us being able to see them again. And that’s a blessing. Know, we’re saying goodbye for now, you know, but it’s not forever.

Charlie:
17:10

And yeah, we miss we miss our son and we sure wish he was with us to to experience this life that that, you know, be with his sisters and love love to meet his children and and his wife and all that. That have been great. But hey, we have to accept the things we cannot change and we believe that you’re you’re doing that as well. It’s a healthy thing to do that. So, you know the beautiful thing is that knowing all this doesn’t necessarily remove the pain, but it does change the future is knowing where he is knowing how we get there.

Charlie:
17:53

You know, Paul doesn’t say that that, you know, in Romans eight, he said all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. Now it doesn’t say that God causes that God caused everything to happen bad in your life.

Jill:
18:11

Right. Absolutely

Charlie:
18:13

not. It does say that he can take the bad, and he can turn it around for good.

Jill:
18:19

Only God can do that. Yeah. I mean, mean, the tragedy in our lives of losing our youngest child, you know, the unthinkable. When when he first got sick, we just we we said, you know, this is no problem for God. And we had a phrase going around that one minister would say often and he said the first report is not the last report.

Jill:
18:49

Yeah. And the first report in our our case with our son was was, you know, they were saying this is, you know, we’ve not seen anything like this. It’s inoperable. We it’s incurable, you know, so, you know, basically get your affairs in order is what the doctors were saying. And we said the first report is not going to be the last report.

Jill:
19:15

Fast forward nine months, it was the

Charlie:
19:17

last report.

Jill:
19:18

And, you know, it flipped us upside down. We were just so inexpressibly shocked. Yeah. And dumbfounded. And, and so so we were those people.

Jill:
19:41

And only God could take something that tragic and turn it around

Charlie:
19:48

Yeah.

Jill:
19:48

And use it for good. And I guess it was probably about a year and a half in when we began to see that. Mhmm. It was it was when the Coulter’s son was killed, and the Lord gave you that word about you do the loving, I’ll do the fixing, tell the people you do the loving, I’ll do the fixing. And, and we began to share about that.

Jill:
20:09

And the Lord just began to give us things to share with other people that had also suffered a loss. And it was pretty profound how the Lord began to use us in that way. And just shocking to us because not everyone who loses someone goes into helping other people that have lost someone.

Charlie:
20:35

Not on a public stage, at least.

Jill:
20:37

Right, right. So God, only God can turn things this tragic around, and use them for good to help other people, and then that he would receive glory from it.

Charlie:
20:53

Yeah.

Jill:
20:53

Only God.

Charlie:
20:54

And you do have to look for that, you know, you know, because sometimes you can be in the middle of something new in your own heart and life after your tragedy, after your loss, and not recognize it. You know? I know that for us, and I know for many of you, your heart is so broken and torn, that it becomes more tender, to God’s love and more tender to God’s, healing. And so you become different, And your compassion for broken people is greater now. And someone came up to us, I think I may have said this already on the podcast, but, someone came up to us recently and said, hey.

Charlie:
21:37

Your worship is so much more intimate, so much more powerful. I’ve known you guys for years, but you know? And I was reading in my journal that that the Lord even spoke to me that, Charlie, you’re now gonna have, your effectiveness of your ministry is now gonna even be more powerful because you now have more of my heart. I mean, gosh, until you’ve experienced the pain of loss like Jesus has and like God the father has, you know, we we just have embraced more of God’s heart, and I know that you have to, just do that. Take take upon yourself the compassion that Jesus has for broken people.

Charlie:
22:18

You know how broken you feel, so so have compassion for others who are hurting as well. And and you just your love can help them. Just your recognition of their pain and not trying to fix them can help them so much. So, we need to take this pain and trust God that he will turn all things together for our good. If someone if someone would have told me that at the beginning, I’d have just wanted to slap them, you know, because it’s like, you have no idea what I’m going through when you say stuff like that, you know.

Charlie:
22:55

But but but it is true. I know that we were just recently in a conference and the the speaker, Chad, his wife committed suicide and he was a broken man. And he had what two

Jill:
23:13

And little

Charlie:
23:16

he said as he was praying and crying and mourning and grieving, he said the Lord spoke to him this scripture that all things will work together for my good to those who love me. Wow. That’s God spoke to him. Now here’s I wanna point this out. When God speaks to you something, it’s different.

Charlie:
23:40

Yeah. When people speak to you something. Right. You know, God spoke to him that if someone would have come up to say, now, Chad, praise the Lord, God’s gonna work this together for your good. Well, you know, that would not have helped him.

Charlie:
23:54

He’d have gotten upset, you know, I think, at least I would. But the Holy Spirit spoke to it. The Holy Spirit, he’s the healer of broken hearts. He can speak to us things. I’m looking at my journal and I’m seeing things that God spoke to me that I’m thinking, wow, I don’t think if anyone else would have told me that, I don’t think I would have been able to handle it.

Charlie:
24:19

But, you know, when Jesus speaks something to you, then take it and embrace it and pray over it and write it in your journal and let him work it out. I mean, there are things that I’m that are happening now in our life in ministry that I wrote in my journal fifteen years ago and had no clue. It was just things that I sensed that God was saying about our ministry. And now fifteen years later, they’re starting to happen. So we’re trusting that God is doing something in your life that is gonna change things and make things better for you.

Charlie:
24:59

God is gonna use this tragedy, this pain. You know, no pain is is is wasted. No tear is wasted. It’s all kept, you know, the scripture says he keeps our tears in a bottle. You know, he he knows our pain.

Charlie:
25:19

He understands our grief. He he’s touched with our pain. Nothing is wasted, and and your pain and your heartache and you know as you keep it before the Lord, that’s the key though, we have to keep it before the Lord because if we just try to walk this stuff out on our own, we’ll never see any redemption in our pain and in our loss but if you keep the loss before the Lord as hard as it is maybe you’re mad at God right now we understand that we had a season of that as well but if you keep your loss and your pain and your tears before the Lord keep them with him. I’ve often said when I when I wept Jesus wept and and I knew that in my heart when I suffered he suffered and and he still does that because he loves us so much and he loves you. My gosh, nothing can separate you from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus.

Charlie:
26:17

He loves you so much. His heart breaks over your loss. He’s there weeping with you when you weep he’s there breaking his heart is breaking, when your heart is breaking. So we just encourage you just just let his arms wrap you up let his peace wrap you up cry in his arms and and just know that he’s gonna work it out in the long run and you’re gonna be better you’re not gonna be bitter you’re gonna be better. Just say that out loud if you need to.

Charlie:
26:53

I’ll not be bitter. I will be better through this. And I can I read in my journals things where I actually had to say that? I I’m making a taking a stand. I’m I’m believing God I’m gonna be better.

Charlie:
27:06

I’m not gonna get bitter, and I’m not gonna let the devil destroy me over this loss of my son.

Jill:
27:14

So true. And and it’s it’s a statement of faith for some of us sometimes. Yes. To have to do something like that is the last thing we feel.

Charlie:
27:22

Right.

Jill:
27:23

But we’re so thankful for God’s grace to help us stand up and take a stand. And not not to be moved by the pressure that the enemy puts on because it can be overwhelming that pressure, just to cower and cave and give in to the to the attacks on our minds and in our hearts. Yeah. But God will he is there to uphold us and carry us. And so we just, wanna encourage you, as Charlie was saying, just to continue to to to let God take control of the ship of your life and and just work with him.

Jill:
28:11

Don’t fight him. But he will show himself faithful to you

Charlie:
28:17

Yes.

Jill:
28:17

For sure.

Charlie:
28:18

Yes. And if we talked about the theme of this this podcast, you know, accept the facts, you know, that our loved ones are gone, our loved ones are dead. It’s hard to even say, but, accept it and trust God Yeah. That he will help you

Jill:
28:37

Right.

Charlie:
28:37

Through it all. Right. In Jesus’ name. Lord, we just thank you for your blessing upon our friends. We thank you for your help.

Charlie:
28:44

You are a present help in time of need. We thank you, father, that you are the god of all comfort, and you comfort us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others. Lord, I pray your blessing, your peace, and the healing of the broken hearts to each one who’s listening. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.

Charlie:
29:07

Amen. Well, bless you guys, and we, thank you for listening and watching, and, give us a thumbs up if you like to share it with someone so we can help some other hurting person. And, God bless you, and we hope to see you talk to you again, next Tuesday. God bless.