Episode 68
Our Story. Our Song. Pt 1: When the Miracle Doesn’t Come

Jill:
00:09

Hi, and welcome to the Finding Hope Podcast, getting through what you never asked for. We’re so glad you’ve joined us here today. And we have a really special episode this week and next week that we believe you’ll really enjoy.

Charlie:
00:24

Yes. We were interviewed on the GTN network, by Christ Bovee. And, I know we do a lot of interviews on here, but I’m telling you, this was so powerful. And what’s special about this one is we actually sang two songs, I guess, in the first one and two songs in the second one. I think so.

Charlie:
00:47

So, we have a beautiful recording of, of us singing these songs and plus, of course, our testimony. Chrissy asked some very powerful questions, very hard questions to us about our journey of loss, about losing our son, Beau, and how difficult it was. So we believe this is gonna really minister to you. And if you are listening and you have a chance to go to YouTube, you can actually view it as well. It’s a beautiful setting.

Charlie:
01:15

They did a great job. So God bless you and hope you enjoy. Yeah.

Christi:
01:23

Welcome to My Story, My Song, where we explore the faith filled stories behind the songs people love all over the world. Today we’re incredibly honored to have in studio Charlie and Jill LeBlanc. The LeBlancs have been leading worship and writing songs, singing all over the world for the past forty years. In fact, they’ve been very much in the public eye, leading worship for ministries like Joyce Meyer and Andrew Womack, you may have seen them on a stadium stage near you. So nothing could have prepared them for the devastating news that their 22 year old son Beau was diagnosed with stage four inoperable thyroid cancer.

Christi:
02:03

We’re going to be talking about the story and the songs, and this new book, When Loss Comes Close to Home. Finding Hope to Carry On When Death Turns Your World Upside Down. Charlie and Jill, thank you so much for being on My Story, My Song.

Jill:
02:20

You so much, Christine.

Charlie:
02:21

We’re honored to be here. Definitely.

Christi:
02:23

This is a topic that is near to my heart, and this resource, which you can get on charlieandjill.com, is invaluable. I wish I had had this five years ago when we were dealing with the loss, sudden tragic loss of our little grandson, Charles Thomas, and I just think everybody needs this on their bookshelf. Whether you’re going through it or you’re in ministry, it’s so powerful. I wanted to start before this book. What was your life like prior to Beau’s diagnosis?

Charlie:
02:57

You know, Jill often says that she was about to get the t shirt that, you know, life is good and everything’s perfect, and you know, nothing had been horribly wrong in our life. We had three children, we traveled around the world, like you said, we led worship with George Meyer and Andrew. We graduated from Rainbow Bible Training Center, Word of Faith. We just, we knew God was good, and we know He still is, and yet this tragedy hit us. So we were very involved in ministry, and when this came, we just thought, well, this will be a piece of cake for God.

Charlie:
03:32

You know, my son will be healed, and he’ll be on the next healing journeys today, but, it didn’t turn out that way, and so that was just a real, real difficult time for us to be faced with that kind of tragedy and that kind of pain and that kind of loss. Totally unexpected, just rocked our world, really. Yeah.

Christi:
03:54

I mean, what was Beau like? Help us get to know who he was. He was just one of these larger than life kids, super talented,

Jill:
04:03

super funny, just lit up the room when he walked in, and just cute as he could be, so it was a major devastation when we lost him because, you know, he was just looked up to by a lot of people,

Christi:
04:20

and

Jill:
04:22

it was, yeah, it was a big, it was a major loss.

Charlie:
04:25

Yeah, he came about four years after our two daughters, so he was the baby and the young, and they were all so close to him, and it was just a beautiful family unit, and he just made it so special, and you know, kept us all laughing, and like Jill said, very charismatic, great singer, great producer, he he played, you know, multiple instruments, and sang, and dance, he had an incredible future ahead of him, and the enemy came in and stole that, so but it’s okay, the devil’s paying back now.

Christi:
05:00

Yeah. So you get the diagnosis, what was the next step? Were you guys were traveling, I’m assuming at that point, and ministering all over the world?

Jill:
05:10

We were. He had been having a sore throat for several months, and we kept telling him, go to the doctor, and then it kind of escalated where he would have nights where he would wake up not being able to breathe, and he went to the hospital more than once, and finally we said, get an appointment made with a specialist, just go do it. Finally, he got one made and, you know, it was a lot of scrambling to find what kind of treatments. And in the meantime, we’re just standing and believing that the first report is not the last report and, you know, just, you know, this is gonna be awesome, you know, just to see God work in this situation. So, you know, things didn’t go the way we thought they were gonna go, but we battled for nine months and we did everything in the natural, everything spiritually

Charlie:
06:02

Yeah, medically.

Jill:
06:03

Medically, thank you. You know, we were just so shocked that it went the way it went. We were just shocked.

Christi:
06:12

So can you talk about the day that Beau passed? Maybe. I know it’s a personal thing, but it’s very important in your book, maybe? Yeah. Yeah,

Jill:
06:24

our home had been filled with people coming over and just praying all day long and worshiping, and Beau had been in the hospital a few days before just because it got to where the main tumor was donut shaped and wrapped around his trachea and his esophagus, and as it grew, it squeezed. So, his breathing became a big issue, and then by that time, cancer had filled both lungs. So, it went from here, even though the radiation really helped, it spread to his lungs, and that’s really what took him out. So, anyway, we had to take him in so that they could help him breathe, but they just said, Listen, we don’t really have anything else we can do, Bovee said, I just want to go home. So we took him home, and from that day forward, our home just began to be filled with people coming over to support us and pray.

Jill:
07:20

And so that was Sunday evening, all day Monday, all day Tuesday, and, you know, during that time we were just worshipping together and praying, and it was awesome, and people had words and visions and all this stuff. But we went to bed, and shortly after, our daughter came to get us to say that Beau was throwing up and he stopped breathing. So, unfortunately he aspirated on the feeding tube and all that business, and, you know, but we weren’t afraid because we were watching. He was declining, and we knew that God raises the dead, so even if it went there, we weren’t afraid of that, And so it went there, but we just began to pray and command him to come back, and nothing was happening, and, you know, so we just gathered around in the room, know, all of us were right there around him, and we just worshiped, we just

Charlie:
08:29

We prayed.

Jill:
08:30

We just began to worship and just pray, and we did that for five hours.

Charlie:
08:36

Yeah.

Jill:
08:37

And finally, after the fifth hour, we just decided we had to let him go. Yeah. And it was very difficult. Yeah. Very emotional.

Charlie:
08:50

Yeah, when we, you know, obviously being the dad, the father of the house, you know, the man of the house, I had to make that decision, you know, Andrew and I had been talking quite a bit through those hours. Our pastor had come over, and sat with us, and prayed with us during that time, and you know, it just came to a place where we just figured, you know, if he was gonna come back, he’d come back by now, and so we just once I turned to my family and told them,

Charlie:
09:26

that was what it really went bad. Because that’s what

Charlie:
09:31

you know, the the scripture that talks about, and I’m gonna get this wrong, but Rachel weeping for her children, the the crying, and

Charlie:
09:41

the way the wailing. And, you know, he my daughters were just screaming. I think that’s something I’ll never forget. And the pain just to say, no. No.

Charlie:
10:00

We can’t let him go. We can’t. But there was really no way to fix it. It was what it was, and we just had to deal with it. We had to we had to find a way to get through.

Charlie:
10:15

And so, you know, we just all did our best to, you know, love on each other, and and, you know, our son’s on the floor. He’s not breathing. He’s so, you know, some some of our friends left the room and let us just have a little family time, and it just put

Charlie:
10:35

us in a in a in a tailspin and and and questioning and and weeping and and confusion, and and, you know, our faith in God was tested beyond words. You know? Is he real? What happened? You know?

Charlie:
10:51

Is he really who he says he was? And, you know, and our girls are there we’re all just in shock. Honestly, we’re just we’re just in shock, and we didn’t know, you know, what to do next. We didn’t know how to proceed, but

Christi:
11:07

Yeah. Where do you put that in your heart? I mean, it just doesn’t it’s senseless, and you’ve been standing in faith Mhmm. And God didn’t come through the way you expected him to or wanted him to. Where do you how do you reconcile it?

Charlie:
11:23

We all each had a little bit different journey as to how we reacted to this, but one of the scriptures that came to me early on that helped me was when when Jesus said, are you disciples after he said, drink my blood, you know, and eat my flesh, and everybody laughed and he said, you gonna leave me too? And and I felt like the Lord, you know, come

Charlie:
11:48

come and said that to me. And I and I just said, you know, where else can I go? You have the words of eternal life. Where else can I go? Because, you know, at 19 years old, I accepted Jesus as my Lord, and

Charlie:
12:02

it wasn’t just like I accepted him. He became real to me. I mean, I got born again, spirit filled, baptized in the Holy Ghost, on fire for Jesus, met Jill, ran off the Bible college, dove into ministry, and we’ve had a great, great, many, many great years of of ministry and still do, but but, you know, this

Charlie:
12:21

was a test. I didn’t know if I could pass it, to be honest.

Charlie:
15:20

Our life, our ministry was leading worship and that was also our livelihood, you know, we’re in full time ministry, and thank God for Andrew and Jamie. They were so kind to us and so sweet, and they they were there at our house just shortly after Beau Pass and came for the funeral, and they just said, you know, Charlie and Jill, take as much time off as you need to to get through this initial, you know, shock and pain. So that was that was very gracious of them, and they said, of course, they would help us and support us, which which they did through the whole journey, as well as Joyce Meyer, they and and so many friends and family helped us through the whole journey, but but, yeah, we we took off several months, I guess about three was it three months? Four. Three or

Charlie:
16:06

four months,

Charlie:
16:06

and and then when we finally decided we could we could come back, you know, it was it was tough. It was tough to get back. I mean, you know, when you go through something like this, you you’re very when you get your heart back in in the right place with God, it’s kinda it’s very it’s a very personal thing, and you don’t really want a public thing of it. You just wanna keep alone with Jesus and with his grace, his mercy, his compassion. And yet, you know, we knew that that we we needed to get back into this, and and it was hard, but we would we would lead worship, and and it wasn’t hard to sing to Jesus intimately, but to you know, the the hard thing sometimes with people think, then they’re all they’re all good now.

Charlie:
16:48

Everything’s fine because they’re singing and leading worship and worshiping Jesus, which, you know, healing of a broken heart and going through this process just took us a long time. I’m talking years, years, and then there were times when we would lead worship for Andrew, and then after we’d lead worship, we’d go sit in the back of the auditorium, or we’d go up into our hotel room and call our girls and just talk and cry and whatever we needed to do, And like I said, Andrew and Jamie were very gracious with us to never put demands on us. They knew we were going through it. They knew we were healing, and it was going through the process. So it took many, many months and and and years really for us to get to a place where we really felt healed, you know, more healed in our hearts.

Charlie:
17:37

There’s so much I could talk about in that. We talk about it in the book, I

Christi:
17:40

was just gonna mention that, that you have this is this is why it’s such a great resource. When Loss Comes Close to Home, you can get it at charlieandjill.com and you actually have the do’s and don’ts for people coming alongside the bereaved, and it is so good, it’s just amazing, just for that alone, everybody needs this, you know, to know what’s the right thing to say, what’s the wrong thing to say, and being able to actually weep with those who

Charlie:
18:09

weep. Exactly.

Christi:
18:09

That that may be the only thing you need to do, and that’s enough.

Charlie:
18:13

Right.

Christi:
18:13

That was something that really blessed us when when we lost our grandson. Yeah. That was the most impactful Yes.

Jill:
18:20

It’s amazing how supportive that is, when people will weep with us.

Charlie:
18:25

Yeah, we have the rejoicing with those who rejoice down, but the weeping with those who weep, we don’t quite understand how to do that, and we get very uncomfortable around people that have had losses, and then they get isolated, cause they don’t know what to say, they don’t want you know, they’re afraid to say the name of the deceased, when really in reality that blesses them. But, you know, we have to learn how to be a better ministers to those who are grieving, you know. I think I put in the book a chapter that says, you do the love and I’ll do the fixing. Well, that’s a great little story. We were actually in England again with Wendell Parr, doing a Grace and Faith conference with Andrew Womack, and and we sat down for dinner with Wendell, and Wendell told us, he said, did you hear about Jerry and Clifton Coulter?

Charlie:
19:11

Their son just died in a tractor accident. And it was horrifying, and Jill had to leave the dinner table and go up, and she just started weeping for them, and I talked with Wendell a little further, went upstairs. Anyway, we called them, and we were in England, but we knew when we’d be back home, so we said, would you like us to come? We cried with them, we wept with them over the phone, we loved on them. You know, the Bible says in second Corinthians one three, it says, he’s the father of all mercies and the God of all comfort, and we forget that he is the God of all comfort, and then it says to comfort others with the same comfort that you’ve received from the Lord.

Charlie:
19:51

So that’s really what God is calling us to do these days via this book and everything else is to comfort others. But anyway, so we called him and we said, hey, what can we do to help you? So they said, Could you come and do our service on Sunday morning? So I’m trying to talk fast to get all this in, but it’s like, on the way there, I’m like, God, what do I do? What am I going to say?

Charlie:
20:11

You know, they lost their son. I just lost Bella a year and a half ago. I might just get in the pulpit and just cry and weep, you know? But as I’m driving there, the spirit of God fell on me. It was supernatural, and he said, Charlie, simply tell the people to do the lovin’ and I’ll do the fixin’.

Charlie:
20:27

And that’s the way it came to me. He said, you do the lovin’ and I’ll do the fixin’. And so the message was just to to love people. The safe thing is just to love them, and then if they ask questions and want ministry, then you do minister to them in the way that the Holy Spirit would lead you. But but yeah, the important thing to the bereaved is to love them and let God fix them.

Charlie:
20:50

He is the healer of broken hearts. What people don’t understand is some people who have lost loved ones, they don’t understand how much Jesus is in the middle of it and how much He loves them, and that’s something I had to learn early on was that when I wept, Jesus wept, and I was actually reading Andrew’s devotional recently, and he even said, he says, you know, when we hurt, God hurts, Jesus hurts, you know? And and that’s something the Lord showed me that when I wept, he wept. And it says to weep with those who weep, and he would never tell us to do something that he doesn’t do, you know? And then I found a scripture in in Isaiah that said that when Israel suffered, God himself suffered.

Charlie:
21:32

And it’s just like a father with a child. When your child’s suffering, you suffer. You cry with them, and you want to help them, and hold them, and carry them, and that’s what the Scripture says, that He does carry us through trial, and carries us through pain, and that’s just such an important aspect. We’ve had widows call us just within a year after their husbands have died, and crying and weeping and saying, I’m so embarrassed that I’m crying because, you know, I know that Jesus is good, and I know that He loves me, I know He’s here with me, but I just miss my husband so much, You know, and we we just say, listen, you can cry, and that it says in scripture that he captures our tears in a bottle, that he that he he understands our our grief, and he holds it dear to him. And the Lord spoke to me just recently.

Charlie:
22:20

He said, Charlie, I never rebuked a broken heart. He said, I rebuked hardened hearts. He said, in fact, I’m close to brokenhearted people. I heal brokenhearted people. He said, but but broken hearted people get rebuked sometimes by Christians, you know, and and they feel like sometimes they’re being rebuked by God, you know, because they’re not strong and, you know, and everything, but but the Lord has compassion and he’s close to brokenhearted people, and He’s the Father of mercies, the God of all compassion.

Charlie:
22:51

What is the Holy Spirit? The comforter. He is the comforter. He comforts us in all of our tribulations so we can comfort others. So it’s just a concept of God, seeing the compassion, the loving heart of the Father that that I really feel like sometimes we’re missing in these moments, that we’re we’re forgetting how much He cares and how much He wants to hold us and carry us through difficult times, and you know, we’re talking about songs, we’ve written so many Yes,

Christi:
23:19

I just wanna get to that, I wanted to talk about the songs, because we are hearing songs throughout this interview, and you had told me, which I just thought, isn’t that just like God? Some of these songs that you’re hearing today, you wrote long before Bovee’s passing, and it’s just, I just am hearing you talk about how God is caring for us, he’s carrying us, he’s catching our tears, you know, and how he knew you would need that song that you received years earlier. Talk a little bit about that Jill.

Jill:
23:49

Yeah. We we have just always made it a point to write songs based on scripture, based on the word of God, on the new covenant that, you know, Jesus has purchased for us, and so so that was always forefront for us. When we went to work for Joyce Meyer and led worship for her conferences for seven years, she just decided she wanted to start recording albums because we had a lot of original songs and she was just super blessed, so she started financing these great albums and we got to go to Nashville and work with these great musicians and it was wonderful, And interestingly, working with Joyce, she has such a burden for hurting people, and she’s got such an amazing testimony herself how God delivered her from a life of abuse from her father and uncles and for years. Oh, it was terrible, and and that’s part of her a big part of her story is is how God set her free Yes. Yeah.

Jill:
24:56

Through the word of God. So we began to write songs to hurting people, and just because that that’s what we were hearing all the time, that those kinds of messages, and we thought, wow. So we would be in the word and we’d come across a scripture, there’s one in Isaiah 40 two:three that says, A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not put out. And I just thought, wow, that is so beautiful, and so I wrote a song back then, it made one of the albums, and we would sing it at her meetings, and it’s just really an outreach to people that are hurting just to know that if you’re at your end, Jesus will not put your flicker out, and he wants to come and just embrace you and help you up and carry you and, you know, just deliver you.

Charlie:
30:22

And you know when Jill wrote that song, sorry to interrupt, but when she wrote that song, I remember thinking, well, that’s a a nice scripture, that’s a sweet scripture. You know, a bruised reed, he will not break, a dimly burning wick, he will not put out. But man, after we lost Beau, I was like, just both of us experienced that, where we were just a dimly burning lamp about to go out, we were just flickering with barely having enough life and and heart to to take another a day, to face another day, it was very tough. So that that has become a a great, a beautiful song to me now.

Jill:
31:00

God is my refuge is another one that you wrote Yeah. Decades

Charlie:
31:05

That he’s a refuge, our strength, a present help in time of need. Mean, like, boy, we needed. He became a present help in our deep, deep, deep need.

Jill:
31:16

We hope you enjoyed that interview and those songs. We were just so blessed to be a part of that. And there’s more to come next week. So be sure and tune in.

Charlie:
31:27

Absolutely. And, you know, if you wanna get, those things those songs that you heard in particular, the one song that Jill sang there at the end, a bruised reed, is on our beautiful hope CD, and you can download it on our website, the one song if you want, or if you want to get the entire album, it’s on our website, charlieandjill.com.

Jill:
31:51

It’s a great album.

Charlie:
31:52

Yeah. And I can’t remember. I think we also did, God is My Refuge.

Jill:
31:58

Yeah. Which is on

Charlie:
31:59

Which is on Your Love Remains. So, you might want to get those songs and and just be blessed and ministered to by them. Again, was a real honor and privilege to be with them. Of course, she pushed our book a lot as well. And we’re looking forward to you seeing the second half of this as well on our next podcast as well.

Charlie:
32:20

So God bless. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope it ministered to you.

Charlie:
32:23

Yeah. Bye bye.