Episode 36
When It’s Not the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Charlie LeBlanc:
00:05

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Finding Hope broadcast that we do every week. And, you know, we’re trying to just help as many people as we can. And the subtitle says, Getting Through What You Never Asked For.

Jill LeBlanc:
00:20

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:
00:21

And that’s what our desire is, help you get through difficult times.

Charlie LeBlanc:
00:24

And, you know, some of us have been through things that we didn’t ask for, things that we never expected, things that we wish could be different, things that we have struggled with for years and mainly the loss of our children or our mothers or our fathers, husband, wife-

Charlie LeBlanc:
00:44

Sister. Brother.

Charlie LeBlanc:
00:45

Yes. Goodness gracious. In fact, just, we’ve talked about this quite a bit in the last several podcasts, but we recently lost a dear friend and and her steps her her sister-in-law was extremely close to her. And and you just reached out to her recently. And it’s a beautiful thing to to remember those around you who have had losses and to remember not just the direct one, the husband or the wife or the father of the child or the mother of the child, but the siblings of the child, Now, the sister-in-law and things like this is very, very important.

Charlie LeBlanc:
01:32

I know we’re diving right in here and getting deep pretty quickly. But, but yeah, I was just thinking a lot about that, that there’s such a residual effect of pain. And I know that when we lost our son, the pain was so hard. It was so deep. It was so hurt.

Charlie LeBlanc:
01:54

It hurts so bad. And I didn’t even think about how much it was hurting some of my son’s best friends and cousins even. I didn’t, it didn’t dawn on me until a little bit later, and then I felt very selfish, you know, about just it all being about my pain and my wife’s pain and my children’s pain. But it was also about aunts and uncles and my mom and dad. They were devastated and and and just sister in laws and brother in laws.

Charlie LeBlanc:
02:30

So, let’s remember all of them in our journey because everyone is hurting. It’s not. And I don’t want to say this in any rude way, but it’s not all just about our pain because, yes, it hurts. And you’re the closest directly related to your loss. There’s no question.

Charlie LeBlanc:
02:49

But, but at the same time, let’s remember others and have mercy on them and have compassion upon all of those around us that are in pain as a result of our loss that we may expect. And again, I apologize for jumping in so deeply right off the bat, but that’s just the way it came out. We’re approaching Christmas right now, which is a very can be a very difficult time for those of us who have had losses. You know, it’s the most wonderful time, but not really all the time. Yes, Jesus coming to save the world being born is an amazing thing to celebrate every day of our life.

Charlie LeBlanc:
03:32

And yes, we should celebrate it as much as we can, on December 25, but at the same time, it can be a very, very painful time. We talked all about this the last podcast as well. It can be a real rough time for us to endure.

Jill LeBlanc:
03:50

Yeah, I want to share something with you that I read recently. I thought it was so poignant. It says, For many, the holidays are a joyful celebration, but on the flip side, the holidays can stir up a lot of anxiety when you’re grieving. There’s this constant clash between what the season is supposed to feel like, joy, laughter, celebration, and what you’re actually feeling inside. Traditions that once brought comfort can suddenly feel empty, and the pressure to be merry can make things even harder.

Jill LeBlanc:
04:33

Seeing reminders of your loved one everywhere, at family gatherings, in decorations, in songs, can bring all the emotions rushing back in. And for some, if the holidays are tied to painful memories, which it is in our case in our family, it can even bring up symptoms that feel a lot like PTSD. I thought that was very powerful and worded so well. So, you know, we just want to affirm you if you are walking through something very similar, whether it’s from losing a loved one or maybe you’ve lost a marriage or a relationship or a career, a job that you thought was not going, you know, you thought you would have that for a long time and maybe something happened that was very unfair or sudden. These are difficulties that people walk through, and they are so challenging.

Jill LeBlanc:
05:45

But I just want to give you permission to, even though it’s supposedly the most wonderful time of the year, you have permission to not be merry if you don’t want to be merry. Right. If you want to cry, if you want to grieve, you have permission. There is no set rules that says you have to hide your grief during the holidays.

Charlie LeBlanc:
06:10

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:
06:10

So you just do what you need to do to get through.

Charlie LeBlanc:
06:14

Amen.

Jill LeBlanc:
06:15

It helps. It helps to cry sometimes.

Charlie LeBlanc:
06:18

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
06:18

It helps to just to just pull back from all the hustle bustle and just spend some time in quietness and sometimes even just being alone is nice. So you have permission.

Charlie LeBlanc:
06:38

Yeah, I mean, if you decide to put up a tree or not, it’s your choice, you know, and like we we put them up, almost every year for our grandkids. If it wasn’t for our grandkids, we wouldn’t do it. We just don’t like that that whole thing anymore because it’s tough because we have all the ornaments of Bo and the things about him. And yeah, it can be sweet memories, but it’s also cutting memory. So, you know, it’s all whatever works best for you.

Charlie LeBlanc:
07:05

And this could be a beautiful time for you. You like you can’t wait because it helps you. Maybe maybe you love thinking about the memory that it brings. Maybe that blesses you and being around the rest of your family. Maybe that really blesses you. And, man, praise God, you just do what ministers to you. Be kind to yourself.

Jill LeBlanc:
07:24

Yeah. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Yeah. And like, you know, every year I deal with this and, you know, we only had three children. We didn’t have a big you know, I feel like that doesn’t classify as a big family.

Charlie LeBlanc:
07:43

Right, none-

Jill LeBlanc:
07:44

I feel like if you have four or more, that’s the beginning of having a big family.

Charlie LeBlanc:
07:48

I agree, yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
07:49

You know, so we lost one. And we don’t have, you know, the person that he was going to marry or any of his children, or much less him. And so our family gatherings are kind of small. And every other year, we don’t have two of our grandchildren around because of-

Charlie LeBlanc:
08:11

broken marriage, yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
08:12

Yeah, because of that situation. And then we friends who only had two children and lost one of those. And so I’m grateful that we have what we do have. But it’s just a hard time of year when you see all the family celebrations on TV, on the commercials, on the billboards, in the magazines. And they just make it look wonderful and warm and we don’t all have that.

Charlie LeBlanc:
08:45

It’s not always there, yeah. And unfortunately, like you say, sometimes it’s not even from a loss, it’s just some people just have very small families and they see all these commercials with the big gatherings and they feel lonely. Some people don’t have any family in town.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:02

Some people never got married.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:04

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:04

And maybe their family have have all passed away or maybe they’re estranged from their family.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:13

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:13

And they don’t have anything.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:15

Right. Well, that’s another good point is to invite those who you know that are alone, invite them to join you if you do have family or if you’re alone, invite someone else to join you. Like we recently met a neighbor that said Christmas is so hard for her because her kids, she went through a divorce.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:36

She only has one child.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:38

Sorry, the one child is with the dad.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:41

Goes back and forth every other year.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:44

Yeah, she doesn’t have a whole lot of family that she can celebrate with. She says sometimes they just sit there alone. She says, So I take an extra shift at work, so I don’t have to be alone on Christmas, you know.

Jill LeBlanc:
09:53

She’s at a hospital.

Charlie LeBlanc:
09:54

Yeah, so I can get over there and be around people and help people. And I think that’s very powerful to do stuff like that too. You know, and you were mentioning this already, Jill, about the pictures that you see on TV. But like this one person said, he said, it’s really hard for me since I don’t have a family, which we’ve talked about just now. She said it’s hard getting Christmas cards from friends with family pictures and have to be reminded what others have, but what I don’t have.

Charlie LeBlanc:
10:30

And, you know, again, you know, that’s just it can it can the enemy can come at you and and really rub that in your face really hard. But, you know, obviously the Bible says to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who reap. And so at some point in your grief journey, you do have to get to a place where you just are grateful to the Lord for others. You’re grateful that someone has a beautiful family. You know, I know when we lost Beau, you know, he was our only son.

Charlie LeBlanc:
11:02

So, you know, we would see someone. Oh, my son’s graduating this this, you know, whatever.

Charlie LeBlanc:
11:08

And, you know, look at my son. He just got a trophy. And and, and, you know, I would get married. I would get married or whatever. And, you know, to be honest, at the beginning, there would be that little tinge that would hurt.

Charlie LeBlanc:
11:23

But then I would turn it around right away and I’d say, man, I’m so it’s so beautiful, I’m so happy for you. You know, this is this is this is so wonderful. You know, we need to celebrate life while we have it. And and I just think that, you know, we you know, the old song says, you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. You know, we we don’t celebrate our loved ones enough.

Charlie LeBlanc:
11:50

We don’t celebrate our friends’ victories enough if they do have a special anniversary or if they have a birthday and maybe you’ve lost a child or they’re they’re celebrating the birthday of a child. You know, the other flip the flip side to look at it is to say we just need to celebrate life because we don’t want them to go through what we’ve been through and we need to celebrate life while we have it. Oh, God. God have mercy. It’s just it can be so hard.

Jill LeBlanc:
12:20

True.

Charlie LeBlanc:
12:21

So one said here, he says about losing your son, he said, painful memories. You know, there’s always the memories of what happens. Like you say, Jill, when you put up an ornament, when you pull out the ornaments, you go, I don’t think I want to put that one up this Christmas because it’s so hard. And our producer made a comment. He said, the holidays are beautiful and full of memories, but for those who’ve experienced loss of any kind, they can also be incredibly painful. So that’s what we’ve been talking about, just how they can be a blessing, they can help you if you’re around good people, but at the same time, it can be very hurtful.

Jill LeBlanc:
13:03

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:
13:03

You know, because you just don’t know what to do with them.

Jill LeBlanc:
13:07

Right. Yeah. It’s so true. And so we have to, like Charlie said, we have to be kind to ourselves. We have to learn about our limits on things that, you know, that would maybe have wisdom that we shouldn’t do.

Jill LeBlanc:
13:29

Maybe maybe we shouldn’t book up all of our time with all these events and parties and all this. Maybe just once in a while. Because, you know, if you get yourself too busy and maybe your schedule is too tight, you’re not sleeping well, and then a lack of sleep begins to affect your judgment and making decisions, and that can all begin to snowball until it becomes an avalanche and you might just crash and burn instead of being able to just pull back a little bit and just kind of make it through this season in a little more healthy way. So, you know, you just need to get to know yourself better. And some people might think, I just want to be as busy as I can be so I can just get through this time.

Jill LeBlanc:
14:27

You know, don’t leave me with nothing to do.

Charlie LeBlanc:
14:30

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:
14:31

And you know, some people are that way. You know, they would like nothing to do. You know, they would rather almost just stay to themselves, like we were saying, but other people just want to be so busy they can hardly see straight.

Charlie LeBlanc:
14:49

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:
14:50

And so you have to know your limits and what ministers and helps you on times like this. So that’s just something you’ve got to figure out and and and be you know, do it. Like, do what’s best for you and not just being afraid of judgment from others. Maybe you don’t really wanna go to that work party because it’ll just not be a safe situation. Maybe there’ll be a lot of drinking or maybe there’ll be some people you just don’t feel safe around.

Jill LeBlanc:
15:26

And so you just have to, you know, pray over all these invitations or or different events that are there for you to go to.

Charlie LeBlanc:
15:35

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:
15:36

You have to we have to know our own limits.

Charlie LeBlanc:
15:38

Exactly. You know, I remember, Jill, after we lost Beau that we were at a at a meeting and, they asked us to sing a song. And and, you know, I and I said, well, sure, because I wanted to help them. I wanted to be a blessing to them. But we went back to the hotel room, ready for the evening service and and you looked at me and you said, don’t think I can do it.

Charlie LeBlanc:
16:02

And I and I thought, wow, you know, sure, you know, know, just don’t feel like I can do it. And so I just had to call the friend of ours, the minister friend and just say, please excuse us. We’re just not ready, you know, and that was good. That was really kind. Being kind to yourself that you you weren’t ready to sing in front of people like that.

Charlie LeBlanc:
16:24

And that was that’s okay. And then once we actually began singing in some of our meetings, like leading worship and stuff, we’ve we still were still wounded really bad and our hearts were still broken really bad. And we appreciate the minister that was with us that was so kind to let us lead the worship. But but knowing that our hearts were still hurting, but we would we would leave worship and then leave the room and go go up to our hotel room and, and talk to our girls on the phone or just minister to one another and talk about life and talk about health. And we just we just didn’t want to sit there, under the preaching at the time.

Charlie LeBlanc:
17:08

We just weren’t ready for it. I can remember going into church sometimes and everybody shouting hallelujah and I would be like, oh, God, I’m just not ready for this. But I remember one time when they started doing a real sweet worship song and I just put my hands in my pocket, which is ungodly to do. You’re supposed to be lifting your hands, you know? But the Lord knew what I needed.

Charlie LeBlanc:
17:30

And this sweet worship song just began to minister to me. And I felt like the Lord was singing over me and ministering to my broken heart as I kept my hands in my pocket. And I didn’t hear the Lord say, come on, Charlie, worship me. Put your hands up. You know, and that’s the thing.

Charlie LeBlanc:
17:45

We people are pushed a lot of time. Come on, rejoice in the Lord. Come on. You need to praise the Lord. You know, your son’s in heaven, you know, all this kind of stuff.

Charlie LeBlanc:
17:53

Well, you know, there’s a time for mourning, there’s a time for grieving, and there’s a time for joy and a time for dancing. So we’ve got to be sensitive to those times. We need to give ourselves permission to flow with whatever works for us.

Jill LeBlanc:
18:08

Amen.

Charlie LeBlanc:
18:08

Everybody grieves differently.

Charlie LeBlanc:
18:10

Yeah. I mean, some people are out there dancing within a few weeks in church praising God. You know, I remember going up to one couple that just lost their son after we had lost Beau and I went, I am so sorry. I said, I love you so much. I’m so sorry. And they said, oh, it’s all good. It’s all good. You know, he’s in heaven. Praise the Lord. We’re fine.

Charlie LeBlanc:
18:30

And I was like, Wow, okay. And I said, well, hallelujah. I’m real happy for you, you know? And in fact, we have a friend of ours, a partner of our ministry that wrote in and said, Charlie, I really appreciate all that you’re sharing about grief, he said. But to be honest, I lost my son.

Charlie LeBlanc:
18:47

And he goes, I did not have all that grief. He said, the Holy Spirit just overshadowed me in such an amazing way that I never I never grieved. And I was just like, wow, that’s awesome. Well, you know, I’m happy for him. You know, as long as you’re not pushing it down because you think that’s the godly thing to do, I’m going to push my grief down.

Charlie LeBlanc:
19:09

If you do that, you’re going to get in trouble, you know, because that grief is going to well up and it’s going to come out in a lot of wrong ways in your life unexpectedly at the wrong time and a lot of pain, a lot of damage to your soul. The scripture says he heals broken hearts. And if you have a broken heart, then you need to be honest about it before the Lord and let him begin to heal your broken heart. And if you need to cry, like Jill said, cry because your tears are precious to the Lord and he thinks about you all the time. And he knows our heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:
19:43

We can’t bluff it. No, we can’t bluff it and say, oh, bless God. I’m going to be strong. I’m strong in the Lord and the power is might. I’m going to be strong when your heart is crying.

Charlie LeBlanc:
19:53

Now, Jesus sees your heart. He really knows what’s going on inside of you, inside of me. He knows every single moment of every day what’s going on inside of our hearts. So I think it’s just really healthy just to be really transparent and honest with him.

Jill LeBlanc:
20:09

Yeah, absolutely.

Charlie LeBlanc:
20:10

Amen. Let the Lord be your helper. Let him be your comforter. Scripture says in two Corinthians, he says, He comforts us in all of our tribulation. Father of mercy is the God of all comfort.

Charlie LeBlanc:
20:24

He comforts us. Amen. Did a little preaching there. Is that okay?

Jill LeBlanc:
20:28

That’s okay. Yeah. Just wanted to say, you know, we’ve after our friend recently passed away, the next day was my birthday, and I just was like, I was in such a funk that day, and I just I couldn’t do anything. I mean, I was was helpless. I was like a zombie.

Jill LeBlanc:
20:55

Was just, we were all standing and believing that she would, you know, make it through this and have a healing testimony. And and anyway, it it I just I was paralyzed. And and it wasn’t until later that day, I can’t remember what it was, we we ended up doing something, helping someone with something. Mhmm. And then I was able to just forget all that and got busy doing this other thing.

Jill LeBlanc:
21:27

And I thought, wow, that this is so different from how I was twelve hours ago, you know? But it just, you know, I just had to give myself space and roll with this thing. And thank God I didn’t have, you know, commitments to glad we weren’t, you know, booked for ministry somewhere or something.

Charlie LeBlanc:
21:49

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:
21:51

But, you know, again, just just speaking grace, giving yourself grace to walk through these hard times.

Jill LeBlanc:
22:00

And, you know, like like I mentioned in well, was mentioning to you, I was reading in Chronicles about David and Ziklag and how his army’s families were taken and how they were talking about stoning him because he led them there. And it says he had to encourage himself in the Lord. He had to strengthen and encourage himself when he was faced with all this hardship. And sometimes we have to do that. Now, I’ll admit I was in no position to encourage myself at that time, but God brought encouragement to me as the time went on.

Jill LeBlanc:
22:49

And he does that, he’s, you know, like Charlie was saying, he is the God of all comfort. He loves us and he is walking with us through these times when we feel so helpless. So, do you want to take a little break and

Charlie LeBlanc:
23:08

Yeah, share about that.

Jill LeBlanc:
23:09

Yeah, so we mentioned that we have a Christmas album and it is available for download. It’s called The Little Child. And there’s a song in there that I wrote called The Little Child So Pure and Mild.

Charlie LeBlanc:
23:28

You wrote that song, it’s a good song.

Jill LeBlanc:
23:30

Oh, thanks. Yeah. But we wanna play one of our songs for you and it’s a song from the album called Mary and Joseph and it’s a beautiful story. It’s not original, it’s such a great story about when the Holy Spirit had to come and speak to Joseph to keep him from doing something he shouldn’t do with his now pregnant wife and all this. So it’s a beautiful song and we just want to encourage you to grab this album from our web store and we’ll have the link for that in the description.

Jill LeBlanc:
24:13

Is there anything you want to add?

Charlie LeBlanc:
24:14

There’s just a lot of great songs on here. We hand picked them. They’re not your normal happy holiday songs and songs about the tree, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. Not that I have anything against those songs.

Charlie LeBlanc:
24:27

There’s a time and a place to have fun with it all. But, but these songs we handpicked because they had more scripture in them. They had more Jesus in them. And many people have told us that, that this album is really blesses their home when they play it. So, we encourage you to get it and just let it feel your Christmas, help you to center in on the most important parts of Christmas, and that is Jesus Christ himself.

Charlie LeBlanc:
24:54

Praise God. And all the gift giving and all the other stuff.

Jill LeBlanc:
24:58

So enjoy this song, and we will see you next time.

Charlie LeBlanc:
25:01

Yeah. God bless.

Jill LeBlanc:
25:02

God bless.

The Little Child Album:
25:22

The I’m name shall call his name for he’ll save his people from sin

The Little Child Album:
26:28

Mary, oh, how can these things be? How can I believe the words you say? I’ve kept you

The Little Child Album:
27:58

Because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, he had in mind to put her away secretly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

The Little Child Album:
28:37

Mary, my beloved, come walk with me while I have something to share with you this morning. From sin. He has saved his people from sin.