Episode 70
When Loss Leaves You Broken

Jill:
00:09

Welcome back to the Finding Hope Podcast, getting through what you never asked for. And, we have been there. And Yeah. I’m sure a lot of you have been there. And so we’re gonna share some things today to hopefully help you get through what you’ve never asked to go through.

Charlie:
00:29

Yeah. Life is full of, interesting turns that we don’t expect. And, when things hit us, blindside us, I guess you could say, it’s very difficult to get through some tough stuff. And particularly, of course, we talk a lot about grief and about the loss of loved ones on this podcast. And we’re honored and privileged to be able to come into your home, into your car, wherever you are listening or And

Jill:
00:56

your ears. Yeah. And your

Charlie:
00:58

eyes. And, and just be able to share our hearts with you and to encourage you in some way. I was just thinking this morning that telling Jill that I just I feel very inadequate, because I’m not a professional grief counselor and all this kind of stuff.

Jill:
01:15

Yes.

Charlie:
01:15

But yeah. But the point is, is when you’ve been through something and you’ve learned lessons through it, you know, it’s like someone can study, an NFL player can study all the plays all their life, but never get on the field and, and experience the hits and experience the difficulty that’s out there on the field. And they can think they’re a professional, but they’re not a professional unless they actually experience it. And that’s the same way with grief. I remember when John Tesh interviewed us, he said, Charlie and Jill, I’ve interviewed a lot of people that have degrees and psychological, degrees, psychologists, so on and so forth.

Charlie:
01:54

But he said, I have never interviewed someone who actually lost a child. And, and it broke his heart, but it really blessed him to be able to talk with us. We, of course, were extremely honored to be on John Tesh’s broadcast. And you can go back and find that one. It’s near the beginning.

Charlie:
02:12

Probably about-

Jill:
02:13

It is the beginning. Was- The beginning of our podcast.

Charlie:
02:16

So we’re over a year of podcasts. So this was like, you have to go 50 back the first

Jill:
02:21

couple Yeah, just, you know, scroll over up or down or whatever

Charlie:
02:25

to do there. But it was great. Know, many of you who know John Tesh, he’s an amazing person, what a great communicator, professional, and he had very strong, hard questions. And we were really honored to have that. But we’ve experienced the loss of a child.

Charlie:
02:45

And we talked about that on previous podcasts just a few weeks ago, two sessions on the loss of a child. And you were even saying this morning, Jill, that you know, how different it is. You know, we all have losses in common when someone loses a husband or wife, mother or father, or a close dear friend. But there’s something unique about each one of those. We lost a child, and there’s something very unique about that loss as well that’s different.

Charlie:
03:20

There’s a lot of similarities, but it’s different. And what did you say this morning about loss of a child? You were

Jill:
03:28

mentioning- Well, said, I was talking with someone about the difference. And I said, you know, a child is someone that has come out of your body. Yeah. And especially for a mother, but you know, it takes both part, both people to make the child. And so it’s someone that’s come from you.

Jill:
03:51

Yeah. And there’s a connection there that is not, that unless you’ve been through it, you just don’t understand the gravity Yeah. Of the And other losses are tragic as well.

Charlie:
04:03

Yeah, it’s not to diminish them in any way.

Jill:
04:05

No. But it’s a different level. Yeah. And I think the next closest thing would be sibling loss. If you’re really close with a sibling because you’ve both come from the same parents.

Charlie:
04:19

Right, right.

Jill:
04:20

And there’s a connection there. Yeah. And so, but every loss has its unique They do. And we can’t discount one over another.

Charlie:
04:33

No, not in any way because we have some of our dearest friends who have lost their wives or their husbands and the pain and the agony that they are going through is just hard. You know, it’s beyond words. And we we we’re hurting with them and broken with them as well. And as well as with you, if you’ve lost, your husband or your wife or your brother or your sister or your father or your mother or a child, my gosh, we certainly, our heart goes out to you. We unfortunately, today, we have so many friends who have had losses.

Charlie:
05:17

Mean, it just everywhere we turn, we were just in Colorado. We had, we we we had a dear friend of ours singing on the team with us who had lost a daughter. We we saw a good friend of ours whose wife had just passed. And, I mean, it just it’s never stopped. It’s like, oh, god, slow this down.

Charlie:
05:39

But at the same time, our destiny is heaven. Yeah. And the only way to heaven is is either rapture or through death. Yeah. And,

Jill:
05:52

This body.

Charlie:
05:52

Yeah. This is be

Jill:
05:54

And absolutely it’s been happening for centuries.

Charlie:
05:56

It has.

Jill:
05:57

It’s been happening since happening since the first family.

Charlie:
06:00

Yeah. It’s it’s absolutely nothing, nothing new. Mean, death is nonetheless, when it comes to you for the first time, it is devastating and it is shocking. And it’s like you don’t understand it. And the pain of it is beyond words.

Charlie:
06:21

We were with someone last year, a dear friend of ours who died and we were with them just shortly after she died. We went over to their house, she was our loved one was still there in bed, and her family was gathered around, and we got to gather around as well and pray love on the family. But I will never forget her son just looking at me. He was petting her, his mother’s forehead as she laid, her body laid there. And she of course was in heaven with Jesus, but she was just, he was rubbing her forehead and her brushing her hair a little bit with his hands, and he just looked at me in tears.

Charlie:
07:08

And he just said, said, It hurts so bad. It hurts so bad. And words have just rung in my mind and heart ever since that day because it’s so, so real and so graphic. My heart broke for the young man, and he’s still suffering. It’s been less than a year that his mom has been gone.

Charlie:
07:35

And, you know, but just that pain of separation, like you said earlier, a mother and a child and and a sibling as well. But, like, you know, he misses his mom and she was young. She was only 65 and he’s what in his twenties, early twenties, and his mom was everything to him. And she was his biggest fan, in life and in his future. And he’s struggling.

Charlie:
08:08

He’s having a hard time. And so we understand that, and we’re here to affirm you if you’re going through that kind of pain. We get emails all the time and notices on our YouTube channel and Facebook channel, different ones of you who have just been through devastating losses and you’re still hurting. We recently had one lady that we’re in communication with that she lost a child and her heart is just broken. And, you know, we’re just praying that we have words that will encourage you.

Charlie:
08:46

And just the fact that we’re acknowledging that we understand as best we can your pain, I hope that helps as well. I know for me, just being with someone else who had lost a child helped me a lot. I know we went to Dallas and we got with a friend of ours, a musician friend of ours, who his son had been killed in an accident, and we just had lunch with him and it just helped me to be around someone that survived it. And then, and then, another friend of ours, Don Clowers, who had lost his son, electrocuted on a Sunday morning underneath do doing some wiring in underneath the pulpit.

Jill:
09:36

The church platform.

Charlie:
09:37

At the church platform. And, oh my gosh. We know them to this day, Don and Sharon Clowards, and they’re just precious, but they understand that pain. And I remember just reaching out to several of my friends that I remembered that they had lost children, and it comforted me. You know, scripture says to comfort others with the same comfort that you’ve received from the Lord and that’s what we’re trying to do here.

Charlie:
10:05

So we sure hope that you know, that helps you.

Jill:
10:11

Right. And yet all these years later, people are doing that with us, like our friend who just lost his son to brain cancer. He’s now reaching out to you. And that’s exactly what it talks about in second Corinthians one, three, four is, is that we can comfort others with the same comfort that the Holy Spirit has given us. Right.

Jill:
10:38

And so we’re grateful for that. You know, it’s a hard thing to experience loss from someone that you’re really close with, especially. And, you know, we kind of, in preparing for today’s talk, were, we were saying, we’re going to talk on suffering. And in our faith circles, that’s not a popular subject, right? But once you’ve experienced what we have experienced, and many of you have experienced, it’s, it’s something that it walks closely beside you.

Jill:
11:17

And I was remembering that in the beginning, shortly after our son died, that I was suffering, and it hurt. And I, I was practically inconsolable. There was nothing that anyone could say that would take away the searing pain that I was experiencing in my soul. And, and, and so even to even for me, you know, we’re both different in the way that that we process things like that, and even in our grief journeys, but for me, there really wasn’t anything someone could say, in the very beginning that helped me. Because my son died right before my eyes and he was now gone and he’s not coming back.

Jill:
12:06

And, you know, it was just, it was just, our worlds were rocked. But then fast forward a year and after, it brought a lot of affirmation to me to talk to someone else that has that that realizes the gravity of the situation, or that has also suffered a similar loss, similar level of pain and suffering. It brought comfort to me it our affirmation just to know that I’m not the only one hurting like this other people have experienced the same thing. And I’m just I’m not crazy. I’m not just carnal and unspiritual.

Jill:
12:53

These are my soul has been broken. And these are things that that are the the outcome of that. So it’s a real thing, grief and suffering over the loss of someone that you’re really close with is not unusual. It’s very common. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy at all, or that it should or that we shouldn’t do it.

Jill:
13:20

It we’re just, it’s part of it. It’s part of the journey.

Charlie:
13:24

Yeah. You know, there’s a quote that I read recently and I want to share it with you by John Irving. It’s kind of long, but just bear with me. It says when someone you love dies and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over a long time.

Charlie:
13:47

It’s really true. Because you just keep missing them and you keep feeling like you’re losing it. Wait, wait, is this real? It can’t really be real. And yet it is.

Charlie:
13:57

And it said, you lose them in pieces over time. The way the mail stops coming and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers, gradually you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes, when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone forever, there comes another day and another specifically, the specific needed part or missing part. And it’s true. It’s like people think you get over it so quickly, but you don’t.

Charlie:
14:40

And you’re not expected to because continue to lose them. You have the moment, of course, of passing. But all the little memories, all the little things throughout the years, it brings you back to missing them and loving them. And you will experience a little bit of pain, a little bit of grief every time you think about them. But that’s why we share so often that grief is not bad.

Charlie:
15:09

Like some people just look at grief as this horrible thing, But it’s a process that we have to go through. It’s part of the healing of our soul is go ahead and miss them. Go ahead and cry over them. Go ahead and express your sorrow. Paul said that he would have sorrow upon sorrow if he would have lost Epaphroditus.

Charlie:
15:34

And that’s understandable because when you lose a loved one, there is a deep, deep, deep sorrow. And we just want to inform you that, hey, suffering like this and pain like this is normal. Now, some people suffer, you know, because they’ve done wrong things. Yeah. And other people suffer because they’ve done right things.

Charlie:
15:56

And the Bible talks about that, the two different types of sufferings. And you know, for you guys, you’ve just lived life, you’ve done your best, and then your loved one passed, and you’re suffering. You’re having a deep pain inside of you that you can’t do anything about. And you know, I’ve often say this, that you can’t go over it, you can’t go around it, you gotta go through it. The only door to grief is going right through that door of grief.

Charlie:
16:29

And you do change when you’ve experienced the loss of a loved one. You become different and you’re different to your friends. And someone came up to me just recently at the conference we were just at, and they were just saying how that, it feels like to them that the worship that we were doing, that our intimacy with God and just the overall anointing on the worship was deeper and more powerful. And of course, I was humbled by that. But I got to thinking about it as we were sharing a little bit.

Charlie:
17:11

But I thought, you know, since we lost our son, it’s like all the fluff goes away. No longer care about anything. You just want reality because reality has struck you. Yeah. A stark, hard reality has slammed into your home, into your heart.

Charlie:
17:35

And all of a sudden, anything that’s not real, you know, goes away and you think this is real. This is pain beyond pain. This is shocking. This is unbearable. This is unthinkable.

Charlie:
17:52

You literally just go into that place of like, I don’t care what people think about me. I don’t care what is going on in my life. This is the most important thing in my life right now. This is real. And so as we came back into music and worshiping and leading worship for the conferences that we were with, with Andrew Womack, we, you know, we came in very, very carefully and very guarded because, number one, we were still broken and really hurting, and yet we came to a place where we started loving God in a real unique new way.

Charlie:
18:39

We started loving him as a rescuer. We started loving him as a comforter. He comforts those who mourn. He heals broken hearts. So we were reaching out to God with the deepest sincerity of like, God, we need you to heal our broken hearts.

Charlie:
18:57

God, we need you to comfort us mourning because we are just we’re nothing. We’re broken without you. We cannot make it without You, God. We need You. We need Your help.

Charlie:
19:10

We’re drowning. We’re gone forever. And so I think that’s what our friend was noticing, is that there’s just, I don’t know, I hate to think that maybe my worship wasn’t pure before because it was as pure as I knew as it could be. But this brokenness now and this desperateness that I have now to know Him, to receive from Him, to experience His love and His comfort is so needed, needed more than it ever was needed in my life. And so, we when we do worship, and we’re careful to worship the Lord in reality and sincerity, and to sing songs that make, that are real to us.

Charlie:
20:01

You know, I remember at the beginning, I could not sing big songs about faith and big songs about healing and big songs about raising from the dead, because I hadn’t experienced that and my heart was broken and bruised. So I had to be careful. We both were very careful about the songs we chose so we could just sing songs about his love, his help in time of need, his compassion, his comfort, his mercy, his strength to bring us through pain, to bring us through the hardest times. And so we just really, you know, centered in on that. And really, I know you, if you understand what I’m saying here, the fluff you don’t care about anymore, you want reality because you’ve been faced with a terrible, difficult reality.

Charlie:
20:58

And so you just want reality in your life in every way. You want your devotion to God to be as real as it could ever be. You want your intimacy with Him, your song, your prayers to be as real as it could be. And you know what? God loves that.

Charlie:
21:15

He loves Scripture says He’s close to the brokenhearted. So He’s so close to you and He’s so intimate with you. And we often quote the scripture in Isaiah that He suffers when we suffer. We’re talking about suffering. And when we are suffering, He is also suffering.

Charlie:
21:35

And you know, I had a call from my daughter recently and she was suffering. She had pain. She was distraught about some situations in her life, and she had every reason to be distraught. And my heart, the whole time she was just sharing her grief and sharing her pain of what she was dealing with, the whole time my heart was just breaking. I was just like, Oh God, I wish I could help her more.

Charlie:
21:58

I wish I could help her more. But I couldn’t do much but just affirm her and just say, I’m sorry, and just love on her. But my heart was suffering like a father would for their child in the same way that our heavenly Father suffers with us when we’re hurting. You know, David wasn’t afraid to say, God, I feel like I’m losing it. God, I feel like I’m drowning.

Charlie:
22:29

I’m drowning in my tears, oh God. God, why have you forsaken me? Where are you Lord? I feel like I’m lost. I feel like I’m in a desert by myself.

Charlie:
22:37

You know, where are you, God? He wasn’t afraid. He had a close enough relationship with God that he could be that transparent with Him. And I remember Jack Harris, who lost his daughter, a sweet friend of ours, our hearts break with him, just lost his daughter the last couple years. And we, you know, we I remember him telling me when we lost Bovee that God is big enough to handle your questions, Charlie.

Charlie:
23:05

He’s big enough to handle your anger. And boy, I tell you what, I appreciated that, because there were times when I was very angry and very disappointed and didn’t know what else to do but cry out to God and be angry and cry, you know? I remember a scripture in Psalm 137. It was when the Israelites were in captivity, and they you know, they weren’t in their own hometown of Jerusalem, and they were taken captive. Their captives said, Sing us a song.

Charlie:
23:47

Sing us one of those happy songs, you know, of Jerusalem. And, and it says that besides the rivers of Babylon, we sat and we wept as we thought about our homeland, Jerusalem. And they said, We even hung our harps up. They played harps, you know, guitars. And they said, There we hung our harps.

Charlie:
24:11

And the captor said, sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem. But they answered, how can we sing the songs of the Lord while we’re in a pagan land? And, you know, that just goes along with my story about about singing, you know, and the worship thing that we just we had to keep it real.

Jill:
24:28

Yeah. Well, I remember early on when we were just kind of coming out of our hole, our foxhole, I, I just remember thinking that my chain, all the slack in my chain had been completely taken out. Yeah. Because, it’s kinda like, I felt like I, I was starting over with my, my relationship with the Lord.

Charlie:
25:01

That’s right.

Jill:
25:02

You know, just kind of, everything that I’d hoped from the Lord was lost, as it says in Lamentations three. And so I just crumbled before him and fell on Jesus. And by his grace, he held all the pieces. And I just knew that life was going to be forever different.

Charlie:
25:32

That’s true.

Jill:
25:33

That I was not this big faith woman that I thought I was but But that’s okay because I came to know the God of faith and my loving father in a way that I had never known him before Yes. And, even to this day, you know, it’s just we have a new relationship with the Lord. Charlie used to kinda tease and say, I’ve got a new God.

Charlie:
26:01

Yeah. Jokingly with a friend of mine who’s a funny friend of mine.

Jill:
26:04

Yeah. But but we didn’t get a new god, but we got a new a new heart, so to speak, you know, just a a new way, a new level of trust, which didn’t come overnight. My gosh. Yeah. There was a long time before I could go there because I was so upset and angry with the Lord.

Jill:
26:27

I felt like he withheld from us when we were seeking him with all of our hearts. Yeah. And, you know, we do not have the answers. And we are not going to sit here and say, God allowed our son to die to teach us a lesson or because he finished his race early. This is all God had for him on the earth and called him home.

Jill:
26:47

You know, we’re not gonna say those kinds of things Mhmm. Because we don’t believe them. But Right. But but yet, we still don’t understand it all.

Charlie:
26:56

Right.

Jill:
26:56

And that’s okay. It it it wasn’t okay in the beginning. I remember talking with, a minister friend of ours afterwards, and they were just so sweet and caring. And and I remember saying that we were driving back from having dinner with them. And I said, well, I just want you to know that I will not be satisfied until I know why this happened and, where the, where the open door was that the devil got in and all this and he just kept falling back on, well, the Bible says the secret things belong to the Lord and the things that are revealed are, what is it?

Charlie:
27:39

Are for you and your children, they’re not then.

Jill:
27:41

You know, he just kept falling back on that passage in Psalms and it’s really true. And I’ve gotten to where I can accept that. Yeah. Because like we’ve heard so many say, and we fully embrace this as well. You know, I used to say, well, when I get to heaven, I’ve got a few questions for the Lord, you know, but, but when we get to heaven and we see the glory that our loved ones have been living in.

Jill:
28:10

And, and we see, we, we are saturated with the love of God in a way that we can only barely maybe imagine on this side, but really probably not. We can only think about it, but not even really imagine it. When we get into the presence of God for real in heaven, we’re gonna, we’re not gonna have any questions, right? Because we’re gonna be overcome with his love and his, his goodness and, and the glory and everything that we’re not gonna care. But you know, for a time, that’s where I was at.

Jill:
28:51

And that’s okay. Because the Lord loved me so much and still does. And it was patient with me and merciful. And he understood my weaknesses. And he’s touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

Jill:
29:06

And he was just patient with me and held me and carried me and then walked with me. And as one author said that we’ve quoted before, until we could see color again, you know, he kept his patience and his mercy was more than we can imagine. And so even though we suffer on this side with unimaginable grief and pain, and not understanding why, what happened, how could this be, Still the Lord’s love reaches out to us and is always there. And yet some may say in their hearts, well, I don’t even care about God’s love for me. I, I don’t, I don’t think I can ever trust him again.

Jill:
29:58

And, you know, someone that’s in, in, in a new state of grief, like they just lost someone, say within the first year of it, you know, that’s understandable.

Charlie:
30:12

Yeah.

Jill:
30:12

But God is so patient. And, and he will draw you back to him. If that’s where you are, he will draw you back. He’s carrying you now. Yeah.

Jill:
30:24

Even though you may not realize it. Yeah. Or think that you even want it. You know, like I said, I was that person. I was just so lost and angry in the beginning.

Jill:
30:38

But he was so patient with me and continued to be there to hold me, carry me, and love me until finally, I could begin to see a little glimpse of light again. Yeah. And he’s that way for you too. He is patient and understanding and caring and loving.

Charlie:
31:04

Yeah.

Jill:
31:05

So we are so sorry for your suffering and your pain. And we just pray that you can begin to sense a little bit of his presence and his love for you again. And just to come to know him in a way that that you that you haven’t before. And that’s that’s what happened with us. We we came to know the Lord on a deeper level than we ever imagined.

Charlie:
31:40

Yes.

Jill:
31:41

That’s just how he

Charlie:
31:42

is. Amen. Well, let us pray for you as we close and just know that our hearts are with you, and we believe that God will help you. Lord, we just thank you for our friends, God, that are listening to this podcast or watching it, Lord Jesus. And, Lord, you are the God of all comfort, and as Jill shared, God, we just pray that that they would see your love, that they would experience your love, God, that they would experience your comfort.

Charlie:
32:11

Lord, we know that your hands are reaching out to us, and, Lord, that when we’re wounded and when we’re, hurting, God, your hands are reaching out to you. You suffer when we suffer, and you’re reaching out to each one of us, God. You’re reaching out to our friends here to to pour your oil of healing balm upon them and to to to to care for them and to hold them while they heal, Lord, and to to capture their tears in your bottle, Jesus. You’re there. You’re close to the brokenhearted.

Charlie:
32:47

And, Lord, I just pray, God, that each one of our friends would just reach out to you, even in a wounded state, Lord, that they would allow you to touch them, that they would allow you to put your bandages around their their broken heart and pour the oil Lord and Lord I know it took us a while to open our hearts to you Jesus but God once once we opened our hearts you came in with a flood of love a flood of compassion a flood of comfort and healing. So Lord, just pray that you would continue to just, we know that you continue to pour that out, but we just pray that our friends would just open their hearts and receive your love and comfort and mercy. And we pray that, father, for all them in Jesus’ name.

Jill:
33:34

Yes.

Charlie:
33:35

Amen. Amen. Well, praise the Lord. You know, there there’s no real magic solution. There’s no quick way through this.

Charlie:
33:44

You just need to be patient. You need to be patient in suffering, the scripture says. Do it to to have endurance. As a good soldier, it says endure. So we just encourage you to hang in there.

Charlie:
33:56

You know, just weep when you need to weep, mourn when you need to mourn, you know, complain if you need to complain, but just know that God loves you and that he will never, never, never leave you or forsake you in And any

Jill:
34:13

we wanna remind you about our book. If you haven’t gotten a copy of our book yet, When Loss Comes Close to Home, it will help you understand what you’re walking through and experiencing. And then it’s for everyone else as well to learn how to be a better comforter to those that are walking that journey. So you can get it on, on, in audio book, through our website or through Amazon, charlieandjill.com. You can also get it as a Kindle downloadable book.

Jill:
34:48

But we just wanna really encourage you to get ahold of it because it has helped so many We’ve had so many stories of different ones, either ones that bought it because they were curious or ones that had, of course, experienced loss. All kinds of people are being helped by this book. So we encourage you to get it and it will help you.

Charlie:
35:14

And if you’re watching by YouTube, give us a thumbs up, share it with your friends, and you know, to our face book our Instagram all this we have lots of posts lots of things that we’re offering to try to help you and help others who are going through grief our website charlieandjill.com and

Jill:
35:34

you can sign up on our email list

Charlie:
35:36

that’s right Love to stay in touch

Jill:
35:37

with you that way.

Charlie:
35:38

Yeah, because we’re always putting out new material to help you. So God bless you. And we do love you. And we do pray that you come and see us again and hear from us again next Tuesday. God bless you.