Episode 33
When the Mountain Doesn’t Move: A Candid Conversation with Joyce Meyer – Part 2

What do you do when the thing you’ve believed for doesn’t happen—and you’re left holding the pieces? In this part two episode, Charlie & Jill share with Joyce Meyer on her “Talk It Out” podcast, about faith that endures, love that heals, and the hope that rises even when life doesn’t go as planned.
Talk It Out: Joyce Meyer | Talk It Out Podcast
Finding Hope For the Holidays Live event: FHH | Replay
Download FREE Resources: Charlie & Jill Leblanc | Website
Find all our latest links and offers in one place: Charlie & Jill LeBlanc | Linktree

Stay Connected with Charlie & Jill:
Website: CharlieandJill.com
YouTube: @CharlieJillLeBlanc
Facebook: /CharlieandJillLeBlanc
Instagram: /charlieandjill
X (Formerly Twitter): /charlieandjill_ 

#grief #griefjourney #loss #help #hope

What do you do when the thing you’ve believed for doesn’t happen—and you’re left holding the pieces? In this part two episode, Charlie & Jill share with Joyce Meyer on her “Talk It Out” podcast, about faith that endures, love that heals, and the hope that rises even when life doesn’t go as planned.
Talk It Out: Joyce Meyer | Talk It Out Podcast
Finding Hope For the Holidays Live event: FHH | Replay
Download FREE Resources: Charlie & Jill Leblanc | Website
Find all our latest links and offers in one place: Charlie & Jill LeBlanc | Linktree

Stay Connected with Charlie & Jill:
Website: CharlieandJill.com
YouTube: @CharlieJillLeBlanc
Facebook: /CharlieandJillLeBlanc
Instagram: /charlieandjill
X (Formerly Twitter): /charlieandjill_ 

#grief #griefjourney #loss #help #hope

Read the Transcript

Charlie LeBlanc:

Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Finding Hope, getting through what you never asked for, which is something that we all need help in getting through difficulties in our lives and especially when it comes to losing a loved one in our life. We have, we’ve lost a loved one. I know many of you have lost a loved one. And in fact, we shared last week that we just recently lost another very, very close dear friend that lives right here in our city. And it’s just been a very tough, tough, tough road.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, you know, we just are leaning on God. He’s a God of all comfort. He’s a help in time of need. And, you know, we we lean on God. We leave on lean on each other.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, the Bible says that, God comforted Paul by the coming of Titus.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah, we need each other.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And so we we’re gonna jump back into another podcast of Joyce Meyer. Actually, it’s her podcast that we were a guest on and we did last week. If you didn’t see last week, we’re going to be jumping into segments, two segments of our podcast with Joyce. Her podcast is called Talk It Out, right?

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yep. Talk It Out. And we were real honored to be a guest on that podcast. And they asked some very powerful questions. Her assistant, Ginger and-

Jill LeBlanc:

Erin.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Erin, for some reason. Sorry, Erin, if you’re listening. I keep forgetting about your name, beautiful name. But anyway, we, we’re going to jump right into the first segment right now, I think. Is it about eight minutes, I think, or seven minutes, something like that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It’s close to it. But we’re going to jump right back in and then we’ll do make some comments after it. Okay. God bless. About a year and a half after Beau passed, a friend of ours lost a son, and we offered to come and help, he’s a pastor, and so he said, oh, please come, please come and take the service, I don’t wanna have to be up in the public.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So we went on the way down there, I’m praying and I’m saying, God, what am I gonna say? I’m gonna just blubber. I might even start crying again, you know, because it’s only been a year and a half after Bowie passed. And the Lord spoke to me on that drive. He said, Charlie, tell the people you do the lovin’ and I’ll do the fixin’. You do the lovin’, I’ll do the fixin’.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That came as a rhema to me, it was just a word from God, and it just exploded into our hearts, and of course I ministered that word, But I think that’s one of the most powerful things is love is the most powerful part of helping someone who’s hurting.

Joyce Meyer:

Yeah. And acknowledging that you know they’re hurting.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes. And saying the name of the loved one is a very powerful thing. Pastors are sometimes even afraid with their parishioners to mention it because they’re afraid they’re gonna go in the morning and grief again. But like, it’s like, no, we’re always thinking about our loved one. We’re always thinking about the one who’s passed.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So it’s so comforting when someone says, how are you doing? You know, I’m sure it’s been tough. I’ve been thinking about Beau. I remember when he did that. That really blessed us.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It really touches us. So, yeah, some of the things, you know, just doing good, you know, and all this kind of stuff, you know, praise the Lord. You know, one one pastor came up to Jill about three months after Beau passed and and walked over and put us out and said, hi, Jill. Doing good. Praise the Lord.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And Jill said, no. As a matter of fact, I’m not doing good.

Joyce Meyer:

Like Jill.

Jill LeBlanc:

Tell it out.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It sounds like Jill’s gonna tell it like it is. He goes, I just lost my son three months ago. So I just think in general, the body of Christ needs to be more sensitive to understanding pain. You know, Paul was very transparent about his pain. You know, he said, I think it’s good for you, you ought to know what I’ve been through.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And he lists them all. And so I think a lot of Christians unfortunately are hiding in the pews with pain that has not been resolved and healed because they’re afraid of what Christians are gonna say. Preachers are gonna understand. Christians are gonna say the wrong thing. Or they think that they shouldn’t feel that way. Right.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Joyce Meyer:

You know, mean, some of the teaching that we’ve had over the years is

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

A little bit out of balance that you know, with faith you Sure, overcome yeah. And you do, sometimes God gives you the faith to go through, but not the faith to not have it happen.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah, to have it happen. You know, it’s funny you say that because Pastor Rick actually was at our house the day after Beau passed, and he looked me in the eyes and he grabbed my shoulders and he said, Charlie, he said, listen to me. He says, there’s a faith to move mountains, but there’s a faith to stand when the mountain doesn’t move. And he said, that’s where you are right now. And I’ll tell you what, it grabbed me, and I thought, man, this is the journey we’re on to hang on.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, I remember Jesus turning to Peter and saying, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I’ve prayed that your faith fail not, and of course when you get hit with a painful loss like this, everything goes, your heart is shattered, your heart is broken, you don’t know where to turn, you don’t know what to do, and you know, the enemy definitely wants to come in and destroy you, totally destroy you, and he tried for sure. But but, yeah, I know I had a lot of friends praying for us. You guys helped us so much, Joyce. And, you know, so many people prayed that our faith would not fail, and and by the grace of God, we were able to make it through it.

Erin Cluley:

What does that wrestling look like when you when you had to wrestle your faith and you are so angry at God and yet because as Christians, we know the word in our hearts and we know what God’s promise is. But also I’m really mad because your promise, it doesn’t look like it happened the way that I’m asking.

Jill LeBlanc:

Right.

Erin Cluley:

So how did you wrestle with that?

Jill LeBlanc:

You know, we both have a different journey in that regard. I just quit talking to God because I’m like, why bother? You know? And so I just didn’t. And three or four, probably four weeks later, I just began to sense a little bit of His presence.

Jill LeBlanc:

And I would just see what I call fingerprints just on different things and like, nice little things would happen, just random. And it just kind of kept happening and kept happening. And then I thought, I’m seeing God’s fingerprints on these things. And I began to just slowly open my heart to Him. And He eventually showed me He was there all along, carrying me.

Jill LeBlanc:

He was not put off by my anger and my carnality, whatever, you know, my pain, my expression of defeat and everything that we were going through. But he just loved me through all that. And it was never that I had to just stand up and say, okay, I’m going to make a decision that I’m going to move forward. It was nothing like that. He just carried me until I could begin to take steps on my own.

Jill LeBlanc:

And it just held me and loved me. And it was just, it was a beautiful time of sensing the Lord’s love like I had never sensed it before.

Joyce Meyer:

That’s good. Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

That was really powerful. And there were a couple things that I noticed that I wrote down here. I’m just taking notes as we listen. But you said that love is the most powerful way to support someone.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:

And that can look like all different kinds of things.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes.

Jill LeBlanc:

But to acknowledge that they are hurting, and then Joyce commented right after that, she said, Let them know that you know that they’re hurting. That’s one way to show love. Yes. Is just to acknowledge their pain because so many people feel like they can’t be honest with others, especially in a lot of Christian circles. They can’t honestly, they can’t let others know that they’re hurting and in pain.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so that is one of the most powerful ways that we can be Jesus with skin on to comfort those that are brokenhearted is just to love them and let them know that we affirm them that we care and, you know, that we are so sorry for their pain.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And, you know, we’ve had an opportunity this week, like we shared, to to be in the middle of that at our dear friend’s house with all of his children, his married children, his grandkids, and his sis the the deceased siblings of Siblings. So a home full of family. And to be honest, we were the only ones invited into that moment because we’re so close with them. And so there we were, you know, feeling a little bit odd out at times, but nonetheless

Jill LeBlanc:

Not from them.

Charlie LeBlanc:

No, not from them.

Jill LeBlanc:

We just kind of felt like should we really be here?

Charlie LeBlanc:

we’re not family. But what did we do? What did Jill do? She dove into the kitchen and she started helping cook, and there was a one of their siblings is a good cook too, so Jill and the siblings were in there cooking. I was following my friend around who’s just lost his wife, and I’m picking things up for him.

Charlie LeBlanc:

I’m cleaning out the pool. We’re running to the grocery store to get things for them. We’re fixing things if we see something needs to be fixed or cleaned up. You dealt with the flowers. There were some flowers sent early, they were already starting to look bad, and so you were cleaning those up.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And it was just practical things. And to be honest, there was a lot of times that we did feel like, well, you know, we don’t want to intrude on their family time, but yet they they loved us being there. They just wanted us to be a part of this journey. And we’ve talked so much about the power of being present. And and that’s a lot what it was this week.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we just spent yesterday. We sang in the funeral a couple songs and then they said, come over for lunch, you know? So we came over, we had lunch, and then after lunch they just kept talking and sharing their grief and sharing stories about their love, their their mom or their wife. And we just listen and and love on them. And then they said, well, listen, stay for dinner, will you?

Charlie LeBlanc:

We’re going to make this or that or that. Will you stay for dinner? We said, of course. So, you know, we just stayed and then we helped you help with dinner and then we cleaned up after dinner and and and then we had to leave. But I mean, just just the power of being present.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Love can show up in a lot of ways. And of course, listening is very, very powerful. And we did a lot of listening yesterday.

Jill LeBlanc:

We sure did. Yeah. Yeah, it was powerful. And, you know, the Lord is wanting to touch them through us. He is just so gracious. And I don’t mean just our friends, but people that are hurting from loss. Maybe it’s you. And He is very gracious. He is touched with the feelings of your pain. And we just wanna encourage you to keep your heart open to the Lord because He loves you so much.

Jill LeBlanc:

And we just encourage others that are walking beside those who are hurting to just let God be gracious through you to the the ones that are hurting the most.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Amen. We have another clip, from this interview that Joyce and her team did with us. So, let’s just go right into that.

Erin Cluley:

Okay. So what are some suggestions that the two of you have for people who are grieving? What what are some things that are important for them, steps to take so that God can do that healing?

Charlie LeBlanc:

No, please. Please.

Jill LeBlanc:

I feel it’s really important just to let yourself go there as a griever. Like we were just talking about, don’t try to suppress the feelings, the emotion, the tears, because it’s crucial to your healing. I did a little study on tears, that emotional tears have a completely different chemical makeup than, say, allergy tears, or you get something in your eye, or something it’s full of enzymes and all kinds of things. Yeah, it’s so interesting. So we have to let that out because if we don’t, we become like a pressure cooker.

Jill LeBlanc:

And you try to suppress it, and then it comes out later when you really don’t want it. But to let yourself go there is so important. And one brother shared with us early on, he had lost two daughters, one a two year old, and then like twenty years later, someone that was in their early 20s. Two daughters and two completely different reasons and all that. And so Charlie spoke with him on the phone a few weeks after Beau died.

Jill LeBlanc:

One of the keys that he shared with us, has been huge, he said, be kind to yourself. So don’t try to push yourself into situations that are going to be uncomfortable. Being around people you don’t want to be around because maybe they’re just those people that just hit your buttons. Don’t push yourself too hard. Like, don’t set up schedules that that are gonna be hard on you, especially early on.

Erin Cluley:

That’s really wise.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And and Jill, and preparing for those anniversaries.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah. Oh gosh.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Birthdays coming up, anniversaries coming up.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah. The holidays.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Erin Cluley:

How do you prepare?

Charlie LeBlanc:

Well, get be with be with people that you love and that love you. Yeah. That’s real important. I know a close friend of ours lost her husband, well, Larry, and she was having a big birthday right after and an anniversary right after he passed. And thankfully, she went out of the country to be with her daughter who was at YWAM overseas, and she spent that time with her because that would have been dreadful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Christmas, all throughout Christmas, the holidays, and, you know, for-

Erin Cluley:

It’s a change of atmosphere sometimes

Jill LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Erin Cluley:

might be helpful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And that’s what we do. And and Jill talked to another friend of ours who lost her husband, and she said, what are you planning on doing on the anniversary of his loss? And she goes, I don’t know. I’m just gonna be home.

Jill LeBlanc:

Go to work.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Empty home. And Jill said, I would encourage you to go go visit your your children and your grandchildren or go visit a friend.

Jill LeBlanc:

Let’s do something.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And she did, and she thanked Jill after. She said, thank you. You saved my life. That would have been a dark weekend to be alone. You know, Paul said that I was comforted by the coming of Titus.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, we’re we we good people, and we call it safe friends is a term, you know, because some friends, as much as they love you and you can be a good friend, but they don’t understand.

Joyce Meyer:

Right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And so if they don’t understand, it’s not a healthy place to be.

Joyce Meyer:

And they usually don’t understand because they’ve never gone through anything

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

that’s been very painful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

And I find that people who have not been through things

Erin Cluley:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. It’s hard.

Joyce Meyer:

if you if you had a loss and you didn’t have a hard time that you’re hearing us talk about, that’s okay too.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. Yes. Good word.

Joyce Meyer:

You know? Because God puts us all together differently.

Erin Cluley:

Yeah.

Joyce Meyer:

And some people, their emotions are a bigger thing to them.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Mhmm. That’s true.

Joyce Meyer:

Than other people. And so, you I think it’s just just best to understand that however you have to deal with it, that’s fine. You’re an individual.

Jill LeBlanc:

That’s right.

Joyce Meyer:

God loves you. He’s got a plan for you. So you don’t need to feel bad if you have a really hard time, and you don’t need to feel bad if you didn’t have as hard a time with somebody else.

Jill LeBlanc:

That’s right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That’s really good. That’s really good. Because, yeah, we’ll we’ll go up to someone who’s had a loss and we’ll go, oh, God bless you. We’re we’re sorry that you had you you lost so and so. They go, oh, it’s fine. Praise the Lord. God’s good. Hallelujah. And so we go, praise God. Okay. Amen. Know, Jill often says, let’s meet them where they’re at.

Jill LeBlanc:

Follow their lead.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And and, you know, some people, you know, they they deal with it differently. And I appreciate you saying that because it’s so true. Yeah. You know, another little nugget that God spoke to me recently is that, you know, as far as going through the pain of loss and God’s reaction to it, you know, Jesus never rebuked a broken heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He had compassion for broken hearted people. He rebuked hardness of heart and those type of people. And so I look at it in a lot of different ways, but don’t harden your heart toward God when you go through a loss and don’t harden your heart to even grief. You know, say, I’m not gonna grieve, bless God, well then your heart can get calloused and hard, but to allow the mourning and the grief, the season of it, to do what it needs to do. Embrace the pain, like you say.

Charlie LeBlanc:

I remember thinking, Jesus, you had a choice in the garden. I don’t have a choice. I gotta go through this. You know, I either die or go through this, you know, but I knew there was a passageway. I had to go through this. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t go couldn’t go over it, couldn’t go under it, couldn’t go around it. Know, to live forward, I knew I had to experience this pain and live through it. And like you say, not fight it. And that I think is what helped us a lot, but he never rebukes a broken heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He’s compassionate to the broken, what’s pure religion and undefiled visiting orphans and widows in their despair, you know, people who have had losses, the poor that God loves so much. And just, you know, knowing that it’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to cry, and and God will be with you.

Jill LeBlanc:

So that was really good. I really like that Ginger asked the practical question of give us some suggestions on how to begin to recover.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so, you know, there were just several good things. One is just let, like we were talking about before, yourself go there. I think we talked about it last week, allowing yourself to cry or just, you have to give yourself, when grief comes knocking at your door, you have to open that door. Now you might not, you might need to wait for a time to really let it, let it have its perfect work, if you will, you know? Because if we don’t give our self time to grieve, it’ll come out somewhere else.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so we we have to let ourselves go there. We have to let the tears out. It’s just, you know, it it is like a pressure cooker that builds up if we don’t give it a place to come out sometime.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing that I’ve been watching this week with our friends too, is just that they’re being free to cry, you know, and and they are gushing and and, gushing out with pain. And, you know, one thing that really touched me so broke my heart, is is hearing their son who’s 21 years old, but he’s single, and, he’s got a very young heart. But just to hear him say, it hurts so bad.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He’s weeping, you know, and he’s crying, but he’s just holding his guts, he’s just saying, it just hurts so bad. Yeah. And people don’t understand that, that that there’s deep, deep pain in loss.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, I think it’s important that we, we try to help people understand that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, in this podcast, we’re trying to help people understand that, but most of our viewers are you who have experienced pain, and you certainly understand that deep, deep pain of loss. And so we’re here for you. We’re here to pray with you and stand with you for sure.

Jill LeBlanc:

And another suggestion is to be kind to yourself. And we’ve said this many times if you’ve been listening through the months because you’re just not the same once this happens to you. And it’s so important to guard your heart. The Bible says, guard it with all diligence because out of your heart comes your life and your soul. And you have to guard that.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so then I think it was Erin that asked, so how do we do that? One way is to not be around uncomfortable people that you know are going to push your buttons. Not to push yourself too hard with a schedule that you just, that will add a lot of stress to you. Those are a couple of ways. Change your atmosphere.

Jill LeBlanc:

Just, you know, we’ve got Thanksgiving coming up soon. We’ve got Christmas around the corner. And maybe don’t do all of the same traditions that you would normally do. Just do something different. Because if you do things the way you’ve always done them, it could open that door for pain, unnecessary pain, to come in and try to take hold of your heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, and I I do really appreciate what Joyce said, how she’s about everyone grieving differently.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It’s such an important thing to consider, and and, you know, you may not have experienced what what we’ve experienced, and your journey may be a little bit different. In fact, we recently got an email from one of our partners, and and he said, you know, he said, Charlie, we just love you guys, and and, you know, we’re so sorry of all that you’ve been through, he said, but I lost a child. And he said, I didn’t grieve that much at all. He said, the Holy Spirit comforted me and I was just fine through it. And I looked at that email and I went, wow, you know, how did that work?

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, know, you could condemn yourself and say, for me, I could condemn myself and say, well, well, Charlie, if you’d have been more spiritual, then you wouldn’t have grieved as much. Well, it’s not true because, as I’ve said and we said on the on our podcast with with Joyce and them that, you know, Godly men of God grieved and David and his mighty men wept and grieved too. So but everyone just grieves differently. And we’re not to put this thing in a box, you know, like our friends that we’re with this week, you know, they’re grieving in a unique way. They’re doing some things that I wouldn’t have done and saying some things that I wouldn’t have said.

Charlie LeBlanc:

But again, it’s it’s it’s a really individual journey.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we are to respect each other’s grief journey and allow people to to just express themselves the way they need to express themselves.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, whatever’s comfortable for them.

Jill LeBlanc:

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and we are all different.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

So, you know, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for Charlie.

Joyce Meyer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we remember the picture thing where you guys would all wanna look at pictures of Beau, and I just didn’t wanna see them at first. Love seeing them now. Yeah. But I didn’t wanna see them at first because it just amplified my loss. It amplified the pain of my loss, and yet it was really soothing to you guys. It brought healing to your heart.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

To look at beautiful pictures of him.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, yeah. So everyone just experiences it just a little bit different, and, and that’s that’s totally fine. So we’re just praying for you that, you know, whatever place you’re at in your journey with with your loved one that you are in the grief journey that you’re with, that that God would just give you the strength and the grace to process it in a healthy way, whatever that way would be. And, you know, we’re here, we share our journey. And some people are saying, my gosh, I have experienced the same thing, you know, and thank you for talking about it. But others, you know, like my partner friends, you didn’t experience it.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So that’s fine. It’s okay. The important thing is we’ve all had a loss, and we’ve all experienced this situation, and and we’re we’re trying to just help each other and comfort each other. Yeah. And, Jill, we might wanna mention that finding hope for the holidays that we did several weeks ago.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That it still can be found on YouTube.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. So look just type in Finding Hope for the holidays, and if it doesn’t come up, put Charlie and Jill LeBlanc in there too, and, and you should be able to find it.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And don’t forget, we have our book, available as well. And, you know, that book has just really been a blessing to so many people. Joyce, on that podcast, she really promoted the book a lot because she really likes it as well. So that really blessed us. So, yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

And you can go back and listen to that podcast. I believe we’ll have a link below called Talk It Out podcast with Joyce Meyer. And, it it was it was a really special time.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

So we encourage you to go back and hear that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. You can view the whole thing. It was on, October 28, actually, if you’re looking for a date of her Talk It Out podcast, because she’s got so many of them, But it was it was actually, played on October 28.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yep. That’s right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. So, well, bless you guys. And, again, we’re here to help you in any way. We’re here to help you find hope in your for your future because God definitely has great plans for each one of us. He wants to bless us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us. He wants to help us get through the most difficult seasons And of our He does. Thank you, Jesus. And so we pray that you would just continue to just stay close to the Lord, stay close to the God of all comfort, and just let Him minister His love to you in the midst of your difficulty. So again, we look forward to being with you next week. I think next week podcast is right before Thanksgiving.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So, we’ll be looking forward to being with you guys and talking to you about more about the holidays and how to brace yourself for those. All right. Well, so God bless you both. God bless you all, I should say. So we love you.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Both both of us love you. That’s where my both came in. And we do love you and and bless you all. Bye bye now.

Jill LeBlanc:

Thank you.

Read the Transcript

Charlie LeBlanc:

Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Finding Hope, getting through what you never asked for, which is something that we all need help in getting through difficulties in our lives and especially when it comes to losing a loved one in our life. We have, we’ve lost a loved one. I know many of you have lost a loved one. And in fact, we shared last week that we just recently lost another very, very close dear friend that lives right here in our city. And it’s just been a very tough, tough, tough road.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, you know, we just are leaning on God. He’s a God of all comfort. He’s a help in time of need. And, you know, we we lean on God. We leave on lean on each other.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, the Bible says that, God comforted Paul by the coming of Titus.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah, we need each other.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And so we we’re gonna jump back into another podcast of Joyce Meyer. Actually, it’s her podcast that we were a guest on and we did last week. If you didn’t see last week, we’re going to be jumping into segments, two segments of our podcast with Joyce. Her podcast is called Talk It Out, right?

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yep. Talk It Out. And we were real honored to be a guest on that podcast. And they asked some very powerful questions. Her assistant, Ginger and-

Jill LeBlanc:

Erin.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Erin, for some reason. Sorry, Erin, if you’re listening. I keep forgetting about your name, beautiful name. But anyway, we, we’re going to jump right into the first segment right now, I think. Is it about eight minutes, I think, or seven minutes, something like that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It’s close to it. But we’re going to jump right back in and then we’ll do make some comments after it. Okay. God bless. About a year and a half after Beau passed, a friend of ours lost a son, and we offered to come and help, he’s a pastor, and so he said, oh, please come, please come and take the service, I don’t wanna have to be up in the public.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So we went on the way down there, I’m praying and I’m saying, God, what am I gonna say? I’m gonna just blubber. I might even start crying again, you know, because it’s only been a year and a half after Bowie passed. And the Lord spoke to me on that drive. He said, Charlie, tell the people you do the lovin’ and I’ll do the fixin’. You do the lovin’, I’ll do the fixin’.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That came as a rhema to me, it was just a word from God, and it just exploded into our hearts, and of course I ministered that word, But I think that’s one of the most powerful things is love is the most powerful part of helping someone who’s hurting.

Joyce Meyer:

Yeah. And acknowledging that you know they’re hurting.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes. And saying the name of the loved one is a very powerful thing. Pastors are sometimes even afraid with their parishioners to mention it because they’re afraid they’re gonna go in the morning and grief again. But like, it’s like, no, we’re always thinking about our loved one. We’re always thinking about the one who’s passed.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So it’s so comforting when someone says, how are you doing? You know, I’m sure it’s been tough. I’ve been thinking about Beau. I remember when he did that. That really blessed us.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It really touches us. So, yeah, some of the things, you know, just doing good, you know, and all this kind of stuff, you know, praise the Lord. You know, one one pastor came up to Jill about three months after Beau passed and and walked over and put us out and said, hi, Jill. Doing good. Praise the Lord.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And Jill said, no. As a matter of fact, I’m not doing good.

Joyce Meyer:

Like Jill.

Jill LeBlanc:

Tell it out.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It sounds like Jill’s gonna tell it like it is. He goes, I just lost my son three months ago. So I just think in general, the body of Christ needs to be more sensitive to understanding pain. You know, Paul was very transparent about his pain. You know, he said, I think it’s good for you, you ought to know what I’ve been through.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And he lists them all. And so I think a lot of Christians unfortunately are hiding in the pews with pain that has not been resolved and healed because they’re afraid of what Christians are gonna say. Preachers are gonna understand. Christians are gonna say the wrong thing. Or they think that they shouldn’t feel that way. Right.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Joyce Meyer:

You know, mean, some of the teaching that we’ve had over the years is

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

A little bit out of balance that you know, with faith you Sure, overcome yeah. And you do, sometimes God gives you the faith to go through, but not the faith to not have it happen.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah, to have it happen. You know, it’s funny you say that because Pastor Rick actually was at our house the day after Beau passed, and he looked me in the eyes and he grabbed my shoulders and he said, Charlie, he said, listen to me. He says, there’s a faith to move mountains, but there’s a faith to stand when the mountain doesn’t move. And he said, that’s where you are right now. And I’ll tell you what, it grabbed me, and I thought, man, this is the journey we’re on to hang on.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, I remember Jesus turning to Peter and saying, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I’ve prayed that your faith fail not, and of course when you get hit with a painful loss like this, everything goes, your heart is shattered, your heart is broken, you don’t know where to turn, you don’t know what to do, and you know, the enemy definitely wants to come in and destroy you, totally destroy you, and he tried for sure. But but, yeah, I know I had a lot of friends praying for us. You guys helped us so much, Joyce. And, you know, so many people prayed that our faith would not fail, and and by the grace of God, we were able to make it through it.

Erin Cluley:

What does that wrestling look like when you when you had to wrestle your faith and you are so angry at God and yet because as Christians, we know the word in our hearts and we know what God’s promise is. But also I’m really mad because your promise, it doesn’t look like it happened the way that I’m asking.

Jill LeBlanc:

Right.

Erin Cluley:

So how did you wrestle with that?

Jill LeBlanc:

You know, we both have a different journey in that regard. I just quit talking to God because I’m like, why bother? You know? And so I just didn’t. And three or four, probably four weeks later, I just began to sense a little bit of His presence.

Jill LeBlanc:

And I would just see what I call fingerprints just on different things and like, nice little things would happen, just random. And it just kind of kept happening and kept happening. And then I thought, I’m seeing God’s fingerprints on these things. And I began to just slowly open my heart to Him. And He eventually showed me He was there all along, carrying me.

Jill LeBlanc:

He was not put off by my anger and my carnality, whatever, you know, my pain, my expression of defeat and everything that we were going through. But he just loved me through all that. And it was never that I had to just stand up and say, okay, I’m going to make a decision that I’m going to move forward. It was nothing like that. He just carried me until I could begin to take steps on my own.

Jill LeBlanc:

And it just held me and loved me. And it was just, it was a beautiful time of sensing the Lord’s love like I had never sensed it before.

Joyce Meyer:

That’s good. Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

That was really powerful. And there were a couple things that I noticed that I wrote down here. I’m just taking notes as we listen. But you said that love is the most powerful way to support someone.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Right.

Jill LeBlanc:

And that can look like all different kinds of things.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yes.

Jill LeBlanc:

But to acknowledge that they are hurting, and then Joyce commented right after that, she said, Let them know that you know that they’re hurting. That’s one way to show love. Yes. Is just to acknowledge their pain because so many people feel like they can’t be honest with others, especially in a lot of Christian circles. They can’t honestly, they can’t let others know that they’re hurting and in pain.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so that is one of the most powerful ways that we can be Jesus with skin on to comfort those that are brokenhearted is just to love them and let them know that we affirm them that we care and, you know, that we are so sorry for their pain.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And, you know, we’ve had an opportunity this week, like we shared, to to be in the middle of that at our dear friend’s house with all of his children, his married children, his grandkids, and his sis the the deceased siblings of Siblings. So a home full of family. And to be honest, we were the only ones invited into that moment because we’re so close with them. And so there we were, you know, feeling a little bit odd out at times, but nonetheless

Jill LeBlanc:

Not from them.

Charlie LeBlanc:

No, not from them.

Jill LeBlanc:

We just kind of felt like should we really be here?

Charlie LeBlanc:

we’re not family. But what did we do? What did Jill do? She dove into the kitchen and she started helping cook, and there was a one of their siblings is a good cook too, so Jill and the siblings were in there cooking. I was following my friend around who’s just lost his wife, and I’m picking things up for him.

Charlie LeBlanc:

I’m cleaning out the pool. We’re running to the grocery store to get things for them. We’re fixing things if we see something needs to be fixed or cleaned up. You dealt with the flowers. There were some flowers sent early, they were already starting to look bad, and so you were cleaning those up.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And it was just practical things. And to be honest, there was a lot of times that we did feel like, well, you know, we don’t want to intrude on their family time, but yet they they loved us being there. They just wanted us to be a part of this journey. And we’ve talked so much about the power of being present. And and that’s a lot what it was this week.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we just spent yesterday. We sang in the funeral a couple songs and then they said, come over for lunch, you know? So we came over, we had lunch, and then after lunch they just kept talking and sharing their grief and sharing stories about their love, their their mom or their wife. And we just listen and and love on them. And then they said, well, listen, stay for dinner, will you?

Charlie LeBlanc:

We’re going to make this or that or that. Will you stay for dinner? We said, of course. So, you know, we just stayed and then we helped you help with dinner and then we cleaned up after dinner and and and then we had to leave. But I mean, just just the power of being present.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Love can show up in a lot of ways. And of course, listening is very, very powerful. And we did a lot of listening yesterday.

Jill LeBlanc:

We sure did. Yeah. Yeah, it was powerful. And, you know, the Lord is wanting to touch them through us. He is just so gracious. And I don’t mean just our friends, but people that are hurting from loss. Maybe it’s you. And He is very gracious. He is touched with the feelings of your pain. And we just wanna encourage you to keep your heart open to the Lord because He loves you so much.

Jill LeBlanc:

And we just encourage others that are walking beside those who are hurting to just let God be gracious through you to the the ones that are hurting the most.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Amen. We have another clip, from this interview that Joyce and her team did with us. So, let’s just go right into that.

Erin Cluley:

Okay. So what are some suggestions that the two of you have for people who are grieving? What what are some things that are important for them, steps to take so that God can do that healing?

Charlie LeBlanc:

No, please. Please.

Jill LeBlanc:

I feel it’s really important just to let yourself go there as a griever. Like we were just talking about, don’t try to suppress the feelings, the emotion, the tears, because it’s crucial to your healing. I did a little study on tears, that emotional tears have a completely different chemical makeup than, say, allergy tears, or you get something in your eye, or something it’s full of enzymes and all kinds of things. Yeah, it’s so interesting. So we have to let that out because if we don’t, we become like a pressure cooker.

Jill LeBlanc:

And you try to suppress it, and then it comes out later when you really don’t want it. But to let yourself go there is so important. And one brother shared with us early on, he had lost two daughters, one a two year old, and then like twenty years later, someone that was in their early 20s. Two daughters and two completely different reasons and all that. And so Charlie spoke with him on the phone a few weeks after Beau died.

Jill LeBlanc:

One of the keys that he shared with us, has been huge, he said, be kind to yourself. So don’t try to push yourself into situations that are going to be uncomfortable. Being around people you don’t want to be around because maybe they’re just those people that just hit your buttons. Don’t push yourself too hard. Like, don’t set up schedules that that are gonna be hard on you, especially early on.

Erin Cluley:

That’s really wise.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And and Jill, and preparing for those anniversaries.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah. Oh gosh.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Birthdays coming up, anniversaries coming up.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah. The holidays.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Erin Cluley:

How do you prepare?

Charlie LeBlanc:

Well, get be with be with people that you love and that love you. Yeah. That’s real important. I know a close friend of ours lost her husband, well, Larry, and she was having a big birthday right after and an anniversary right after he passed. And thankfully, she went out of the country to be with her daughter who was at YWAM overseas, and she spent that time with her because that would have been dreadful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Christmas, all throughout Christmas, the holidays, and, you know, for-

Erin Cluley:

It’s a change of atmosphere sometimes

Jill LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Erin Cluley:

might be helpful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And that’s what we do. And and Jill talked to another friend of ours who lost her husband, and she said, what are you planning on doing on the anniversary of his loss? And she goes, I don’t know. I’m just gonna be home.

Jill LeBlanc:

Go to work.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Empty home. And Jill said, I would encourage you to go go visit your your children and your grandchildren or go visit a friend.

Jill LeBlanc:

Let’s do something.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And she did, and she thanked Jill after. She said, thank you. You saved my life. That would have been a dark weekend to be alone. You know, Paul said that I was comforted by the coming of Titus.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, we’re we we good people, and we call it safe friends is a term, you know, because some friends, as much as they love you and you can be a good friend, but they don’t understand.

Joyce Meyer:

Right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And so if they don’t understand, it’s not a healthy place to be.

Joyce Meyer:

And they usually don’t understand because they’ve never gone through anything

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

that’s been very painful.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Absolutely.

Joyce Meyer:

And I find that people who have not been through things

Erin Cluley:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. It’s hard.

Joyce Meyer:

if you if you had a loss and you didn’t have a hard time that you’re hearing us talk about, that’s okay too.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. Yes. Good word.

Joyce Meyer:

You know? Because God puts us all together differently.

Erin Cluley:

Yeah.

Joyce Meyer:

And some people, their emotions are a bigger thing to them.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Mhmm. That’s true.

Joyce Meyer:

Than other people. And so, you I think it’s just just best to understand that however you have to deal with it, that’s fine. You’re an individual.

Jill LeBlanc:

That’s right.

Joyce Meyer:

God loves you. He’s got a plan for you. So you don’t need to feel bad if you have a really hard time, and you don’t need to feel bad if you didn’t have as hard a time with somebody else.

Jill LeBlanc:

That’s right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That’s really good. That’s really good. Because, yeah, we’ll we’ll go up to someone who’s had a loss and we’ll go, oh, God bless you. We’re we’re sorry that you had you you lost so and so. They go, oh, it’s fine. Praise the Lord. God’s good. Hallelujah. And so we go, praise God. Okay. Amen. Know, Jill often says, let’s meet them where they’re at.

Jill LeBlanc:

Follow their lead.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And and, you know, some people, you know, they they deal with it differently. And I appreciate you saying that because it’s so true. Yeah. You know, another little nugget that God spoke to me recently is that, you know, as far as going through the pain of loss and God’s reaction to it, you know, Jesus never rebuked a broken heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He had compassion for broken hearted people. He rebuked hardness of heart and those type of people. And so I look at it in a lot of different ways, but don’t harden your heart toward God when you go through a loss and don’t harden your heart to even grief. You know, say, I’m not gonna grieve, bless God, well then your heart can get calloused and hard, but to allow the mourning and the grief, the season of it, to do what it needs to do. Embrace the pain, like you say.

Charlie LeBlanc:

I remember thinking, Jesus, you had a choice in the garden. I don’t have a choice. I gotta go through this. You know, I either die or go through this, you know, but I knew there was a passageway. I had to go through this. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t go couldn’t go over it, couldn’t go under it, couldn’t go around it. Know, to live forward, I knew I had to experience this pain and live through it. And like you say, not fight it. And that I think is what helped us a lot, but he never rebukes a broken heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He’s compassionate to the broken, what’s pure religion and undefiled visiting orphans and widows in their despair, you know, people who have had losses, the poor that God loves so much. And just, you know, knowing that it’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to cry, and and God will be with you.

Jill LeBlanc:

So that was really good. I really like that Ginger asked the practical question of give us some suggestions on how to begin to recover.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so, you know, there were just several good things. One is just let, like we were talking about before, yourself go there. I think we talked about it last week, allowing yourself to cry or just, you have to give yourself, when grief comes knocking at your door, you have to open that door. Now you might not, you might need to wait for a time to really let it, let it have its perfect work, if you will, you know? Because if we don’t give our self time to grieve, it’ll come out somewhere else.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so we we have to let ourselves go there. We have to let the tears out. It’s just, you know, it it is like a pressure cooker that builds up if we don’t give it a place to come out sometime.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. And I think that’s the thing that I’ve been watching this week with our friends too, is just that they’re being free to cry, you know, and and they are gushing and and, gushing out with pain. And, you know, one thing that really touched me so broke my heart, is is hearing their son who’s 21 years old, but he’s single, and, he’s got a very young heart. But just to hear him say, it hurts so bad.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

He’s weeping, you know, and he’s crying, but he’s just holding his guts, he’s just saying, it just hurts so bad. Yeah. And people don’t understand that, that that there’s deep, deep pain in loss.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, I think it’s important that we, we try to help people understand that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, in this podcast, we’re trying to help people understand that, but most of our viewers are you who have experienced pain, and you certainly understand that deep, deep pain of loss. And so we’re here for you. We’re here to pray with you and stand with you for sure.

Jill LeBlanc:

And another suggestion is to be kind to yourself. And we’ve said this many times if you’ve been listening through the months because you’re just not the same once this happens to you. And it’s so important to guard your heart. The Bible says, guard it with all diligence because out of your heart comes your life and your soul. And you have to guard that.

Jill LeBlanc:

And so then I think it was Erin that asked, so how do we do that? One way is to not be around uncomfortable people that you know are going to push your buttons. Not to push yourself too hard with a schedule that you just, that will add a lot of stress to you. Those are a couple of ways. Change your atmosphere.

Jill LeBlanc:

Just, you know, we’ve got Thanksgiving coming up soon. We’ve got Christmas around the corner. And maybe don’t do all of the same traditions that you would normally do. Just do something different. Because if you do things the way you’ve always done them, it could open that door for pain, unnecessary pain, to come in and try to take hold of your heart.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, and I I do really appreciate what Joyce said, how she’s about everyone grieving differently.

Jill LeBlanc:

Mhmm.

Charlie LeBlanc:

It’s such an important thing to consider, and and, you know, you may not have experienced what what we’ve experienced, and your journey may be a little bit different. In fact, we recently got an email from one of our partners, and and he said, you know, he said, Charlie, we just love you guys, and and, you know, we’re so sorry of all that you’ve been through, he said, but I lost a child. And he said, I didn’t grieve that much at all. He said, the Holy Spirit comforted me and I was just fine through it. And I looked at that email and I went, wow, you know, how did that work?

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, know, you could condemn yourself and say, for me, I could condemn myself and say, well, well, Charlie, if you’d have been more spiritual, then you wouldn’t have grieved as much. Well, it’s not true because, as I’ve said and we said on the on our podcast with with Joyce and them that, you know, Godly men of God grieved and David and his mighty men wept and grieved too. So but everyone just grieves differently. And we’re not to put this thing in a box, you know, like our friends that we’re with this week, you know, they’re grieving in a unique way. They’re doing some things that I wouldn’t have done and saying some things that I wouldn’t have said.

Charlie LeBlanc:

But again, it’s it’s it’s a really individual journey.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we are to respect each other’s grief journey and allow people to to just express themselves the way they need to express themselves.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

You know, whatever’s comfortable for them.

Jill LeBlanc:

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and we are all different.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

So, you know, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for Charlie.

Joyce Meyer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And we remember the picture thing where you guys would all wanna look at pictures of Beau, and I just didn’t wanna see them at first. Love seeing them now. Yeah. But I didn’t wanna see them at first because it just amplified my loss. It amplified the pain of my loss, and yet it was really soothing to you guys. It brought healing to your heart.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

To look at beautiful pictures of him.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And, yeah. So everyone just experiences it just a little bit different, and, and that’s that’s totally fine. So we’re just praying for you that, you know, whatever place you’re at in your journey with with your loved one that you are in the grief journey that you’re with, that that God would just give you the strength and the grace to process it in a healthy way, whatever that way would be. And, you know, we’re here, we share our journey. And some people are saying, my gosh, I have experienced the same thing, you know, and thank you for talking about it. But others, you know, like my partner friends, you didn’t experience it.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So that’s fine. It’s okay. The important thing is we’ve all had a loss, and we’ve all experienced this situation, and and we’re we’re trying to just help each other and comfort each other. Yeah. And, Jill, we might wanna mention that finding hope for the holidays that we did several weeks ago.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

That it still can be found on YouTube.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. So look just type in Finding Hope for the holidays, and if it doesn’t come up, put Charlie and Jill LeBlanc in there too, and, and you should be able to find it.

Charlie LeBlanc:

And don’t forget, we have our book, available as well. And, you know, that book has just really been a blessing to so many people. Joyce, on that podcast, she really promoted the book a lot because she really likes it as well. So that really blessed us. So, yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

And you can go back and listen to that podcast. I believe we’ll have a link below called Talk It Out podcast with Joyce Meyer. And, it it was it was a really special time.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah.

Jill LeBlanc:

So we encourage you to go back and hear that.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. You can view the whole thing. It was on, October 28, actually, if you’re looking for a date of her Talk It Out podcast, because she’s got so many of them, But it was it was actually, played on October 28.

Jill LeBlanc:

Yep. That’s right.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Yeah. So, well, bless you guys. And, again, we’re here to help you in any way. We’re here to help you find hope in your for your future because God definitely has great plans for each one of us. He wants to bless us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us. He wants to help us get through the most difficult seasons And of our He does. Thank you, Jesus. And so we pray that you would just continue to just stay close to the Lord, stay close to the God of all comfort, and just let Him minister His love to you in the midst of your difficulty. So again, we look forward to being with you next week. I think next week podcast is right before Thanksgiving.

Charlie LeBlanc:

So, we’ll be looking forward to being with you guys and talking to you about more about the holidays and how to brace yourself for those. All right. Well, so God bless you both. God bless you all, I should say. So we love you.

Charlie LeBlanc:

Both both of us love you. That’s where my both came in. And we do love you and and bless you all. Bye bye now.

Jill LeBlanc:

Thank you.