May 20, 2025 • 26 mins
Charlie and Jill explore the role of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, especially in times of grief. They highlight how the Holy Spirit supports, strengthens, and intercedes for us when we’re too broken to pray. As recipients of His comfort, believers are called to extend that same comfort to others. Learn how to offer emotional support and gain practical wisdom for walking alongside those who are grieving.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jill LeBlanc (00:05):
Hey there. Thanks so much for joining us again
today. We're Charlie and Jilland we have the Finding Hope
podcast, Getting Through WhatYou Never Asked For.
Charlie LeBlanc (00:16):
Right.
Jill LeBlanc (00:17):
And we've all been there at one time or another.
Some of what we never asked forseems you know a little more
dire for some of us than others.But regardless, we're here to
talk about finding hope in thosesituations because we serve the
God of hope and he's awesome andhe loves us so much and he loves
(00:39):
you so much. So we're just gonnahave some discussions about the
Holy Spirit being our comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah, the Bible talks a lot about the Holy
Spirit. You know, the last twosessions we had episodes
actually, we talked about Godbeing the God of all comfort.
Take it from 2 Corinthians 1:3,"Blessed be the God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, thefather of mercies and the God of
(01:10):
all comfort." And so we spenttwo sessions just talking about
God as a comforter, which is sobeautiful and he is and he's
helped us so much.
Jill LeBlanc (01:20):
He's amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (01:21):
Yes. But today we wanted to kind of peek into
the Holy Spirit as thecomforter.
Jill LeBlanc (01:28):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (01:28):
And that's just it's just kind of a little twist
maybe on words, but really,Jesus said this, I'm gonna read
this out of the amplified inJohn 14:15. He said, "If you
really love me, you will keep mycommandments and I will ask the
father and he will give youanother comforter, and that he
(01:50):
may remain with you forever."And, you know, that's amazing
because he goes down here in inverse 16, he goes to say, "I am
telling you nothing but thetruth when I say it is
profitable that I go away."
Jill LeBlanc (02:09):
I'm sure they were like what the heck? What do you
wait a minute. No, you can't go.What do you mean?
Charlie LeBlanc (02:15):
Right. Of course he was like the king, the
coming king and he was like theone that was gonna save them
all. They really thought thiswas this was it. Right. This was
Jesus. He was gonna, you know,do it all there.
Jill LeBlanc (02:26):
My gosh.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:27):
But he knew his mission.
Jill LeBlanc (02:29):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:29):
He knew that he came to die on the cross for our
sins. And and so he knew that hewould be leaving them soon.
Jill LeBlanc (02:38):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:40):
And so he said there, he said, it's expedient,
advantageous, good that for youthat I go away. Because if I
don't go away, he said that Icannot send the comforter, which
is really amazing. So when Jesuswas with us, obviously he was
(03:02):
the comforter to all thedisciples. We also know
obviously God is the father isour comforter. But he said, if I
go away, then I will send thecomforter, the Holy Spirit.
And I love the way that theamplified version lays it out.
He says, it says the comforter,then he goes, counselor, helper,
(03:28):
advocate, intercessor,strengthener and standby.
Jill LeBlanc (03:35):
Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:36):
Wow, that's a lot.
Jill LeBlanc (03:37):
It's a mouthful and just to think about each one
of those attributes about whathe is to us, know, like
advocate, someone that goes tocourt needs an advocate or
someone that's having to battlesituations.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:52):
Yeah, thank God he's that to us.
Jill LeBlanc (03:54):
Yes, he is because he fights for us. He's so
amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:59):
Yeah. And counselor is a person who gives
advice. I looked up some ofthese and some definitions. He's
a counselor, someone who givesadvice to us when we need it.
He's a helper, one who helps intime of need, an intercessor.
We may talk a little bit moreabout that in a minute, but, you
know, he intercedes for us whenwe do not feel like we know how
(04:20):
to pray, but we don't know whatto do, you know, and of course,
we're here to talk to you abouthelping you in your process of
getting over the the passing ofyour loved one. You know, the
scripture says, he comfortsthose who mourn and he heals
broken hearts. And so that's abig part of our purpose in this
(04:41):
podcast is to help you in thatrealm. But he also intercedes
for us. There are times when wedon't know how to pray.
Jill LeBlanc (04:52):
That's for sure.
Charlie LeBlanc (04:53):
A lot of times.
Jill LeBlanc (04:54):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (04:55):
And especially when your heart is shattered,
when you've just been broken bythe loss of your loved one. I
know Jill for you, you didn'twanna pray.
Jill LeBlanc (05:07):
Are you kidding me?
Charlie LeBlanc (05:08):
You said I'm done. You were upset.
Jill LeBlanc (05:11):
I was I was so crushed.
Charlie LeBlanc (05:14):
Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc (05:15):
And I felt like I've I've put it all out on the
line trusting God and then ourson passed away. And I thought
I'm not praying anymore. Hedoesn't I mean I don't
apparently I don't know how topray and I was trusting him to
pray through us and show us andall this and none of that came
(05:38):
to pass and so it was a longtime before I felt like I could
pray again. And I mean I say along time for me it was a long
time. It was a few weeks.
Charlie LeBlanc (05:52):
You always prayed every day all day.
Jill LeBlanc (05:54):
I mean yeah, I just lived in fellowship with
the Lord, but it was after a fewweeks the Lord began to touch my
heart in special ways just tolet me know that He was still
there. But He wasn't pulling onme. He just wanted me to know
that that he still loved me eventhough I couldn't figure that
(06:15):
part out but nonetheless he hewould send comfort even when I
didn't ask for it.He's just awesome.
Charlie LeBlanc (06:25):
Yeah, I know we both were affected a little bit
different way.
Jill LeBlanc (06:29):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (06:30):
I know that I hate to talk much about this but
I know that at the point thatBeau died at that moment when we
were trying to pray, we werepraying that he would rise from
the dead, that we're trying toraise him from the dead. It was
a traumatic time, people.
You can imagine. Some of youunderstand this very clearly.
(06:51):
But it was just the worst of theworst of the worst of the worst
of the worst of the worst momentof our life.
Jill LeBlanc (06:59):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (07:00):
And we were praying for him to be raised
from the dead and the momentthat I had to make the decision
to just, you know, he's inheaven and we can't bring him
back and we just need to let himgo, let him stay there. That's
when that's when all of the painof the reality of Beau passing
(07:25):
really hit.
Jill LeBlanc (07:27):
Yeah it was really five hours after he stopped
breathing you know after heactually passed away. We prayed
and so, yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (07:36):
We were expecting a miracle. And when I
pulled the plug in a sense andsaid, you know, we just gotta
let him go. The wailing and thetears and the screams, I can
still hear them of our daughtersespecially. They were just
saying, no, no. No, Beau. Youcan't go. You can't. You've
(07:59):
gotta you've gotta come back.No.
You know, it was horrifying. Andbut interestingly, I'm there
holding I'm on the floor withBeau. He's he had been on the
floor for a while and we werejust praying for him. Of course,
tried to give him CPR andeverything at the beginning, but
then we prayed for him for likeJill said five hours. But but at
(08:20):
that moment, I'm still holdinghim and I'm thinking we have a
let him go and I'm thinking whatdo I do now?
And I could hear my daughterscreaming and I looked over to
Jill and she was just stonefaced and angry.
Jill LeBlanc (08:37):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (08:38):
And I get that. I mean I was angry too but I was
like in a moment where I as thefather as the as the man of the
house whatever. I was just alsotrying to figure out what do I
do here?
How do I, how do I fix this? Howdo I at least make it somewhat
(08:58):
better? But I couldn't doanything. I couldn't do anything
but just sit there and hold himand and weep with the rest of
us. But you know, the God is aGod of comfort and he was there
with us.
We didn't feel him. We didn'tsense him at the moment. It was
almost like, where are you Lord?You know, but but he was with us
(09:23):
and this one scripture we saidor this one definition is that
intercessor and I really believethat even in our pain even in
our agony even in our crying andwailing that he was the Holy
Spirit never leaves you. And Iknow that he was crying out to
(09:46):
God inside of us for ourbenefit, to help us, comforting
us, helping us through thispainful experience.
And Romans 8:26 says that, "Thespirit helps us in our weakness
for we do not know what weshould pray for as we ought, but
the spirit himself makesintercession for us with
(10:08):
groanings which cannot beuttered." And that I believe was
probably happening not only inthat moment, but for several
months after, as you and I werejust walking around just
hurting, groaning, not reallyknowing how to pray, not really
knowing what to pray.
Jill LeBlanc (10:29):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (10:30):
I know for me, I think I told you this before
that I seem to be able to prayin the spirit and that was the
only way that I couldcommunicate with God. I couldn't
pray perfectly in English, but Ipray in the spirit and the Lord
would, I believe, heard my cryand heard my prayer and and
(10:53):
heard my groanings and heard myinterceded for me in in that
moment.
Jill LeBlanc (10:59):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (10:59):
And I know for you, similar, even if you
couldn't speak.
Jill LeBlanc (11:05):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (11:05):
I know your heart, the pain of your heart.
That's the beautiful thing aboutthe Holy Spirit, I think is that
He's in us and He understandsour pain. And He's touched as we
said before in Hebrews, He'stouched with the feelings of our
infirmities. He is moved withcompassion for us.
Jill LeBlanc (11:26):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (11:26):
And so I believe He was inside of us by
the power of the Holy Spiritinterceding for us and helping
us and praying through us toFather to help us get through
this painful time. And we haveother friends who have lost
their loved ones and had verysimilar traumatic painful
(11:50):
experiences.
And you know, sometimes Ibelieve just when we're weeping,
when we're crying, when we don'tknow what to say, I believe at
the same time, those aremessages from our heart to God.
And He's hearing them and He isministering to us by the Holy
Spirit and helping us get betterand better in those moments.
Jill LeBlanc (12:15):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (12:16):
So thank God for that. Thank God for the Holy
Spirit as being an intercessor,and like you said, an advocate.
And then we read in theAmplified, a strengthener and
someone to make you strong and astandby. So he's just hanging in
(12:36):
there waiting.
Jill LeBlanc (12:36):
He's always there with us.
Charlie LeBlanc (12:37):
Yeah, waiting to help us in every situation.
So, you know, yeah, it's aninteresting thing just to be
aware that the Holy Spirit is acomforter. And he is the one who
comforts us in every situation.And we can lean on him. We can
(12:59):
talk to him.
Jill LeBlanc (13:01):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:01):
We can say, holy spirit, help me right now.
Jill LeBlanc (13:04):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:04):
I need your help. I'll be honest. Even this
morning, as I took my littlewalk, I was praying, God, you
gotta help me. Holy Spirit, yougotta help me. Because I was
having a difficult morning. Lotsof things were coming against me
in preparation. And we are insuch a busy season right now.
(13:25):
We're getting so many emails, somany texts from so many
different places. We're goingoverseas soon and doing ministry
there. We're forming bands overthere too. And so many details,
flights and, and I was a bitoverwhelmed. And as I took my
walk, I said, Holy Spirit, helpme. You are the helper. I'm
(13:46):
gonna teach on that today. HolySpirit, you are the helper. Help
me right now. And so thank Godhe does.
Jill LeBlanc (13:56):
He does. He's amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:57):
Yeah. So, you know, I remember that that, you
know, not only is the HolySpirit the helper, but guess
what? God has made us to becomforters and helpers as well.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout that today as well that,
(14:18):
you know, we said that God isthe the the God of all comfort.
We said the Holy Spirit is thecomforter.
But there's also a place wherewe become comforters. It says in
in the in 2 Corinthians thatscripture that we read 1:3, it
says, "Who comforts us in all ofour tribulation so that we can
(14:40):
comfort others with the samecomfort that we have received
from the Lord." And of course,that's been your your my mandate
now in this season. And we wereworship leaders, just singing
and write songs and ministry andmusic. And then our son passed
and all of a sudden we're like,Oh God, what do we do now? And
(15:04):
yet we have continued in ourmusic ministry but the whole
time this thing inside of uskept growing to comfort others.
Jill LeBlanc (15:16):
Yeah and it wasn't like we were trying to.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:19):
No.
Jill LeBlanc (15:19):
It's just these situations that would come to us
of another friend that lostsomeone and then another one.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:27):
Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc (15:28):
And we would just share with them things that the
Lord had shown us.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:32):
Right.
Jill LeBlanc (15:32):
And it evolved into and someone would say wow
that's powerful and you knowjust it just evolved into a way
to help more people and you knowbereaved people we would talk to
say no one else is saying this.And we thought well maybe we
(15:53):
need to be the one saying it mayyou know and then the Lord made
it very clear to us that we needto go public if you will.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:02):
Right exactly.
Jill LeBlanc (16:03):
You know...
Charlie LeBlanc (16:03):
Exactly it's kind of an interesting pathway
for us because you know thismessage of of grieving and
mourning and you know sufferingin your grief and your pain that
we went through. We had nochoice. We had to go through it.
Jill LeBlanc (16:22):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:23):
It's it's something that you you just have
no choice when you your heart isbroken. You've got to just
you've got to go through it.You've got to pray. You've got
to you gotta cry out for help,and you just gotta go through
it. But we didn't we were alittle embarrassed about how we
were feeling until we startedgetting in the word and seeing
how great men of God grieved,great men of God prayed and
(16:46):
cried out to God. David's mightymen wept until they could weep
no more.
Jill LeBlanc (16:52):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:53):
Many instances of Godly men says this at
Stephen's funeral, Godly menmourned greatly for him and he
goes on and on and on. I've gota whole teaching on on this
aspect of great men of God thatwept and cried, David and Jacob
and it goes on and on Isaac andJoseph and his brothers, you
(17:14):
know, Joseph saw his brothersfor the first time and he ran
into the other room and hid sohe could weep, you know, and
then he came back out and heembraced them and wept on their
on their shoulders. And that wasjust a form of grief as well.
Just, you know, they haven'tseen each other in so long.
It was a painful situation. Butyeah, we didn't know that we
(17:35):
would be brought into thisparticular season of our life.
But you know, the Lordsupernaturally has brought us
into this and you know, as aresult, we wrote a book.
Jill LeBlanc (17:48):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (17:49):
Hallelujah. And if you haven't heard us talk
about it yet, it's called WhenLoss Comes Close to Home. And
you know, we have got so manytestimonies of people's lives
that have been helped andtransformed as they've read this
book. I mean, it's it's blown usaway. The emails, the texts that
we receive, people telling us,like you said earlier, nobody
(18:12):
has said this. And you know, Idon't know-
Jill LeBlanc (18:14):
Not in our circles.
Charlie LeBlanc (18:15):
Yeah, God just gave us strength to just tell it
like it is, might wanna say. Tobe honest about our pain, to be
honest about the journey. So wewould encourage you to get that
book. Go to our website. It's onour website.
It's also on Amazon and Barnes& Noble and all the
different platforms. And Ibelieve it'll really it'll
really help you. But he calledus to comfort others And he's
(18:40):
called all of us in whateverwe've been through to try to be
a help to somebody else. And youknow, I remember reading a
scripture in Job that justjumped out of the page to me.
And many of you know the storyof Job, you know, here he was
just lost everything and and allof a sudden his friends see him
(19:01):
and they come and they the Biblesays they they came and they
they sat down, they came toconsole him and to comfort him.
And it said when they saw Jobfrom a distance, they scarcely
recognized him. Wailing loudly,they tore their robes and threw
dust into the air over theirheads to show their grief. So
(19:23):
here are his friends coming,they see how much pain he's in.
And they say, this is crazy.They said, he's in a locked and
we don't even know what to say.We better not say anything. And
sometimes that's the smartestthing.
Jill LeBlanc (19:38):
That's smart. Very smart.
Charlie LeBlanc (19:40):
Rather than say something foolish and unhealthy.
Sometimes it's better-
Jill LeBlanc (19:47):
And damaging.
Charlie LeBlanc (19:48):
Yes. Sometimes it's better just not to say
anything to be a good comforter.And so no one said a word to Job
for they saw that his sufferingwas too great for words, but
then jump over to the end ofJob. And it said, Job said,
Lord, I've only heard of youbefore, but now I have seen you
(20:08):
with my eyes and I take backeverything I said. Job even
said, sit and dust and acid toshow my repentance.
But then he said, after Lord hadfinished speaking to Job, he
said to Eliphaz, the Temanite,he said, I am angry with you and
your two friends, for you havenot spoken accurately about me
(20:28):
as my servant Job has. And thenthis statement that just jumped
out of the page to me in Job 16,Job said, I have heard all of
this before. He's listening tohis friends now trying to tell
him how to get better, how notto grieve, how don't blame God,
(20:50):
you know, maybe there'ssomething wrong that you did,
Job. Maybe there's some hiddensin in your life. That's why it
happened.
You know, all these little weirdthings that we come up with to
try to, you know, to try toexplain why something has
happened in someone's life.That's just a horrible journey.
I don't like being go there. Butbut Job said, I have heard all
(21:12):
this before. And he goes thisstatement, what miserable
comforters you are. Man, what astatement.
Jill LeBlanc (21:22):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (21:22):
What miserable comforters you are.
Jill LeBlanc (21:26):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (21:26):
And that's so true. Unfortunately, most of us
in the church, if we haven't hada loss of this magnitude, we
really don't know how to be agood comforter. And the second
half of our book is all aboutteaching people how to be better
comforters, how to say the rightthings, how to do the right
(21:49):
things, how to how to ministerto someone who has has a broken
heart. There's so many thingsyou should you should say, and
there's so many things youshouldn't say. So I'm going to
close this broadcast with withjust a little story, and then
we're going get into it more onthe next program. But we were
(22:12):
about a year after Beau passed,a friend of ours lost their son.
And and we, I won't go into allthe details, but basically, we
ended up going to their churchthat following Sunday to help
them, to be with them. Theysaid, you come and minister?
Would you come and sing andpreach? And we said, we'll do
anything for you because weunderstood that pain of losing a
(22:33):
son. So we're driving down SouthMissouri to their church and all
of a sudden it dawns on me, Idon't know what to say.
Here I am, I'm grieving stillabout Beau, my heart's still
broken, but I gotta saysomething to help, to help these
guys. And as I'm praying in thespirit again, by the Holy
(22:54):
Spirit, who is the comforter, aswe said earlier in this podcast,
the Holy Spirit dropped into myheart. He said, Charlie, simply
say this, tell the people you dothe loving and I'll do the
fixing. Did you get that? Hesaid, tell the people you do the
(23:15):
loving and I'll do the fixing.
I mean, that just exploded in myheart, that God was encouraging
me to share with the people thatthey needed to be the ones to
love our friends, to comfortthem, to just be loving arms
around them, administer peace tothem, and let God fix them. And
(23:42):
man, that is that'srevolutionary.
Jill LeBlanc (23:46):
It's so loaded because like in our circles, the
people we, you know, associatewith and minister with and, you
know, it's like you want to fixpeople. You don't want people
hurting.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:00):
We're fixers.
Jill LeBlanc (24:01):
Yeah. And so you-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:02):
Someone's unhappy rejoicing. We get you
gotta be happy. You gotta behappy. You gotta rejoice. You
gotta rejoice.
Jill LeBlanc (24:08):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:08):
But what do we forget that scripture? Rejoice
with those who rejoice, but weepwith those who weep.
Jill LeBlanc (24:16):
Right.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:17):
We forget that.
Jill LeBlanc (24:18):
Yeah. So we will continue this some more on our
next episode and we hope-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:25):
We'll just dive right back into this.
Jill LeBlanc (24:27):
Yeah. So, we hope this one today has been helpful
and you have a little bit morejust something more that you can
embrace about the Holy Spiritwho wants to comfort your broken
heart and-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:43):
He can help you to be a comforter as well.
Jill LeBlanc (24:45):
Yeah, that too.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:47):
Okay, so we really love you and we
appreciate you and we want toremind you again of our book to
go to our website and get acopy. You can download it
digitally. And also you can getan audio.
Jill LeBlanc (25:01):
You sure can.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:01):
You and I went in the studio and read this
entire book. And that wasn'teasy.
Jill LeBlanc (25:06):
Yeah. Someone told us though that it's even more
powerful just hearing us readit. I mean someone told us this
and so yeah I guess that's good.So God bless. So yeah, so
subscribe and please give theshow a thumbs up and share it
(25:27):
with someone that you know thatmight need to hear this as well.
And I think there'll be a slidecoming up here soon. We'd love
to stay connected with you on amore close level. So there's
information on how to join ouremail list and you could go to
our website and shop around.They've got a lot of great music
(25:49):
that'll minister to your heartfrom the Word of God. So, until
next time.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:54):
Yeah. Bye bye.
Jill LeBlanc (25:57):
Bye.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:58):
God bless you. Love you.
Hey there. Thanks so much for joining us again
today. We're Charlie and Jilland we have the Finding Hope
podcast, Getting Through WhatYou Never Asked For.
Charlie LeBlanc (00:16):
Right.
Jill LeBlanc (00:17):
And we've all been there at one time or another.
Some of what we never asked forseems you know a little more
dire for some of us than others.But regardless, we're here to
talk about finding hope in thosesituations because we serve the
God of hope and he's awesome andhe loves us so much and he loves
(00:39):
you so much. So we're just gonnahave some discussions about the
Holy Spirit being our comforter.
Charlie LeBlanc (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah, the Bible talks a lot about the Holy
Spirit. You know, the last twosessions we had episodes
actually, we talked about Godbeing the God of all comfort.
Take it from 2 Corinthians 1:3,"Blessed be the God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, thefather of mercies and the God of
(01:10):
all comfort." And so we spenttwo sessions just talking about
God as a comforter, which is sobeautiful and he is and he's
helped us so much.
Jill LeBlanc (01:20):
He's amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (01:21):
Yes. But today we wanted to kind of peek into
the Holy Spirit as thecomforter.
Jill LeBlanc (01:28):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (01:28):
And that's just it's just kind of a little twist
maybe on words, but really,Jesus said this, I'm gonna read
this out of the amplified inJohn 14:15. He said, "If you
really love me, you will keep mycommandments and I will ask the
father and he will give youanother comforter, and that he
(01:50):
may remain with you forever."And, you know, that's amazing
because he goes down here in inverse 16, he goes to say, "I am
telling you nothing but thetruth when I say it is
profitable that I go away."
Jill LeBlanc (02:09):
I'm sure they were like what the heck? What do you
wait a minute. No, you can't go.What do you mean?
Charlie LeBlanc (02:15):
Right. Of course he was like the king, the
coming king and he was like theone that was gonna save them
all. They really thought thiswas this was it. Right. This was
Jesus. He was gonna, you know,do it all there.
Jill LeBlanc (02:26):
My gosh.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:27):
But he knew his mission.
Jill LeBlanc (02:29):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:29):
He knew that he came to die on the cross for our
sins. And and so he knew that hewould be leaving them soon.
Jill LeBlanc (02:38):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (02:40):
And so he said there, he said, it's expedient,
advantageous, good that for youthat I go away. Because if I
don't go away, he said that Icannot send the comforter, which
is really amazing. So when Jesuswas with us, obviously he was
(03:02):
the comforter to all thedisciples. We also know
obviously God is the father isour comforter. But he said, if I
go away, then I will send thecomforter, the Holy Spirit.
And I love the way that theamplified version lays it out.
He says, it says the comforter,then he goes, counselor, helper,
(03:28):
advocate, intercessor,strengthener and standby.
Jill LeBlanc (03:35):
Wow.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:36):
Wow, that's a lot.
Jill LeBlanc (03:37):
It's a mouthful and just to think about each one
of those attributes about whathe is to us, know, like
advocate, someone that goes tocourt needs an advocate or
someone that's having to battlesituations.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:52):
Yeah, thank God he's that to us.
Jill LeBlanc (03:54):
Yes, he is because he fights for us. He's so
amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (03:59):
Yeah. And counselor is a person who gives
advice. I looked up some ofthese and some definitions. He's
a counselor, someone who givesadvice to us when we need it.
He's a helper, one who helps intime of need, an intercessor.
We may talk a little bit moreabout that in a minute, but, you
know, he intercedes for us whenwe do not feel like we know how
(04:20):
to pray, but we don't know whatto do, you know, and of course,
we're here to talk to you abouthelping you in your process of
getting over the the passing ofyour loved one. You know, the
scripture says, he comfortsthose who mourn and he heals
broken hearts. And so that's abig part of our purpose in this
(04:41):
podcast is to help you in thatrealm. But he also intercedes
for us. There are times when wedon't know how to pray.
Jill LeBlanc (04:52):
That's for sure.
Charlie LeBlanc (04:53):
A lot of times.
Jill LeBlanc (04:54):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (04:55):
And especially when your heart is shattered,
when you've just been broken bythe loss of your loved one. I
know Jill for you, you didn'twanna pray.
Jill LeBlanc (05:07):
Are you kidding me?
Charlie LeBlanc (05:08):
You said I'm done. You were upset.
Jill LeBlanc (05:11):
I was I was so crushed.
Charlie LeBlanc (05:14):
Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc (05:15):
And I felt like I've I've put it all out on the
line trusting God and then ourson passed away. And I thought
I'm not praying anymore. Hedoesn't I mean I don't
apparently I don't know how topray and I was trusting him to
pray through us and show us andall this and none of that came
(05:38):
to pass and so it was a longtime before I felt like I could
pray again. And I mean I say along time for me it was a long
time. It was a few weeks.
Charlie LeBlanc (05:52):
You always prayed every day all day.
Jill LeBlanc (05:54):
I mean yeah, I just lived in fellowship with
the Lord, but it was after a fewweeks the Lord began to touch my
heart in special ways just tolet me know that He was still
there. But He wasn't pulling onme. He just wanted me to know
that that he still loved me eventhough I couldn't figure that
(06:15):
part out but nonetheless he hewould send comfort even when I
didn't ask for it.He's just awesome.
Charlie LeBlanc (06:25):
Yeah, I know we both were affected a little bit
different way.
Jill LeBlanc (06:29):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (06:30):
I know that I hate to talk much about this but
I know that at the point thatBeau died at that moment when we
were trying to pray, we werepraying that he would rise from
the dead, that we're trying toraise him from the dead. It was
a traumatic time, people.
You can imagine. Some of youunderstand this very clearly.
(06:51):
But it was just the worst of theworst of the worst of the worst
of the worst of the worst momentof our life.
Jill LeBlanc (06:59):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (07:00):
And we were praying for him to be raised
from the dead and the momentthat I had to make the decision
to just, you know, he's inheaven and we can't bring him
back and we just need to let himgo, let him stay there. That's
when that's when all of the painof the reality of Beau passing
(07:25):
really hit.
Jill LeBlanc (07:27):
Yeah it was really five hours after he stopped
breathing you know after heactually passed away. We prayed
and so, yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (07:36):
We were expecting a miracle. And when I
pulled the plug in a sense andsaid, you know, we just gotta
let him go. The wailing and thetears and the screams, I can
still hear them of our daughtersespecially. They were just
saying, no, no. No, Beau. Youcan't go. You can't. You've
(07:59):
gotta you've gotta come back.No.
You know, it was horrifying. Andbut interestingly, I'm there
holding I'm on the floor withBeau. He's he had been on the
floor for a while and we werejust praying for him. Of course,
tried to give him CPR andeverything at the beginning, but
then we prayed for him for likeJill said five hours. But but at
(08:20):
that moment, I'm still holdinghim and I'm thinking we have a
let him go and I'm thinking whatdo I do now?
And I could hear my daughterscreaming and I looked over to
Jill and she was just stonefaced and angry.
Jill LeBlanc (08:37):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (08:38):
And I get that. I mean I was angry too but I was
like in a moment where I as thefather as the as the man of the
house whatever. I was just alsotrying to figure out what do I
do here?
How do I, how do I fix this? Howdo I at least make it somewhat
(08:58):
better? But I couldn't doanything. I couldn't do anything
but just sit there and hold himand and weep with the rest of
us. But you know, the God is aGod of comfort and he was there
with us.
We didn't feel him. We didn'tsense him at the moment. It was
almost like, where are you Lord?You know, but but he was with us
(09:23):
and this one scripture we saidor this one definition is that
intercessor and I really believethat even in our pain even in
our agony even in our crying andwailing that he was the Holy
Spirit never leaves you. And Iknow that he was crying out to
(09:46):
God inside of us for ourbenefit, to help us, comforting
us, helping us through thispainful experience.
And Romans 8:26 says that, "Thespirit helps us in our weakness
for we do not know what weshould pray for as we ought, but
the spirit himself makesintercession for us with
(10:08):
groanings which cannot beuttered." And that I believe was
probably happening not only inthat moment, but for several
months after, as you and I werejust walking around just
hurting, groaning, not reallyknowing how to pray, not really
knowing what to pray.
Jill LeBlanc (10:29):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (10:30):
I know for me, I think I told you this before
that I seem to be able to prayin the spirit and that was the
only way that I couldcommunicate with God. I couldn't
pray perfectly in English, but Ipray in the spirit and the Lord
would, I believe, heard my cryand heard my prayer and and
(10:53):
heard my groanings and heard myinterceded for me in in that
moment.
Jill LeBlanc (10:59):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (10:59):
And I know for you, similar, even if you
couldn't speak.
Jill LeBlanc (11:05):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (11:05):
I know your heart, the pain of your heart.
That's the beautiful thing aboutthe Holy Spirit, I think is that
He's in us and He understandsour pain. And He's touched as we
said before in Hebrews, He'stouched with the feelings of our
infirmities. He is moved withcompassion for us.
Jill LeBlanc (11:26):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (11:26):
And so I believe He was inside of us by
the power of the Holy Spiritinterceding for us and helping
us and praying through us toFather to help us get through
this painful time. And we haveother friends who have lost
their loved ones and had verysimilar traumatic painful
(11:50):
experiences.
And you know, sometimes Ibelieve just when we're weeping,
when we're crying, when we don'tknow what to say, I believe at
the same time, those aremessages from our heart to God.
And He's hearing them and He isministering to us by the Holy
Spirit and helping us get betterand better in those moments.
Jill LeBlanc (12:15):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (12:16):
So thank God for that. Thank God for the Holy
Spirit as being an intercessor,and like you said, an advocate.
And then we read in theAmplified, a strengthener and
someone to make you strong and astandby. So he's just hanging in
(12:36):
there waiting.
Jill LeBlanc (12:36):
He's always there with us.
Charlie LeBlanc (12:37):
Yeah, waiting to help us in every situation.
So, you know, yeah, it's aninteresting thing just to be
aware that the Holy Spirit is acomforter. And he is the one who
comforts us in every situation.And we can lean on him. We can
(12:59):
talk to him.
Jill LeBlanc (13:01):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:01):
We can say, holy spirit, help me right now.
Jill LeBlanc (13:04):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:04):
I need your help. I'll be honest. Even this
morning, as I took my littlewalk, I was praying, God, you
gotta help me. Holy Spirit, yougotta help me. Because I was
having a difficult morning. Lotsof things were coming against me
in preparation. And we are insuch a busy season right now.
(13:25):
We're getting so many emails, somany texts from so many
different places. We're goingoverseas soon and doing ministry
there. We're forming bands overthere too. And so many details,
flights and, and I was a bitoverwhelmed. And as I took my
walk, I said, Holy Spirit, helpme. You are the helper. I'm
(13:46):
gonna teach on that today. HolySpirit, you are the helper. Help
me right now. And so thank Godhe does.
Jill LeBlanc (13:56):
He does. He's amazing.
Charlie LeBlanc (13:57):
Yeah. So, you know, I remember that that, you
know, not only is the HolySpirit the helper, but guess
what? God has made us to becomforters and helpers as well.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout that today as well that,
(14:18):
you know, we said that God isthe the the God of all comfort.
We said the Holy Spirit is thecomforter.
But there's also a place wherewe become comforters. It says in
in the in 2 Corinthians thatscripture that we read 1:3, it
says, "Who comforts us in all ofour tribulation so that we can
(14:40):
comfort others with the samecomfort that we have received
from the Lord." And of course,that's been your your my mandate
now in this season. And we wereworship leaders, just singing
and write songs and ministry andmusic. And then our son passed
and all of a sudden we're like,Oh God, what do we do now? And
(15:04):
yet we have continued in ourmusic ministry but the whole
time this thing inside of uskept growing to comfort others.
Jill LeBlanc (15:16):
Yeah and it wasn't like we were trying to.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:19):
No.
Jill LeBlanc (15:19):
It's just these situations that would come to us
of another friend that lostsomeone and then another one.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:27):
Yeah.
Jill LeBlanc (15:28):
And we would just share with them things that the
Lord had shown us.
Charlie LeBlanc (15:32):
Right.
Jill LeBlanc (15:32):
And it evolved into and someone would say wow
that's powerful and you knowjust it just evolved into a way
to help more people and you knowbereaved people we would talk to
say no one else is saying this.And we thought well maybe we
(15:53):
need to be the one saying it mayyou know and then the Lord made
it very clear to us that we needto go public if you will.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:02):
Right exactly.
Jill LeBlanc (16:03):
You know...
Charlie LeBlanc (16:03):
Exactly it's kind of an interesting pathway
for us because you know thismessage of of grieving and
mourning and you know sufferingin your grief and your pain that
we went through. We had nochoice. We had to go through it.
Jill LeBlanc (16:22):
Mhmm.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:23):
It's it's something that you you just have
no choice when you your heart isbroken. You've got to just
you've got to go through it.You've got to pray. You've got
to you gotta cry out for help,and you just gotta go through
it. But we didn't we were alittle embarrassed about how we
were feeling until we startedgetting in the word and seeing
how great men of God grieved,great men of God prayed and
(16:46):
cried out to God. David's mightymen wept until they could weep
no more.
Jill LeBlanc (16:52):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (16:53):
Many instances of Godly men says this at
Stephen's funeral, Godly menmourned greatly for him and he
goes on and on and on. I've gota whole teaching on on this
aspect of great men of God thatwept and cried, David and Jacob
and it goes on and on Isaac andJoseph and his brothers, you
(17:14):
know, Joseph saw his brothersfor the first time and he ran
into the other room and hid sohe could weep, you know, and
then he came back out and heembraced them and wept on their
on their shoulders. And that wasjust a form of grief as well.
Just, you know, they haven'tseen each other in so long.
It was a painful situation. Butyeah, we didn't know that we
(17:35):
would be brought into thisparticular season of our life.
But you know, the Lordsupernaturally has brought us
into this and you know, as aresult, we wrote a book.
Jill LeBlanc (17:48):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (17:49):
Hallelujah. And if you haven't heard us talk
about it yet, it's called WhenLoss Comes Close to Home. And
you know, we have got so manytestimonies of people's lives
that have been helped andtransformed as they've read this
book. I mean, it's it's blown usaway. The emails, the texts that
we receive, people telling us,like you said earlier, nobody
(18:12):
has said this. And you know, Idon't know-
Jill LeBlanc (18:14):
Not in our circles.
Charlie LeBlanc (18:15):
Yeah, God just gave us strength to just tell it
like it is, might wanna say. Tobe honest about our pain, to be
honest about the journey. So wewould encourage you to get that
book. Go to our website. It's onour website.
It's also on Amazon and Barnes& Noble and all the
different platforms. And Ibelieve it'll really it'll
really help you. But he calledus to comfort others And he's
(18:40):
called all of us in whateverwe've been through to try to be
a help to somebody else. And youknow, I remember reading a
scripture in Job that justjumped out of the page to me.
And many of you know the storyof Job, you know, here he was
just lost everything and and allof a sudden his friends see him
(19:01):
and they come and they the Biblesays they they came and they
they sat down, they came toconsole him and to comfort him.
And it said when they saw Jobfrom a distance, they scarcely
recognized him. Wailing loudly,they tore their robes and threw
dust into the air over theirheads to show their grief. So
(19:23):
here are his friends coming,they see how much pain he's in.
And they say, this is crazy.They said, he's in a locked and
we don't even know what to say.We better not say anything. And
sometimes that's the smartestthing.
Jill LeBlanc (19:38):
That's smart. Very smart.
Charlie LeBlanc (19:40):
Rather than say something foolish and unhealthy.
Sometimes it's better-
Jill LeBlanc (19:47):
And damaging.
Charlie LeBlanc (19:48):
Yes. Sometimes it's better just not to say
anything to be a good comforter.And so no one said a word to Job
for they saw that his sufferingwas too great for words, but
then jump over to the end ofJob. And it said, Job said,
Lord, I've only heard of youbefore, but now I have seen you
(20:08):
with my eyes and I take backeverything I said. Job even
said, sit and dust and acid toshow my repentance.
But then he said, after Lord hadfinished speaking to Job, he
said to Eliphaz, the Temanite,he said, I am angry with you and
your two friends, for you havenot spoken accurately about me
(20:28):
as my servant Job has. And thenthis statement that just jumped
out of the page to me in Job 16,Job said, I have heard all of
this before. He's listening tohis friends now trying to tell
him how to get better, how notto grieve, how don't blame God,
(20:50):
you know, maybe there'ssomething wrong that you did,
Job. Maybe there's some hiddensin in your life. That's why it
happened.
You know, all these little weirdthings that we come up with to
try to, you know, to try toexplain why something has
happened in someone's life.That's just a horrible journey.
I don't like being go there. Butbut Job said, I have heard all
(21:12):
this before. And he goes thisstatement, what miserable
comforters you are. Man, what astatement.
Jill LeBlanc (21:22):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (21:22):
What miserable comforters you are.
Jill LeBlanc (21:26):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (21:26):
And that's so true. Unfortunately, most of us
in the church, if we haven't hada loss of this magnitude, we
really don't know how to be agood comforter. And the second
half of our book is all aboutteaching people how to be better
comforters, how to say the rightthings, how to do the right
(21:49):
things, how to how to ministerto someone who has has a broken
heart. There's so many thingsyou should you should say, and
there's so many things youshouldn't say. So I'm going to
close this broadcast with withjust a little story, and then
we're going get into it more onthe next program. But we were
(22:12):
about a year after Beau passed,a friend of ours lost their son.
And and we, I won't go into allthe details, but basically, we
ended up going to their churchthat following Sunday to help
them, to be with them. Theysaid, you come and minister?
Would you come and sing andpreach? And we said, we'll do
anything for you because weunderstood that pain of losing a
(22:33):
son. So we're driving down SouthMissouri to their church and all
of a sudden it dawns on me, Idon't know what to say.
Here I am, I'm grieving stillabout Beau, my heart's still
broken, but I gotta saysomething to help, to help these
guys. And as I'm praying in thespirit again, by the Holy
(22:54):
Spirit, who is the comforter, aswe said earlier in this podcast,
the Holy Spirit dropped into myheart. He said, Charlie, simply
say this, tell the people you dothe loving and I'll do the
fixing. Did you get that? Hesaid, tell the people you do the
(23:15):
loving and I'll do the fixing.
I mean, that just exploded in myheart, that God was encouraging
me to share with the people thatthey needed to be the ones to
love our friends, to comfortthem, to just be loving arms
around them, administer peace tothem, and let God fix them. And
(23:42):
man, that is that'srevolutionary.
Jill LeBlanc (23:46):
It's so loaded because like in our circles, the
people we, you know, associatewith and minister with and, you
know, it's like you want to fixpeople. You don't want people
hurting.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:00):
We're fixers.
Jill LeBlanc (24:01):
Yeah. And so you-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:02):
Someone's unhappy rejoicing. We get you
gotta be happy. You gotta behappy. You gotta rejoice. You
gotta rejoice.
Jill LeBlanc (24:08):
Yeah.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:08):
But what do we forget that scripture? Rejoice
with those who rejoice, but weepwith those who weep.
Jill LeBlanc (24:16):
Right.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:17):
We forget that.
Jill LeBlanc (24:18):
Yeah. So we will continue this some more on our
next episode and we hope-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:25):
We'll just dive right back into this.
Jill LeBlanc (24:27):
Yeah. So, we hope this one today has been helpful
and you have a little bit morejust something more that you can
embrace about the Holy Spiritwho wants to comfort your broken
heart and-
Charlie LeBlanc (24:43):
He can help you to be a comforter as well.
Jill LeBlanc (24:45):
Yeah, that too.
Charlie LeBlanc (24:47):
Okay, so we really love you and we
appreciate you and we want toremind you again of our book to
go to our website and get acopy. You can download it
digitally. And also you can getan audio.
Jill LeBlanc (25:01):
You sure can.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:01):
You and I went in the studio and read this
entire book. And that wasn'teasy.
Jill LeBlanc (25:06):
Yeah. Someone told us though that it's even more
powerful just hearing us readit. I mean someone told us this
and so yeah I guess that's good.So God bless. So yeah, so
subscribe and please give theshow a thumbs up and share it
(25:27):
with someone that you know thatmight need to hear this as well.
And I think there'll be a slidecoming up here soon. We'd love
to stay connected with you on amore close level. So there's
information on how to join ouremail list and you could go to
our website and shop around.They've got a lot of great music
(25:49):
that'll minister to your heartfrom the Word of God. So, until
next time.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:54):
Yeah. Bye bye.
Jill LeBlanc (25:57):
Bye.
Charlie LeBlanc (25:58):
God bless you. Love you.
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