Tending Broken Hearts
An Interview with Ashley Cochrane, Founder of Crowned for Ashes
The Call and the Mission
Tell us about your ministry's name? What does Crowned for Ashes mean?
Crowned for Ashes comes from the verse Isaiah 61:3
“To all who grieve, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”
It’s just a reminder that He is making something beautiful from the ashes, that even when we would have written the story differently, he is still working the details together for our good and giving us treasures in the darkness. He’s a good Father.
You say the heart behind your missions is "We're all just walking each other home." Can you share more about this idea and how it's your work's compass?
That was a quote that Chris [my husband] and I really loved and used throughout his recovery journey to describe the way we just wanted to reach back and help the next person along. Like, hey friend, we’re no authority, but we’ve been where you’ve been and we made it to this day, you will too. That was really the founding heartbeat of this whole mission and it still is, even as we expanded it to include young widows. We get a short time here on this earth and the Lord calls us to go and make disciples. We wouldn’t have made it without Him.
In fact, Chris credited his strokes to his faith. He came to know the Lord personally as a result of his affliction and he gave thanks that his earthly struggles lead to his eternal salvation. He knew where he was going, and that has given me so much peace in his passing.
Our goal is just to reflect Jesus to people and link arms with them on their difficult journeys.
Places of Restoration
Your ultimate dream is to build a place uniquely dedicated for retreat, respite, and recreation. Why is it so important for you to create a separate place for this?
We have 2 really important reasons for that:
The population we’re serving has some really specific needs. We serve wounded, ill and injured veterans; we dream of bringing them in with their spouses for weekend retreats for rest, connection with couples like them, and adaptive recreation. So in addition to being ADA compatible, we’re really trying to build a home-away-from-home, ADA friendly space that feels safe and feels designed for their specific needs whether that be wheelchair friendly spaces or spaces that are environmentally friendly for PTSD.
The second thing which we feel is really powerful is legacy. Our goal is creating a community, a sisterhood, a brotherhood of people walking a similar path that they can link arms with. This house is going to be a place where that legacy gets carried forth with each new group of people who come through. We want them to feel pampered and well loved, like we’ve thought of everything from the moment they walked in the door. So in building our own space, we can really curate that special environment.
Tell us about the 2 years you were prayed for land? Why so long? What were you waiting for? What made it the right time? Were you frustrated? Did you ever lose trust? What did your prayer look like?
Honestly, I was terrified. I didn’t want to jump the gun. Chris and I were adjusting to a new normal... he had just been medically retired, we were trying to figure out what work would look like for me in conjunction with being his caregiver, what our finances would look like, things like that. It was a long process of prayer and just waiting until we felt like the Lord was ready for us to move. Chris knew before I did. I needed a lot of convincing to pull the trigger. We prayed circles around that land, and it’s truly a sacred space. The circumstances surrounding us getting that land could fill a book, but it was just so cool to see God’s plan for it come together and continue to watch the pieces unfolding.
The Power of Gathering
The first Crowned Widows Retreat was held in March 2020.
Can you speak to the difference between walking through painful and desolate times in isolation vs. in community? What have you found to be tangible fruits of community? What does community mean or look like in your ministry?
I think back to the foundation of this organization to begin with, you know, this idea came about based on mine and Chris’s journey after his strokes in 2013. We felt so alone. There were just no other young couples walking through what we were walking through and that’s just the most isolating feeling. So much so that Chris later referred to it as the “period of darkness”. A couple years into that journey that all changed when we became involved with adaptive sports through several different organizations, and we started meeting other couples like us. We knew how much our marriage was struggling and we just wanted to link arms with them and support them and be able to lean on them as well and that changed the game for us. We wanted to create a safe space to share and heal and just love each other through and in spite of the hard stuff.
And most recently I think about the early days after losing Chris when my heart was just splitting open, and I just thought there is no one else in the whole world who could possible understand how I’m feeling. Like WHO is widowed at 31 years old?! And then a few days in, I was connected with a couple of other young widows, and a few more as time went on, and those women just became lifelines for me. People I could say the things that made me feel crazy, I could text to ask scary and ridiculous questions, that I couldn’t even say to the closest people in my life. It made me feel less alone. There’s just this unconditional understanding that comes along with a life interrupted. When you can say yeah, me too.
Leaning into Loss and Love
You are living a new normal. Can you share with us what healing and restoration look like in this season for you personally?
I’ll be honest, there were days in the beginning right after losing Chris when I just really didn’t think I’d ever be okay again. I can remember waking up and thinking “oh my gosh, I’m a WIDOW. How is this even real life.” It’s just so unnatural to be widowed at 31, and I’d never watched anyone else do it, it was so foreign. I felt on display. And I also realized I felt completely lost, with no idea who I was anymore without Chris. I was a caregiver to him for 5 years and before that I was honored to be a military wife and losing all of that, I was just completely lost.
He’s teaching me so much about my identity in this season. And that my desert season isn’t meant to be a fruitless season of wandering, looking for myself. My identity is in Him, who calls me by name.
The waiting shouldn’t be idle, it should be a time where I’m just chasing after Him with everything in me.
The Lord has been so sweet in this season to hold my hand and remind me that I’m his bride. He truly has been so faithful to reveal to me the treasures in this darkness.
I would change the narrative if I could, I’d go back in time, I’d give anything to have Chris back here on this side of Heaven with me, but I’ve also never been closer to the Creator, and I wouldn’t want to give back what I’ve learned and that nearness I’ve felt to Him in these last 2 years.
Has anything surprised you in your story and the journey you have walked?
I think I’m continually surprised by this journey.
I’ll say seriously, I wrongly believed that because we had walked through so much with Chris’s strokes and subsequent recovery, and then later, the fall and spending another 6 months in the hospital, I almost thought like “God wouldn’t allow anything to happen to him, he’s come through so much. He wouldn’t save him just to let him die.”
And that’s just not the way that this broken world works.
I don’t believe that God causes bad things to happen, I don’t think He’s ever bad, that goes against His word and against the character of the God I know, but I do believe that sometimes we can’t see the bigger picture, and what I know is that He will always be right there beside us when those bad things do happen.
For more information
@crownedforashes on Instagram.
Support their mission by participating in their Cinco de Mayo Tour de Taco Family Fun Run Fundraiser