Charles Cochran '25 Chapel Talk: Finding Faith Through Loss

Charles Cochran '25 Chapel Talk: Finding Faith Through Loss

Charles Cochran '25 is a boarding student from Fayetteville, Georgia. He lives in the Ingham dorm and participates in Varsity Football, Lacrosse, and JV Basketball. Charles also founded a bible study group on campus, which has grown threefold from last year.

Charles recently shared a poignant Chapel Talk with our community about his faith journey, spurred on by a tragic loss. Please enjoy Charles' recent Chapel Talk, or you can listen here.

Photo courtesy of Jenny Hwang '27


If you have ever spent a lot of time around me, you are well aware of my beliefs. I make my faith clear and never shy away from it or the opportunity to talk about it. But I wasn’t always like this. I grew up in a Catholic household and attended Mass every Sunday as a child. I did my best to pay attention despite always being the first picked up from every sleepover. 

However, as I reached adolescence, I started to drift away from my faith. I only attended church when it was convenient or when I happened to be with friends who regularly attended. Even when I was there, I wasn’t really present. My mind was never focused, and I was always counting down the minutes until I got to leave. I never prayed outside of church, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I opened my bible. I had completely lost touch with my faith and what was most important to me. 

As I reached adolescence, I started to drift away from my faith. I only attended church when it was convenient...I had completely lost touch with my faith and what was most important to me. 

Every year, my church hosted a camp that lasted from Friday through Sunday. My friends urged me to go; they were convinced I would have a great time. One of those friends was Russell. Russell was a close friend of mine. We played football together and took many of the same classes. We hung out together most weekends. He always attended church and had one of the strongest faiths I knew. Despite my lack of eagerness, I agreed to go. I trusted my friends, and they started to get me excited for the camp. 

Little did I know that Russell would have a far greater impact on my life than just inviting me to this camp. I knew I wanted to give a Chapel Talk, but struggled at first to nail down one topic. However, after sharing his story with Jack Coutour '26 and Brodie Donovan '26 during an Ingham bible study, it inspired me to stand up here and talk about it.

A little over three years ago, I experienced something tragic that would change my life forever. It was February 10, 2022, and only a couple of weeks after I attended church camp. My old high school lacrosse team and I had just won our home opener. The weather was starting to warm up, and school was always easiest in the spring. Life was good. However, that night my life would take an unexpected turn. Our game had drawn a big crowd, and one of those people was my friend Russell. He lived within walking distance of the school, so he would walk back and forth from the stadium. As he was walking home from a neighbor's house some time after 11:00 p.m., he noticed a car swerving in the distance. Alert, he walked cautiously. Keeping a constant eye on the car. The driver of the car had been drinking and was highly under the influence. 

The car continued to move closer and started to make more sudden movements. Russell could see his open garage and had to have been less than a football field away from his house before the car hit him. He was immediately rushed to the hospital and passed away later that night. 

Unaware of this, I woke up the next morning and went about my routine as if life were normal, yet I had no idea the news that awaited me. I headed downstairs to eat breakfast before leaving for school. As I was sitting at my kitchen table with my younger brother, my mother walked over to me with a mournful look on her face. Confused, I sat up in my seat and asked, “What's wrong?” She looked at me and uttered, “Russell passed away last night.” Those five words pierced my heart, and I froze in place. She continued to talk, but my thoughts blocked out the words. 

All I could think about was how, why him, why right now? I had never experienced losing someone so close, and it didn’t feel real. I ended up going to school, but I didn't stay there more than an hour before I was back at home. He was in my first-period class, and you could just feel the emptiness in the room. It was evident that no one would be able to focus, and it was best that we be at home. 

Next thing I knew, all of my friends and I were together in my basement, trying to do anything to take our minds off what had happened. We were eager, yet scared to know all the details. A couple of days later, we all attended his funeral. It wasn’t until his funeral that his death felt real and started to set in. 

It took some time for me to get over his death and accept the fact that I wouldn’t see him again. I was in the middle of lacrosse season and tried to use that as a way to block out the pain. However, lacrosse wasn’t enough and didn’t quite help me move past his death. 

Despite the progress I made at camp with getting back into my faith, something still wasn’t clicking. Then Russell's death happened, and it was almost like a complete reset. At first, I was angry at the Lord. I wasn't familiar with this type of pain, and I questioned if my faith was really for me. I didn’t understand why God would do this to my friends and me. And why would something like this happen to someone like Russell? 

I persisted and tried to take away as much as I could each time I attended church. Those first couple of Sundays back at church, I saw how the community came together. Everyone looked out for each other, and I knew I needed that sort of community in my life. Then I realized that Russell's death happened for a reason. In the same way, everything happens for the Lord’s reasons. Russell's death was a test of my newly found faith. I had built a foundation after camp, and the Lord was testing it. He wanted to see if I would trust him and continue my faith or give up. Because of Russell, I began attending church every Sunday. I not only went, but I started to pay attention. I started a new routine with praying, and I read my bible almost nightly. My faith started to come back, and in it, I found so much joy in a rough patch of my life. 

I realized with the Lord by my side that nothing was too difficult to get past. If it weren’t for Russell, I wouldn’t be up here talking about my story in front of all of you guys. I wouldn’t be running the Govs Bible Study, sharing my faith, and helping others build theirs. My faith is as strong as ever, and my why. As I look back on that time in my life, I am extremely grateful for the tribulation that I went through. It put my life on a new track, one that I didn’t know I needed at the time. I hope to one day have half the impact on someone else’s life as Russell did on mine. 

My faith started to come back, and in it, I found so much joy in a rough patch of my life.