GOOD NEWS: Single mom of five who went viral in law school graduation photo passes the bar
Remember the single mom of five who posed proudly with her children in a picture that went viral after graduating from law school?
Well Ieshia Champs is a true champion and announced on Facebook that she passed her bar exam and is one step closer to becoming a judge.
“Don’t let your current situation determine your future circumstances,” Champs said. “I honestly believe people can make their struggles into their success story. … If God can do it for me, he can do it for someone else.”
The Houston, TX resident says she bounced around from home to home in the foster care system in her youth partly because of her mother’s drug addiction. One of her sisters had a baby at 14 years old and Champs herself dropped out of school in the 10th grade. She met the future father of her children around that time. They had their first child when she was 19.
Her life reportedly changed when she was pregnant with her fourth child and her sister convinced her to attend a church in Houston. It was there that she met Louise Holman, a prophetess who told Champs that God wanted her to go back to school for her GED, so that she could fulfill her dream of becoming a lawyer.
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Champs felt buoyed by Holman’s encouragement, but soon after, her faith was tested. “During that same year — it was 2009 — I ended up having a house fire, I lost everything that I had. I got laid off from my job, the father to two of my children died of cancer while I was seven months pregnant, I literally tried to kill myself, and I ended up going back to get my GED,” shared Champs in a previous Yahoo interview.
From there, Champs earned an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, and this May, she will be graduating from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University. She credits her children, who range in age from 5 to 14, with doing their part to make sure she made it to the finish line.
What a great example she is to her babies.
