Viral Photo Of Single Mum Of 5 With Law School Graduation

An interesting story of a lady who had a dream. 

Ieshia Champs has wanted to be a lawyer since she was 7 years old. In her teenage years, however, the odds began stacking up against her and it appeared that her dream might be permanently out of reach.

"I really didn't have any stable guidance at that time. My mom was addicted to drugs. My dad was deceased. And I was homeless," Champs told CBS News. "I lived with friends or whoever would take me in. Then I got pregnant with the first of my five children, and things just went from there."

Ieshia dropped out of high school and got a job at a call center to support her growing family. Then, in 2009, when Ieshia was pregnant with her fourth child, she suffered a crushing barrage of losses. She lost her home to a fire. She lost her job. She lost her children's father to cancer. And then, she says, she lost her sanity.

In the depths of despair, Iesha tells CBS News she tried to commit suicide. Shortly afterward, she received a fateful phone call from her pastor.

"Pastor Louise Holman called me one day and said that God told her to tell me to go back to school and get my GED, because that lawyer I wanted to be, I'll be it!" Champs recalled. "I thought it was a little crazy because I was too old and I had three children with my fourth child on the way."

But if God had willed it, this woman of faith figured she should probably listen. Ieshia dutifully enrolled back in school and got her GED. Then she went on to Houston Community College, and to the University of Houston-Downtown after that.

Now she's set to graduate from Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law in May. And to the joy of people across the social media world, she commissioned a set of photos to commemorate the occasion.