{"id":365384,"date":"2026-06-18T07:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T07:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365384\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T07:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T07:06:35","slug":"from-la-miracle-baby-to-catholic-high-school-grad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365384\/","title":{"rendered":"From LA \u2018Miracle\u2019 baby to Catholic high school grad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first miracle of Miracle Tisdale\u2019s life took place before she was even born.<\/p>\n

The day was May 27, 2007. Her father and pregnant mother, Rose, were bringing groceries for a Memorial Day barbecue into their home in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts.<\/p>\n

A gunman drove by and opened fire. Running from the hail of bullets, Rose reached for the door of the house, where her two children were inside. Four bullets hit her: one in the spine, another in the jaw, and two in her left arm.<\/p>\n

When Rose was rushed to the hospital, the doctors didn\u2019t know that their patient was three months pregnant. In fact, not even her family knew.<\/p>\n

The bullet to the spine would leave Rose paralyzed from the waist down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember that the doctor came in and told me that I would never walk again,\u201d said Rose. \u201cI thought my life would be over because no one ever knew that I was actually three months pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the surgery to repair her shattered jaw, the doctor told her the child inside her had a 50% chance of surviving. When she awoke, Rose received the news: there was a heartbeat.<\/p>\n

\"\"A veteran of traveling cheer teams, Miracle became a standout member of Mary Star of the Sea\u2019s squad. (Rose Smith)<\/p>\n

Six months later, there was no question about what to name the baby girl.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was obvious, self-explanatory,\u201d said Rose. \u201cBoth of us are miracles. And God has seen us through, because she has no ailment, no disability, no ailment, nothing wrong with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost 19 years later to the day after the shooting, a smiling young woman named Miracle was called to the stage at Mary Star of the Sea High School\u2019s graduation ceremony. A four-year Principal\u2019s Honor Roll scholar and a star cheerleader, it\u2019s safe to say Miracle hadn\u2019t just survived. She triumphed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took this and made something better out of it,\u201d said Miracle in an interview before her graduation. \u201cYou can\u2019t let one thing stop you. Keep going, never give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miracle\u2019s unlikely path to Mary Star of the Sea began with an officer who\u2019d responded that day of the shooting and stayed in touch with Rose and her family over the years. He introduced them to Operation Progress, a partnership with the LAPD that offers mentoring and scholarships to inner-city youth. Thanks to her strong grades, Miracle was selected for the program in the eighth grade.<\/p>\n

Starting freshman year, every morning at 7 a.m., Rose would drive Miracle from their home in the Westmont area of South LA to the offices of Strive, an organization that partners with Operation Progress to transport scholarship students from Watts to their high schools. From there, two vans would take Miracle and a handful of others to Mary Star of the Sea, a small Catholic high school in a leafy corner of San Pedro.<\/p>\n

The transition from South LA public school to a private school in the South Bay wasn\u2019t easy at first. A talented cheerleader who had competed with travel teams, Miracle was starting from zero.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she got here, she was intimidated,\u201d recalled Rick Ibarra, a longtime sports coach and librarian at Mary Star \u2014 and one of Miracle\u2019s bus drivers. \u201cShe was always one of the quieter ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides not knowing anyone, the academic level was higher than anything Miracle was used to. Principal Rita Dever remembered her being overwhelmed at first. But her determination quickly paid off. By the time Miracle received the Principal\u2019s Honor Roll for the first time, something had changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be awarded that with all the top students in front of her class, I think she started to feel like, \u2018I am really fitting in, I\u2019m at the top of my class,\u2019 \u201d said Dever.<\/p>\n

A few years into high school, Miracle was persuaded to join Mary Star\u2019s cheerleading squad, bringing veteran experience to a school not known as an athletic powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s done everything she can to put herself in a position for success, with her work ethic and with her study habits,\u201d said Ibarra.<\/p>\n

\"\"Miracle speaks at an April 2026 fundraiser for the Silver Lining of Hope Crusade, a local faith-based community organization that advocates against violence and crime. (Rose Smith)<\/p>\n

In middle school, Miracle had struggled through long stretches of isolation and remote learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. At Mary Star, she found motivation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the people in my corner, my supporters, I didn\u2019t want to let them down,\u201d Miracle told Angelus. \u201cI don\u2019t want to let myself down, and I just know how I want my future to look.\u201d<\/p>\n

That future included a career in nursing. Miracle had always been a fan of nursing TV shows, and comes from a family of nurses, including her grandmother and two aunts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, few people on campus knew her story. Even as she became friends with Ibarra riding shotgun in the Strive van, the conversations were more often about Miracle\u2019s cheerleading competitions.<\/p>\n

Ibarra had no idea until one day he saw Rose \u2014 who drives with the help of a specially modified car \u2014 dropping off her daughter. He asked Miracle about her handicap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she told me her story, I was in amazement,\u201d said Ibarra. \u201cI could have never guessed. She always had it together, she had goals, she had plans, she was organized, she seemed like she always got her stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised Baptist, Miracle has also come to appreciate the school\u2019s Catholic faith life, with its daily prayer schedule, religion classes, and retreats. She credits her relationship with God with helping her get through a particularly stressful period brought on by a demanding level of classwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to God a lot, I had plenty of conversations, I prayed, I cried,\u201d said Miracle. \u201cGod was always in my life, He\u2019s always been there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she watched her daughter take the graduation stage last month, Rose\u2019s mind raced through the miracles of the last 19 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment let me know that God is real, and he will see us through,\u201d said Rose, who still suffers from bouts of pain and illness related to the shooting.<\/p>\n

\"\"Miracle and her mother, Rose, at Mary Star of the Sea High School\u2019s May 29 graduation ceremony. (Rose Smith)<\/p>\n

Now that Miracle has graduated with a 4.3 GPA, she has her sights on a nursing career. This fall, she\u2019ll attend Cal State Fullerton before possibly transferring to a larger university. Hers is another success story attributed to programs like Strive, created to give students like Miracle a sense of community, a safer high school experience, and a shot at a better future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this school was great for Miracle, and I think Miracle was great for our school,\u201d said Ibarra.<\/p>\n

Among those who graduated with Miracle at Mary Star last month was a fellow Strive student who lost a parent to a gang-related murder. Their tuition is covered by a combination of scholarships from Mary Star, Strive, and the Catholic Education Foundation (CEF), which provides millions of dollars in scholarships for students in more than 200 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of LA.<\/p>\n

Dever believes that partnerships with organizations like Strive \u2014 and stories like Miracle\u2019s \u2014 reflect the deeper mission of Catholic education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s what we\u2019re called to do; it ties in beautifully,\u201d said Dever. \u201cWe\u2019re giving opportunity to kids who want a Catholic education. Miracle is not Catholic, but she has very strong faith and a very deep love for God, and that\u2019s been nurtured here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, Rose and Miracle have teamed to visit different churches and community events to tell their story and advocate against gun violence. Rose admits that her youngest daughter going off to college will not be easy for her, but trusts that God will keep her safe and guide her decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe took a major step out on faith, going to a Catholic school away from her friends, where she didn\u2019t know anyone,\u201d said Rose. \u201cWhen I saw that she completed that, it just goes to show she\u2019s determined, she has perseverance, she\u2019s resilient, and she\u2019s gonna keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"author<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPablo Kay is the Editor-in-Chief of Angelus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first miracle of Miracle Tisdale\u2019s life took place before she was even born. The day was May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-365384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}