Graduation Speech: God Bless Liberty University

Thank you so much, President Falwell. God bless Liberty University. I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Christian university in the world. Today I want to talk with you about the promise of America. Imagine your parents and their children, imagine a little girl, growing up in Wilmington, Delaware, during World War Two, the daughter of Irish and Italian Catholic family, working class, her uncle ran numbers in Wilmington, she grew up with dozen of cousins because her mom was the second youngest of 17 kids, she had a difficult father, a man who drank far too much, and frankly didn’t think women should be educated, and yet this young girl, pretty and shy, was driven, was bright, was inquisitive, and she became the first person in her family to go

Jet black hair, skinny as a rail. Involved in student council and yet Cuba was not at a peaceful time. The dictator, Batista, was corrupt. He was oppressive. And this teenage boy joins a revolution. He joins a revolution against Batista. He begins fighting, with other teenagers, to free Cuba from the dictator. This boy at age 17 finds himself thrown in prison, finds himself tortured, beaten, and then at age 18, he flees Cuba. He comes to America. Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he rode that ferry boat across to key west and got on a greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas to begin working washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour. Coming to the one land on earth that has welcomed so many millions. When my dad came to America, in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him. Imagine a young married couple, living together in the 1970s, neither one of them has a personal relationship with Jesus. They have a little boy, and they're both drinking far too much. They're living a fast life. When I was three my father decided to leave my mother and me. We were living in Calgary at the time he got on a plane and flew back to Texas. He decided he didn't want to be married anymore and he