When Nick Vujicic was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1982, the doctors had no explanation. No arms. No legs. No medical reason. His mother Dushka refused to hold him for the first four months. His father Boris, a Serbian immigrant pastor, questioned everything he believed about God.
The First Days
The hospital was silent after Nick was born. No congratulations. No celebration. Dushka later described the overwhelming grief — not just for what her son lacked, but for the life she'd imagined for him that would never exist.
Boris and Dushka considered giving Nick up. They thought perhaps a family better equipped could care for him. It was an honest, devastating conversation that many parents in extraordinary circumstances face.
They chose to keep him. And they chose to raise him in faith — not denial of his reality, but faith that God had a purpose even in something they couldn't understand.
Growing Up Vujicic
It wasn't easy. Nick was bullied relentlessly. He attempted suicide at age ten. Boris and Dushka didn't shield him from the pain — they walked through it with him, pointing to a God who was present in suffering, not absent from it.
Boris wrote about their journey in *Raising the Perfectly Imperfect Child*, documenting the daily choices that went into parenting a child the world didn't know how to categorise.
What Nick Became
Nick Vujicic is now a global speaker who has addressed millions of people across 78 countries. He's married. He has four children. He surfs, swims, and skydives. He's one of the most recognisable voices in the world on the subject of hope.
None of that was inevitable. It was the fruit of two parents who chose faith over despair in the most disorienting circumstances imaginable.
What This Means for You
Boris and Dushka didn't have a roadmap. There was no parenting guide for their situation. They had God, each other, and a decision to believe their son's life had meaning. Sometimes that's all you need. Faith doesn't require understanding — it requires showing up.