Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive

by Russ Ramsey

So much beauty is born out of suffering. We make some sense of brokenness and pain by looking at the beauty they produce.

All art comes from somewhere. It comes from someone who is in the process of living the one life they’ve been given.

There are artists I will discover next year I’m unaware of now—artists who will teach me things I don’t yet know, inspire me with the joy of discovering new beauty, challenge me to reconsider areas in my own mind and heart where I am nearsighted or wrong and don’t yet know it, show me more of the goodness of Christ, and connect me to other people who share an appreciation for the same beauties that stir me. I love knowing all of this is coming if I will just keep looking. I invite you to do the same.

wonderful and terrible things happen in this world, remember also that beauty is everywhere.

Affliction shapes us. It comes for us all—in our own personal distress or in the sufferings of those we love. It has come for me before, and I know it will come again. The least we can do is pay attention. I want to learn to see the world in new ways through it. I do not wish to waste my pain.