He's most famous for his painting "The Scream," his portrayal of, as his biographer Sue Prideaux puts it, "the loss of meaning inflicted by the death of God."  But the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch had some insightful things to say about suffering.  

    "I must retain my physical weaknesses; they are an integral part of me.  I don't want to get rid of illness, however unsympathetically I may depict it in my art . . . My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness.  Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder.  My art is grounded in reflections over being different to others.  My sufferings are part of my self and my art.  They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.  I want to keep those sufferings."

    And, "What is art, really?  The outcome of dissatisfaction with life, the point of impact for the creative force, the continual movement of life . . . in my area I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself."

    However tragic we may consider "The Scream" to be, we can certainly thank Munch for his erudite perception of the importance of malaise and hardship in the formation of a wise human being.

    God is working even when we may not believe he's there.