reconciling redemptive suffering and heaven

Not to be disrespectful or critical, but how can Christianity contain both 1) the viewpoint that intense suffering can be purposeful and cleansing and 2) the viewpoint that heaven has no suffering? I'll restate it in a different manner. If there are two hypothetical Christians of sturdy faith, the first of which is targeted by extended woe and pain (e.g., debilitating chronic disease) and the second of which dies at the age of thirty after a fairly smooth life, how is this set of outcomes fair?

Both Christians go to heaven, and once there experience no more suffering evermore. Thus, their faith is equally valid "in the end" (indeed, it's only by mercy that either of them are justified). Why should the first "suffer for redemption" before being with the Savior, but not the second?

I'm not questioning the spiritual value of suffering, particularly when it's temporary. What I'm questioning is the manifest inequality of the distribution of suffering. If it's purifying and necessary (a point that I'm not sure I concede), then why do some Christians receive so much more "purification" than others, only for all of them to inherit heaven? Moreover, what of the cases of the most devoted followers enduring afflictions as their less zealous brothers backslide without visible consequences?

God the ever-present

It may be a trifling thing, but as worshipers who claim that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, does it make sense for Christians to speak of God "being present here", as if that's worthy of comment? Let's be humbly honest on this. We can't invoke God. God is everywhere, and God does what is perfect. In fact, God inhabits and accepts us solely through God reaching out to us first to enable reconciliation.

God didn't vanish when the temple was destroyed.