God allows us to experience hardship and pain and suffering in order to teach us that our life here on earth is a journey, it is a great adventure on the road to Heaven. It is not the destination.
Saint Lazarus the Painter, and the Artist in Heaven
Saint Lazarus Zographos (the painter) believed that we do not live for the here and now, we live for the future. We are not content with what is, but struggle to achieve what should be and what will be. As pilgrims on this earth we look to the future. The earth is not heaven, it is the path to heaven.
