Comfort Through Affliction
By Anthony Casperson
2-21-26

About a month ago, the eighteenth book in the Dresden Files series, titled Twelve Months, released to fans of Jim Butcher’s work. The wizard detective from Chicago has experienced many highs and lows throughout this ongoing series. And the book previous to this one had left Harry Dresden’s world in ruins—literally and emotionally speaking.

While I’m not going to get too far into specifics, let’s just say that Harry’s not in the best psychological place at the start of the story. He’s not even all that great throughout the entirety of the book’s events. Sure, he tries coping mechanisms, and has tentative emotional victories throughout the chapters, but Dresden’s internal struggle takes its place as core to the themes of the story at hand.

A scene happens fairly early in the book where Harry and a friend of his are standing at a grill making burgers for a gathering of people. The friend asks Harry how everything is going and, after that friend requests a real answer, the protagonist lays out the many external troubles he’s trying to deal with—each problem emphasized with a flip of a burger.

And I started wondering what kind of magical grill Harry had to hold that many hamburger patties—and where I could get one.

Letting Harry finish the barrage of woes on his mind, his friend looks at him and says that all of that is what’s going on, not how he’s doing. Dresden’s friend wants him to open up, speak the weight of his heart that wants to fester in silence. At this, Harry loads up his barrel of personal suffering and unloads a second barrage.

This scene encapsulates one of the primary comments about psychological health that the story posits: we need others in our process of healing.

And it’s not just needing someone who is “healthy” to bear our burdens along with us. It’s good for us to walk alongside people with whom we travel the troubles, people who share in the same type of pain. And even more, we’re served by helping others who feel like we’re the “healthy” people they can rely on. (The book even concludes with an idea of reminding Harry that he should be willing to help another character, like several others had helped him through the chapters.)

One of the best things for us as human beings is to have people on whom we can rely, even as we allow others to rely on us. It’s been true since our creation as a species. And it has been something followers of Jesus are called to do, despite how miserably we fail at carrying it out.

That failure is especially clear on the side of comforting others as we ourselves have been comforted.

At the start of his second letter to the Corinthians—just after the standard letter header of sender and recipient—Paul writes about this comforting. He lets it take the space in his traditional praise of God, singing a blessing of praise to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3, ESV).

In verse 4, Paul specifies that the comfort comes in the midst of our affliction—our suffering, tribulation, troubles, and difficult life situations. For Paul, that affliction might have come from persecution against the gospel, but considering that in the next chapter the Apostle speaks to his audience’s affliction at the writing of his previous letter, this word has a broad application.

Thus, the comforting of our God and Father also applies in a broadly general sense. This includes our specific circumstances of depression, anxiety, and difficulties of life. Since “affliction” doesn’t have to mean “persecution for the gospel,” the comfort given to followers of Jesus speaks to us even if we’re flipping burgers with a friend.

But again, notice that the comfort doesn’t end with us and our affliction. Paul continues in verse 4 by saying that the comforting enables us to comfort others who are afflicted as well. We’re able to share what we’ve been given, for the benefit of those around us. Transform those hard times into comfort for those who need reminders of the goodness of our God.

Good can come from every pain, if we allow the God of comfort to use it for the benefit of our fellow followers of Jesus.

It’s much like the sufferings of Jesus himself, who experienced the excruciating consequences of sin on the cross, all for the spiritual benefit of any who believe in his name. God used death itself, the epitome of sin’s destruction, to bring life to those who accept it.

Comfort through affliction.

That’s what Paul means in verse 5. We share in Christ’s sufferings so that we can share in his comfort. Pain and loss that leads to light and life.

And notice how this affects Paul’s perspective on suffering. In verses 6-7, the Apostle doesn’t shrink back from affliction, because it can be used for the comfort of others. He faces the suffering while reminded of the encouragement others can find through it. He sees unshaken hope for those who share in the affliction and the comfort.

But don’t misunderstand. This comfort doesn’t free us from future affliction.

One of my favorite parts of Butcher’s recent work came near the end, where Harry has a psychological relapse on the anniversary of his life crashing down around him. It’s real. True. Raw. Because affliction is messy. But the comfort is still available, despite every relapse.

Paul speaks to this as well in verses 8-10. He tells the Corinthians that the suffering he and his friends experienced had left them wondering if it would lead to their deaths. It stretched had them beyond their last ounce of strength.

But in spite of that, they were able to rely on the God who raises from the dead. The God who is able to deliver and save and comfort. Over and over again.

That’s not a promise that every affliction will be overcome in this world—because ultimate comfort won’t happen until after Jesus’ return—but it is a comfort that even death itself is merely one more affliction amidst the boundless comfort of our God and Father.

So, let’s remember that our God’s comfort is greater than any earthly affliction. And our calling is to share that comfort with others, even as we’ve received encouragement from others as well.

We can have comfort through the affliction because we have more than just a friend standing beside us at the grill.