{"id":14266,"date":"2026-05-31T09:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T13:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?post_type=message&#038;p=14266"},"modified":"2026-06-04T09:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:54:31","slug":"the-god-who-turns-our-sorrow-into-joy","status":"publish","type":"message","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/message\/the-god-who-turns-our-sorrow-into-joy","title":{"rendered":"The God Who Turns our Sorrow into Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are a forgetful people. We tend to remember our pain more readily than God\u2019s faithfulness. We remember wounds, fears, disappointments, and losses, but quickly forget the ways God has sustained and delivered us. If we\u2019re not careful, we\u2019ll misinterpret God\u2019s mercy and blessings as mere coincidence rather than His hidden hand at work in our lives.<\/p>\n<p>The book of Esther reminds us that God not only works to deliver His people; He calls them to remember His deliverance. In the final section of Esther, Mordecai and Esther established the annual festival of Purim to commemorate how God overturned Haman\u2019s decree of annihilation, turning their sorrow into joy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14267,"template":"","tags":[],"series":[2998],"scripture-book":[1284],"scripture-chapter":[1343,1342],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-14266","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","series-the-hidden-hand-of-god-a-study-of-esther","scripture-book-esther","scripture-chapter-1343","scripture-chapter-1342","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14268,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/14266\/revisions\/14268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=14266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}