Experiences and Processes: When What You Lived Begins to Have Purpose

By Angel Font Candelario

Vivencias y Procesos es un recorrido profundo por las luchas, aprendizajes y experiencias que marcan la vida espiritual del creyente. A través de testimonios reales, reflexiones bíblicas y revelaciones que nacen en medio del dolor, este libro muestra cómo Dios usa cada temporada para formar, sanar, fortalecer y dirigir a Su pueblo. Nada de lo que vivimos es casualidad; cada proceso tiene un propósito divino que revela la fidelidad de Dios y la transformación que Él produce cuando nos rendimos por completo a Su voluntad.Este libro invita al lector a mirar sus propias batallas desde otra perspectiva: la perspectiva del cielo. Aquí descubrirá que Dios está presente en cada momento, aun cuando el camino parece oscuro o incierto, y que las pruebas que enfrentamos no vienen para destruirnos, sino para prepararnos para lo que Él tiene reservado. A través de estas páginas, el lector encontrará herramientas espirituales, palabras de aliento, verdades bíblicas y testimonios que confirman que Dios sigue obrando hoy con poder.Vivencias y Procesos es un llamado a confiar, a sanar y a levantarse. Un recordatorio de que cada capítulo de la vida tiene un propósito y que, cuando caminamos con Dios, incluso las heridas se convierten en testimonio y esperanza para otros. Este libro es para todo aquel que desee crecer espiritualmente, fortalecer su fe y entender el proceso divino que transforma vidas para la gloria de Dios.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angel Font Candelario
• Release date: Dec 11, 2025
• ISBN: 9798232482190

Book preview

Chapter 1: Everything Happens for a Reason

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,

to them who are the called according to his purpose."

— Romans 8:28 (KJV)

There are moments in life when God confronts you without asking for permission. Moments when your title, your past, your reputation, your spiritual level, your social status, and how many times you’ve failed simply do not matter. Sooner or later, we all reach a point where the excuses run out, where human strength is no longer enough, where the smile can’t hide the pain anymore, where silence weighs more than any word, where loneliness screams louder than the noise, where you can no longer pretend you’re okay. That breaking point in life doesn’t come to destroy you, but to expose what is really inside your heart. And it is there, right there, that God decides to speak to you.

Many have run for years from their own wounds. Others have tried to bury memories that still bleed. Some have run to addictions, to toxic relationships, to destructive friendships, to the streets, or to superficial distractions just to avoid facing reality. Others have taken refuge in work, in fame, in appearance, in money, or even in religion, believing those things can fill what only God can heal. And although on the outside they look strong, secure, or successful, on the inside they are shattered into a thousand pieces. There are people reading these lines who have been through abuse, abandonment, betrayal, violence, poverty, sin, shame, addictions, identity confusion, emotional emptiness, and marks that no one knows about. And there are also people who have everything but feel like they have nothing; because you can have a house, a car, a job, money, and a family... and still not have peace, purpose, or direction.

This chapter is not written for perfect people, because that doesn’t exist. This chapter is written for real people: for those who struggle, for those who fall, for those who cry in secret, for those who feel like they can’t go on anymore, for those who are looking for answers, for those who want change but don’t know where to start, for those who left church, for those who have never stepped inside one, for those who are living in sin, for those who are in the middle of a process, for those no one understands, and for those who feel like God doesn’t listen to them anymore. This chapter is written for you.

And before we go into the central verse of this chapter, I want to prepare you: what you are about to read is not going to leave you the same. God is going to touch areas that you buried years ago. He is going to shine light on memories you swore you would never revisit. He is going to confront you with questions you never dared to ask yourself. He is going to break thought patterns that the enemy planted in your mind since childhood. He is going to correct lies you believed were truths. He is going to lift you up, even if you yourself believe there is no remedy for you anymore. Because when God decides to speak, He doesn’t speak to entertain you—He speaks to transform you.

I don’t want you to read this chapter like just another piece of text. I want you to read it with an open heart, with willingness, with expectation, because this chapter is a spiritual key. Here we are going to talk about pain, purpose, destiny, identity, process, wounds, and about the God who never let go of you, even though you let go of Him many times. Here we are going to step into territory that will make you uncomfortable, because real growth is always uncomfortable. Jesus didn’t speak nicely just to be liked; He spoke truth to set people free. And that’s exactly how we are going to speak here.

That is why we begin with this verse, one of the most powerful and most misunderstood of the entire Bible: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28). This verse is not a motivational phrase. It’s not a social media caption. It’s not a spiritual decoration. It is a declaration of war against hell, a truth that destroys the lie of failure, a revelation that confronts you with something you may have never understood: that nothing in your life was random and that God was always in the middle of what you thought was going to destroy you.

Get ready. What comes now is not theory. It is living truth. It is a sharp word. It is spiritual. It is personal. It is deep. It is for you. And if you open your heart, this chapter will be the beginning of your restoration and the start of a revelation you will never forget.

–Getting to Know Romans 8:28

To understand what Paul meant in Romans 8:28, we first need to stop and look directly at the time in which these words were written, the kind of man who wrote them, and the spiritual atmosphere that surrounded the church in those days. We cannot take such a deep verse out of the soil where it was born. When you study the Bible correctly, you understand that every word has a context, and that God left these truths written not so they could be repeated as empty phrases, but so they could light the path of the believer in the middle of their own processes.

Before Christ, Paul—then called Saul—was not the preacher many imagine. He was a man trained in the religious elite of Judaism, strictly educated under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), a respected teacher. Saul knew the Law, interpreted it zealously, defended his traditions passionately, and was convinced that persecuting Christians was an act of obedience to God. Acts 8:3 describes him going into houses, dragging off men and women, and committing them to prison. That is the starting point of the man who, later on, would write: all things work together for good. To understand Paul, you have to see his past, because God chose a persecutor and turned him into an apostle, and that contrast reveals the greatness of His grace.

His encounter with Christ was a head-on collision. Jesus did not call him gently; He knocked him to the ground on the road to Damascus, blinded him, stripped him of his self-confidence, and confronted him directly: Why are you persecuting Me? (Acts 9:4). From that moment, Saul stood exposed before the truth. His titles, his knowledge, his religious reputation, and his human security all collapsed. His process began in the darkness of temporary blindness and continued along a path full of trials, opposition, and spiritual formation. The man who once felt strong now depended entirely on Christ. That process marked every word he would later write.

The church to whom Paul sent this letter was not living in comfort either. Rome was the center of the empire, a city full of gods, temples, and human philosophy. Believers there faced cultural pressure, social rejection, and in some cases, real persecution. There were no Christian temples, no freedom of worship, no safety. Believers met in small houses, with fear, but with faith. Many of them had left behind their religious or cultural backgrounds and were learning for the first time what it meant to follow Christ in a hostile environment. Paul writes to them to strengthen them, to instruct them, and to remind them of the hope they had in Christ, even when the world was against them.

Romans chapter 8 is considered one of the most profound and spiritually rich passages in all of Scripture. Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as the One who helps believers in their weakness (Romans 8:26), who intercedes for us even when we don’t know what to pray. He speaks of life in the Spirit, of freedom from sin, of victory over the flesh, of the eternal security of the believer, and of the inseparable love of God which cannot be defeated by anything created (Romans 8:38–39). It is in this context that the verse we are studying appears.

When Paul says, we know, he is speaking from experience. That word in the original Greek implies conviction, understanding gained, knowledge formed in reality. Paul was not repeating something he had heard; he was affirming something he had lived. His life had been a mix of pain, persecution, betrayal, and burdens. In 2 Corinthians 11:23–28 he himself lists his trials: beatings, prisons, shipwrecks, hunger, danger of death, and sleepless nights. And yet from that background full of suffering, he declares that God makes all things work together for good. He wasn’t speaking from comfort; he was speaking from scars.

The expression all things in Greek, panta, means everything without excluding anything. Paul is not saying that what happened to us was good; he is saying that God has the power to use even the worst things that happened to us to fulfill His will in us. Jesus expressed something similar when He said: What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this. (John 13:7). Not everything we live through makes sense in the moment, but God is working even when we don’t see how.

Finally, Paul adds: to them who are the called according to his purpose. Here Paul clarifies that this promise is not general for all humanity. It is for those who love God. It is for the called. It is for those He chose. It is for His children. It is for those who, even while falling, even while struggling, even while going through processes, belong to Him. This places Romans 8:28 at the very heart of the gospel: God never loses control of the lives of those He has called. He does not improvise. He orders. He shapes. He uses every piece of your story. And nothing you have lived is wasted in His hands.

This is the foundation. From here we start. From here everything else in this chapter is built. Our goal is not just to memorize a verse, but to understand its origin, its spiritual weight, and its eternal truth. Because when you understand Romans 8:28 the way Paul understood it, the way you see life begins to change from the inside out.

–When Romans 8:28 Speaks to You

There are people who read Romans 8:28 and feel like it isn’t for them. Not because they don’t understand it, but because they believe their story is too dark, too broken, too dirty, or too marked for God to ever use it for good. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you’re someone who stopped praying because you felt like God didn’t listen. Maybe you drifted away because you saw hypocrisy in church, because you trusted leaders who didn’t live what they preached, because you were wounded by people who said they loved God. Maybe you grew up seeing bad examples and came to believe God was like those people, so you said: If that’s how God is, I want nothing to do with Him. Maybe you don’t want to open the Bible because it hurts to face the truth or because you don’t know where to begin. Maybe you live every day with an internal battle no one knows about. You wake up tired, you go to bed heavy, and for years you’ve just been surviving without knowing how to breathe spiritually again.

Others have seen so much pain that they no longer believe God exists. People who were mistreated by the very ones who should have protected them, abused by those who should have cared for them, betrayed by those who should have loved them. There are women reading this who carry shame for something that was never their fault. Men who grew up without guidance, without affection, without direction. Young people marked by words that destroyed them. People whose souls are still broken from rape, beatings, abandonment, manipulation, infidelity, and childhood trauma. And many of them now feel that approaching God is impossible. Not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t know how to heal.

There are also people who did harm. People who made real mistakes, not small ones. People who lied, who hurt, who cheated, who committed crimes, who hit someone, who destroyed families, who betrayed trust, who scarred lives. People who believe God could never forgive them because they can’t forgive themselves. People who say: What I’ve done has no fix. But Romans 8:28 doesn’t say that only clean stories work together for good. It says all things. Absolutely all. But that promise doesn’t come alive until you accept that God can enter even the places you hide.

Here we also find people who serve God and are exhausted. Burned-out pastors, frustrated ministers, evangelists who feel empty, leaders who once burned with passion and now can barely stand. People who pray for others but feel like no one prays for them. People who give words of encouragement while their own souls are crying in silence. People who love God but are worn out. Some are so burdened that Romans 8:28 sounds distant to them, like a promise for others but not for themselves.

And there are also those who have never known the Lord because they grew up without faith, without a Bible, without church, without guidance, without anyone to explain that God is real, close, and loving. People who think God is a concept, an idea, or a story. People who say: If God were real, what happened to me would never have happened. People who don’t understand that what they lived through was not the work of God, but the result of a broken world, damaged hearts, and an enemy who has wanted to destroy their destiny since before they could even walk.

To all of you, this word speaks. Romans 8:28 is not for perfect people; it is for people with a past. It is for the broken, for the tired, for the misunderstood, for those who can’t sleep, for those who cry at dawn, for those who hide wounds under their clothes, for those who keep going only for their children even though they want to give up, for those who feel like life has crushed them, for those who have failed a thousand times and still somehow get up, for those who don’t know how to approach God because no one ever showed them how. It is for those who feel far away, dirty, unworthy, numb, backslidden, confused, or too broken to start again.

Romans 8:28 tells you that God doesn’t need a perfect life to fulfill His purpose. He needs a willing heart. He can take your confusion, your pain, your past, your sin, your wounds, your failures, your doubts, your fears—your whole story—and work with it. God is not waiting for you to understand; He is waiting for you to come. He’s not asking you to come clean; He’s asking you to come. He’s not asking you to come strong; He’s asking you to come honest. He’s not asking you to come knowing Scripture; He’s asking you to come hungry for truth.

You might think your past is too dark. But who wrote this verse? A man who once dragged Christians from their homes, who approved of Stephen’s death, who felt righteous while he was destroying lives. A man with such a heavy past that many Christians were afraid of him. If God could take Paul and transform him into an apostle, what could He not do with your story? If God could ignite an eternal purpose in a man with blood on his hands, who told you that you have no remedy? Who convinced you that God wants nothing to do with you? Who lied to you and said you are too far gone? Nothing in your past is greater than the power of God.

And if you have been a victim—if they hurt you, if they damaged you, if they marked you, if they cut your soul since you were a child—listen carefully: God was not the author of that pain, but He will be the Author of your restoration. He did not cause your trauma, but He will heal it. He did not allow that abuse as a punishment; He can transform it into a testimony. It was not His hand that wounded you, but it will be His hand that lifts you up. Romans 8:28 does not say that the bad was good; it says that He can use it for good.

And if you are a pastor, leader, evangelist, minister, worshipper, teacher, or prophet and you are tired, drained by spiritual battles, by betrayal, by attacks, by criticism, by seasons where God seems silent... this verse is also for you. Because before you were a servant, you were a son. Before you had a public calling, you were the Father’s called one. And even if you feel empty, God is still working in you. Nothing you went through was a waste; it was formation.

Romans 8:28 speaks to you, not to minimize your pain, but to reveal that God is still God even when you are broken.

–When Romans 8:28 Calls You by Name

Maybe you arrived at this chapter with no strength, no faith, and no hope. Maybe you read it with doubts, with wounds that are still bleeding, with thoughts that torment you, and with a heart that has been trying to stay standing for way too long while inside it is falling apart. Maybe you thought Romans 8:28 was a pretty verse, but far from your reality. But today it was not just a verse; today it was a voice that touched your spirit. Today it was not biblical poetry; it was God reminding you that His hand is still on your life, even if you