The Veil is Torn

by | May 4, 2022

I’ve been in church since I can remember. I have wonderful, loving parents who raised me to know God and love God, but somewhere along the way self hatred took root in my heart. Saying that out loud sounds extreme, but over the past few weeks, Holy Spirit has helped me realize that the low self esteem I’ve had for my whole life was actually the fruit of self hatred. I spent my childhood constantly comparing myself to others and never being satisfied with myself or my body. I felt like everyone was better than me and that their needs were more important than mine. I never thought I was good enough.


My most recent realization came the week before Easter, where Holy Spirit showed me that, at my core, I didn’t believe that the Father loved me—or that He could love me. I believed a lie that because of all the mistakes I’ve made and the ways I thought I let God down, He was always angry with me or disappointed in me. And if anything bad happened in my life, I thought that it was because He was punishing me. I was hiding myself from Him because of my shame and held myself in condemnation. I put myself on the judgment seat for my life and I had found myself to be guilty and beyond His grace and mercy. 


And to be honest, I had no idea that’s what I had done until the Father, in His kindness, started stripping things away from me and exposing this deep place in my heart that so desperately needed His healing.


During that week, He brought correction to me and told me that by holding myself in condemnation and letting shame control how I see myself, I was actually saying that the cross wasn’t big enough to cover my sins —that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood wasn’t enough. Then He asked me if I was willing to lay down the shame and condemnation, that I had carried for years, at the foot of the cross and accept the mercy and grace that He so freely gives. As Christians, we believe that because God loved the world so much, He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. We believe that He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. I mean, this is the foundational truth to our faith! So there was no in between with this— either I believed that what Jesus did for the whole world He also did for me, or I didn’t. So with tears of conviction, I repented for putting myself on the judgment seat of my life and told Him that I trusted that He loves me enough to cover me in grace, and I forgave myself and accepted His forgiveness.


A week later, I was driving my son to speech therapy and listening to The Throne Room Song by Charity Gayle— there is a line that says, “The veil is torn and the doors fling wide, I see glory as I run inside the throne room, before You, I bow.” As I was listening to that part, I had a vision of the veil in the Holy of Holies being torn from top to bottom and Father running out to find me. Just like the father of the prodigal son, He ran to meet me where I was— and He didn’t do it begrudgingly or stop to think if I was really worth running to, He loved me so much that He ran to me!


I am still learning how to walk this out and everyday I’ve been asking Him to teach me how to accept the His love and to teach me how to love myself, but now I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He loves me.

He tore the veil and He ran to me.


Oh, the One who knows me best

Is the One who loves me most

There is nothing I have done

That could change the Father’s love

I can hear the feet of the Father running

I can hear the feet of the Father running

Oh, I can hear the feet of the Father running

Oh, I can hear the feet of the Father running

It’s Like a stampede of grace

Coming my way

Mercy I never earned

Grace I never deserved

Coming to bring me home again” 

I am Your Beloved by Jonathan and Melissa Helser

-Natasha A.