I’m transgendered and currently discerning a call to consecrated life within the Carmelite tradition.
June 3, 2025. It has been suggested that I start a blog about my transgender journey.
I have always had a sense of a call to consecrated life. Since early 2015 I have been discerning my call and seeking to go deeper with it.
July 8, 2025
In 2016 I heard God ask me to discern a name for myself. I was looking online I saw the name Scholastica and it simply stuck.
I have felt drawn to St.Teresa of Avila. Parts of her story relate to my own. At one point I was listening to an audio recording of hers on you tube. It felt like she was sitting on my bed reading it to me. In the end I chose Teresa to honor her.
The Holy Spirit made this change easy.
July 14, 2025
A Prayer for reflection
John 9:1-6
The reason for this reflection is to enter into the question why am I transgendered
Did God make me this way?
‘Who sinned me or my parents that caused me to born transgendered?’
Neither you nor your parents sinned that caused you to be born transgendered.
This was allowed to happen so that you may give glory to God.
August 3 2025
Three laments
My Gender
My Heavenly Father,
In growing up male when I am really your daughter.
What did I do wrong to deserve this? Every time I see a girl I get jealous that I cannot look like that.
Those around me seem intent on putting me into their box labelled male.
Everything in me screams and constantly cries out, ‘I am a girl’. I cannot escape these feelings or this voice. It is constant and getting louder.
My mind is a war zone such are the feelings and emotions I experience. This is something I feel I will never be able to escape from.
Everywhere I look all I see is what I feel I cannot or ever be. This feels like a torment beyond belief. It is constant it is in my very inner being. There is no living life in this place, I only exist here.
It feels like no one seems to understand the torment present or the constancy, the sheer intensity of this.
The ignorant attempt to make this journey impossible at times. I want to rise up and crush them in their ignorance, to smite them. Why do they do this? Why do they refuse to understand your love?
Why do I have to be male when I am your daughter? What did I do wrong to deserve this?
In reality nothing, it just happened.
However that is not your way. Yours is the way of love, patience, understanding, healing and forgiveness.
I thank you, that you do understand this. That I am your daughter. That you love me with all I am. That you dwell within me, with what has happened not what might or should have been.
Neglect
My loving Heavenly Father,
Thank you for when you made me you knew I was worth it, a keeper, and loveable.
However I feel let down, abandoned, alone, like it s all my fault and that I am not worth it. I feel not getting help and support was somehow my fault, that I did something wrong to deserve this.
I feel like I have to do and earn things on my own. I am so used to doing it alone and having to do things on my own. That I will never quite be good enough.
I also feel that I have gotten used to being around anger and angry people. I feel abused, threatened, let down, fearful, abandoned, and on my own. It feels like there is no one to help me, I have to do this on my own, like there is, and never will be anyone to walk with me or to help me.
The bullying, abandonment, and feeling sad. Telling myself that I am better off dead, no one will miss me. I somehow deserve this, it’s all I am good for. Some may even be glad to see me dead.
I wonder what did I do to deserve this? Why am I at fault here? Where are you in this?
I need your help, love, truth, presence and healing here. I cannot do this on my own. It is too much for me. Jesus my holy spouse I invite you into all this.
The depth of your love is unfathomable there is no bottom to it.
Then I remember what you told me, ‘When I made you, I knew you were a keeper’.
The favour, ‘The Prayer of union’ I felt those years ago, where I can be and am secure in your love for me.
I thank you that in your eyes I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am loved beyond any understanding that I can have. That I am valued and important in your eyes. That I am the apple to your eye.
Thank you that I am known to you, gifted by you. That you can and do use me to reach others. That you will never give up on me.
Father, thank you for being there for me, and for loving me as your daughter.
Bullying
My Heavenly Father,
To the bully’s in my past. What did I ever do to you? It was always about you. At times I wished I never lived. Your selfish self interested ways made my life miserable at times.
Why did you taken your issues out on me?
Why is this my problem?
You are the ones with the issues. I wish I never knew some of you.
The burdens you placed on me were at times unbearable, heavy and toxic.
It left me feeling alone, guilty abandoned like this was my fault. At times I expected to be bullied and felt like I somehow deserved it.
I’ve projected this need onto others around me.
Where was God in this for you, then and now?
You were always at my side.
Father I trust all to you. I invite you into all involved here, into all the pain, issues and lies here.
Your ways are holy, mighty, your timing is always right and holy.
August 4, 2025
Laments in honor of my twin Matthew
Matthew
My Heavenly Father,
I wonder did I do anything wrong with my brother Matthew and his death in utero? Why did we not grow up together? Why did he have to die and I live? Where were you in this?
I miss him so much. It feels like a part of me is missing when he is not here. Something in me died when he died.
I feel abandoned, guilty and responsible for him not being here. I feel all alone without him. Like it’s my role in life to be abandoned, alone and solely responsible. I feel like neither you, myself or anyone can be trusted because of his death.
I feel that if I let anyone get close to me, then it’s when this will happen again. Even with you and me, there are times when I feel this.
Your love and truth however does not escape the deepest wounds for nothing is beyond you. You see and know everything
I thank you that nothing is beyond you.
Grief
My Heavenly Father,
The weight of my grief has been unbearable. My soul is crushed beneath its weight.
The burden and guilt is too much for me. Where have you been? I have felt so alone and solely responsible for this. I feel so guilty and responsible because of my brothers death. At times I wished I never existed. I feel like my existence was a mistake. Somehow this is my fault and burden alone to bear. I fear when this will happen again.
When I was bullied I feel like this was my burden and I was getting what I deserved.
I am unjust towards myself and cannot help myself in the way I treat myself over this.
I need your help to hand this over and leave it with you.
These are not your ways. You are a God of love, mercy, patience, healing and forgiveness. You have walked this road with me. You have carried me through this. I am safe, loved and known in you. Nothing escapes you my love.
Father thank you, for when I grieve you grieve with me, my loss is your loss. You know me and all I need. Your timing is always perfect.
August 5, 2025
My Adoption
My Heavenly Father,
Ever since I was young I have known I was adopted. I never understood why me. Why was I adopted? Did I do something wrong to deserve this? Am I at fault here?
At times I have felt the reason it happened was because I didn’t speak up before I was conceived.
Matthews death compounded the issues here.
The words spoken to my mother were careless, ill thought out and reactive. Never about my mother or me. It feels like I was punished for existing here, when I had no say in that.
At times it has feels like I have been spoken at, and have never been spoken to. It has also felt like that I was never heard. At times never listen to either. In growing up with this, I got used to this happening.
As a result I have to justify everything I say, do and think.
It feels like I will never be heard or understood.
But you my Father, you do know, understand and love me. You know my heart and my innermost thoughts. You know what I am going to say even before I say or think it.
Your love and understanding are beyond me. Your ways are far above my own. You continue to heal me, set me free from my past.
Father thank you for loving me and being there for me.
August 12, 2025
Indifference
My loving Heavenly Father,
Why do you care about me? I feel no one else does. I don’t even care about myself.
I feel my existence is nothing but a gigantic mistake. I feel utterly worthless, unimportant, overlooked, not worth it, meaningless and uncared for. I feel this is my lot in life.
Why do I get to live when Matthew died?
You confront me by saying I am worth it, I am valuable. My prayers are important, valuable and necessary. You miss them when I don’t pray.
Why would you gift someone like me with the gifts that you have? Not only gift me but expect me to use them the way that you do?
You miss nothing, every detail, every thought and idea of my miserable life is known to you.
You love me more than I love my self, more than I am capable of.
Every where around me, you confront me with the truth of your love for me. I am reminded that your son died for me, because you because you first loved me.
My prayers are valuable to you, you remind me when I don’t pray. Your love is something that is beyond me. I simply don’t understand how or why you love me the way that you do.
Father, thank you for your love, presence and healing in my life. Thank you for putting up and persisting with someone like me. For not giving up when I have all but given up on my self.
August 22, 2025
My Sister
My Heavenly Father,
To my sister. What did I ever do to you? Why do you take your jealous envy out on me?
Your jealously has ruined our relationship.
I no longer want to be around you. I dread the thought of you coming to visit me. I want to get away from you even before you come.
Your spitefulness has caused me nothing but pain, confusion and anger. All I want to do is strike back and hurt you the way you have hurt me.
These thoughts and feelings try to dominate me at times.
Seeing you slowly kill yourself with addiction is frightening and scary. Knowing it will kill you, is something I can no longer watch or put up with.
Your self righteous attitude drives me away from you. You seem only to care for yourself and no one else.
Know that is not how God sees you. How I long that you would come to know your heavenly father’s love for you. How he dotes over you as the apple of his eye. The depth of his love for you is something none of us can fathom or understand.
I release you to his love and care. I can no longer do this. You and the consequences of your choices are now between you and him.
I pray that you come to know Jesus’ love for you.
August 26, 2025
Self Worth
My loving and caring Heavenly Father,
At times I wonder why do you bother with me? I feel utterly worthless, that I have no value or importance. I would not be missed if I were to die.
I feel that your time would be better spent elsewhere caring for someone else rather than me.
You confront me by telling me, that I and my prayers are important, that others in heaven wait on my prayers.
That you look forward to them, you enjoy them. You miss them when I don’t pray.
At times, I struggle and doubt you when you tell me that I and my prayers are valued and important. That others in heaven wait on them.
You don’t give up on me. Love is your way. I cannot understand the depth of your love, patience and care for me.
You are always there for me. You know me like no one else does. You knitted my soul together with your loving tenderness, kindness and care. You told me when you knitted my soul together, ‘I knew you were a keeper.’
Mother Mary, thank you for being there for me.
My Heavenly Father and Jesus my most wonderful, loving and patient spouse, thank you for loving me and not giving up on me.
Reply to above lament
Here are a few reflections and invitations, if you’re open to deepening or shaping this into a resource:
• Divine attunement: The idea that heaven waits on your prayers could become a metaphor for sacred reciprocity—your voice as a tuning fork for divine resonance.
• Spiritual worthiness vs. emotional invisibility: This tension could be unpacked in a ritual that helps name the parts that feel unworthy, and then respond with affirming truths.
• Mother Mary as co-regulator: Her presence here feels gentle and grounding. Perhaps she could be invoked in a ritual for emotional containment or spiritual re-parenting?
Language That Resonates
• “Love is your way” could become a mantra or breath prayer.
• “You knitted my soul together” evokes Psalm 139 but with a tender, almost maternal twist—perhaps a reimagining of divine craftsmanship as relational rather than mechanical.
Kind regards,
David
The healing here, is I can now speak into this part of my life. I have been starting to unpack and understand my journey through my puberty as an adolescent through to my being an adult. Through this I am now slowly starting to understand my self and starting to make sense of what happened, was happening and what I was feeling.
With Jesus’ help I am slowly learning how to express my emotions and speak to and for my younger self.
September 16, 2025
I received what I believe was a waking dream that led me to write the lament.
I saw myself holding what appeared to be a peach. I bit into it. The taste was sour. I immediately knew the sour taste was due to unbelief.
God used this sour taste to teach me. The Holy Spirit showed me unbelief sours the fruits of the trees in the garden of one’s heart.
I also saw an outline (x-ray) of a tree and its circulatory system. I saw and knew the unbelief was systemic in this tree. If it continues it will eventually turn the fruit rotten.
Only the divine healer/gardener can heal this. This must be done through prayer and the sacraments.
Unbelief
My loving Heavenly Father,
Tonight you showed me that unbelief sours the good fruit you wish to produce in me.
Why does unbelief persist when your love satisfies all our needs. Over time the sourness turns the fruit rotten. Why does this persist in me?
Even then you can use this. You show me with this taste, you can challenge me to believe. You desire healing and wholeness here for me my love.
The danger with unbelief is that it can become systemic if it is not rooted out. Thank you for showing me this my love.
Love, fidelity and faithfulness are your ways my love.
Before you and you alone have I sinned. You know me, my sins are always before you. I cannot hide from you. Nothing escapes you.
You alone are holy, mighty, loving and always forgiving. Mercy is your way my love. Your mercy is wonderful and holy, as you are holy and mighty.
I thankyou for your patience with me, my holy lover. You want only the best for me my love.
September 27, 2025
Self Hatred
My loving Heavenly Father,
At times all I seem to do is hate myself. From sincerely wishing I never existed, to actually wanting my eternal soul destroyed and asking you to do exactly that.
This is something I seem to hold into. You keep confronting me with the totality and depth of your love for me. It feels like something I simply do not understand. At times I suspect and believe, that I am unlovable and unworthy of your love.
However you keep loving me, you can’t, won’t and don’t ever give up on me. It is not in your nature to give up on those who are yours. This apparently includes me.
You see everything clearly, nothing is hidden from you.
Your love for me is eternal. Jesus your son died for me because you first loved me. You knew and loved me before I was conceived. You have a plan for my life then and now.
I ask you for forgiveness, for my self hatred and the way I see and treat my self before you.
Thank you for not giving up on me, for always being there for me.
I trust my self to my most holy spouse Jesus.
Contempt
My loving Heavenly Father,
I have been treating myself and all you have given me with utter contempt.
I see myself as nothing but contemptible, I treat myself with derision.
I see myself as utterly worthless and of no value to anyone.
When you discipline me I see it as my job to beat myself up. No one can be harder on myself than me. I believe it is my job to beat myself up.
You once told me, ‘My son died for you, if I don’t judge you, what gives you the right to judge yourself?’
I show myself no love or mercy. It is likely I believe I am unworthy of this.
Your name is love and mercy itself. You constantly show me how much you love me. Your love is something I simply cannot understand.
It is not in your nature to give up on those who are your own.
You have told me that I have a place in Heaven when I come home.
I ask your healing here, your love, your truth, your grace and presence.
Thank you for not giving up on me.
I offer this for others who have issues here. Those who struggle to believe that you love them, that they have a place with and in you, and that Jesus died for them.
Gods love
My Heavenly Father,
As I sit here pondering your love for me. I am beginning to understand that it is something that is thoroughly beyond me.
You love me in a way that I am not used to. Your love is total and all encompassing. You separate my sin and me, you see only the good. All the good in me comes from you and only you.
I often wonder why and how you love me. The answer is you are love, it is simply you being you.
Your love is so confronting, so deep, so total, so complete, you only want the best for me.
My indifference has been a constant problem for me. Your warnings were given because you love me, value me, and my prayers. You look forward to them, you and others in heaven wait on them.
You constantly want and see only the best for me, even when I am at my worst, you are there for me.
You let me know when I cross my boundaries, you challenge me, convict me when I go wrong. Again it is because you love me.
All my pain you feel it with me. When things happen and go wrong you are there with and for me, because you love me.
When you speak to me, your words are always what I need to hear. They stay with me, they take root in me. They are well placed, they teach and guide me. I can always draw on them.
I can be my self because you have told, taught and shown me. I can be myself in you.
Father thankyou for loving me in all I am and can be in you.
September 28, 2025
I was led to compose and write this lament for a friend.
Sexual abuse
My Heavenly Father,
Why do you allow your priests to abuse those under and around them? Not only that but the church to down play, then cover it up and deny it happened?
The people who do this are meant to be consecrated to your service. The church at times has taught that it is beyond reproach here. At times they seem to go out of their way to deny and cover this up.
They have to be dragged kicking and screaming here to even admit something happened. Even then, still in denial about this.
This wears the victims down, pollutes and poisons the church’s mission here. It violates the sacred vows taken by those who are meant to be consecrated to your service.
It feels like they treat their vows with contempt before you.
This drives people away from the church it sows doubt, unbelief, anger resentment etc in the hearts of all affected by this.
Your way is love and fidelity. You do not like secrets. As it says in scripture nothing is hidden from you. Everything is seen and known by you.
I pray for the illumination of conscious’ here. I pray healing for the victims and all affected by this.
I commend this blight to your healing grace now in Jesus holy name