One reason I drag my kids to Lothian, Maryland (about 20 miles south of Annapolis) once a month to visit Fr. Joe Girzone, author of the bestselling Joshua series, is so that they believe me when I tell them that all priests are not pedophiles (despite what the media says), and that some of these men are today’s prophets–truly spiritual people who love God so much that they have taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience–that the ones I know want more than anything to spread hope to God’s people.

Another reason is that Fr. Joe reminds me to dream.

“If you can dream, you can beat depression,” he tells me every visit after he asks me how I am, how I REALLY am.

The jolly old priest noticed a change in me last autumn–the time the kids and I drove straight from the pumpkin patch to his house.

“You look good! What have you been doing?” he asked me.

I told him all about Beyond Blue–that Beliefnet was trying it out for two weeks to see how receptive their readers would be.

“I feel like I might be able translate my pain into something that could help people,” I explained. “I have a renewed sense of purpose, and I guess I feel like I’m going after my dream once again–to write with the intention of inspiring, like you do.”

“If you can dream, you can beat depression,” he repeated again.

If anyone should know, it’s him. After wrestling the demons of depression for 11 years during his seminarian years and as a young priest, Fr. Joe emerged from the darkness a stronger person, able to confront practically any tragedy.

He escapes the Black Hole today by doing the things he loves to do–writing about Jesus (his latest book is “Joshua’s Family: The Long-Awaited Prequel to the Bestselling Joshua“) and giving retreats about Jesus.

Actually, it was Fr. Joe who first inspired me to write.

The priest-author came into my life by way of a deep, philosophical conversation with my boyfriend, a Notre Dame grad student, when I was a freshman at Saint Mary’s College.

“You have to read this book,” he said.

“What’s it about?” I inquired.

“A modern day Jesus,” he said. “But it’s not tacky. It’s really moving. He pulls it off.”

I took the book “Joshua” home with me for Christmas break. I couldn’t put it down. With “Joshua” in hand I found my vocation: to write religious books that inspired people as much as this author did me. The pages kept me company, so I dumped the boyfriend and began writing.

When I went to declare my major (religion), I mentioned the book to my advisor, Keith Egan.

“I went to school with the author, Fr. Joe. We were both Carmelites,” he said.

I was intrigued.

“Is he like the character Joshua in his book?” I asked.

Dr. Egan scratched his chin, and then nodded. “Yes, he is.”

Eight years later, I met Fr. Joe in person while pedaling a children’s book series I wrote about a 10-year-old girl (Whitney) who inherits a magical bible from her grandmother and uses it to whisk her away to the time and place of such Bible stories as Jonah and the Whale and Noah’s Ark. We were at the Christian Booksellers Association convention in Orlando.

I ran to the Doubleday booth (his publisher), my books in hand, and behaved as if I were talking to George Clooney. Eyes wide, full-tooth grin (even molars), eyebrows up to my hairline. I told him I was his biggest fan and begged him to write a blurb for the back cover of the rest of the books in the series. He agreed (without having read them), picked up a copy of one of his sequels, “Joshua and the Children,” and signed it for me:

“For Therese,” he wrote, “your eyes sparkle and your spirit soars just like the saint you were named after. Keep on writing.”

He reminds me of that lesson in person–to hold onto my dream–every month when I see him. And it’s one of my strongest defenders against the deterioration of hope (or the Black Hole).