Beeson Podcast, Episode #
Betsy Childs Howard
Date

>>Announcer: 

Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. 

>>Doug Sweeney:

Welcome to the Beeson podcast. I'm your host, Doug Sweeney, and I'm joined today by Betsy Childs Howard, a beloved Beeson alumna and author of many books, including “Seasons of Waiting: Walking by Faith When Dreams Are Delayed,” “Arlo and the Great Big Cover-Up,” “Polly and the Screen Time Overload,” and other children's books. We're looking forward to hearing about her time here at Beeson and her ministry today. So thank you, Betsy, for joining us. 
>>Howard:
Thank you so much for having me. 
>>Sweeney:
Welcome back to your alma mater. Why don't we introduce you to the people listening who don't know you from the old days by asking you a little bit about the old days. How did you become a Christ follower to begin with? And how did God get you to Beeson? 
>>Howard:
Well, by the grace of God, I was born into a Christian family here in Birmingham. I grew up going to Briarwood Presbyterian Church and came to Christ at a really young age and really can't remember a time that I wasn't trying to follow him and trusting the Lord as my savior. And I was the benefit of a lot of really good Christian education at Briarwood School and then Wheaton College. And I worked in a Christian ministry in Atlanta for a while after I graduated from college and then started working at Beeson in 2007. 
>>Sweeney:
So you worked at Beeson before you did anything else at Beeson. And the work you did at Beeson was? 
>>Howard:
Well, I started as a secretary. I wanted to move back to Birmingham and be near your family. And I decided Beeson was the place that I wanted to work. And there was not the kind of job that I was looking for then. But I prayed about it. And I thought, I think I should take this job, even though it was going to be a little bit tight financially. And I loved it. I was a secretary here for a while-
>>Sweeney:
Secretary to whom?
>>Howard:
At the time it was Mark Searby and he was doing the doctor of ministry program and he oversaw student services. So I wanted to take classes, so I started taking classes at the same time, although I didn't really have any aim to get a degree. I just thought this is a wonderful perk, and I loved the idea that I could take one class at a time and try to really get the most out of it. 
So I worked as a secretary and slowly started taking on some more responsibilities. One person left, and I took on some of her work. And then eventually, by the grace of God, I was able to ... a new position for marketing communications was created and I was able to move into that position. 
>>Sweeney:
Very nice. And as we were talking about right before we started recording, you were the MarCom person when the Beeson podcast was launched!
>>Howard:
Yes, I have sat at not this literal table, but this table many, many times when Dean George was hosting the Beeson podcast. 
>>Sweeney:
Great to have you back. All right, so tell us just a little bit about your connection to the Gospel Coalition. A lot of us at Beeson are connected somehow with the Gospel Coalition and Collin Hansen's in the building, all that kind of thing. But how did you get started at TGC? 
>>Howard:
Well, Collin Hansen being in the building was a big part of that. I got to know Collin when he moved to Birmingham and Beeson gave him office space. So I got to be friends with him and his wife. And all the time I was working at Beeson, we just got to know each other better. So while I was here, I met my husband. He was living in New York. He was an assistant pastor at the time. As it became clear that we were going to get married, I knew I couldn't keep my job at Beeson if I moved to New York. So I went to Colin and said, will you give me a job? 
So the Gospel Coalition is all remote work spread around the country. So it worked out well for me to start working for TGC when I left Beeson and moved to New York City. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. And what kind of work did you do for TGC? 
>>Howard:
I was and am on the editorial team, but actually one of the things that Collin hired me to do was to work on their podcast and take it to the next level. At that point, there was a TGC podcast, but all it was was they put up conference messages, 10 at a time with no music or any intro. It was just very much a way of getting content out there. So I tried to, you know, make it more like a regular podcast and we started producing it and we started having different guests and doing interviews and things like that. And my role has expanded and evolved in different ways. And then it kind of contracted when I had two children, but I've still worked part time for TGC and really enjoyed staying a part of that world. 
>>Sweeney:
Were you involved in writing ministry before you started working for TGC or is that kind of your start as a writer as well? 
>>Howard:
I had done some writing. Yes. So I had written some articles for TGC. I'd written some for First Things. So yes, I had been doing that, but I hadn't ever, I hadn't done anything technical at that point. And I remember going to Rob Willis and saying, Rob, help, I need to know how to make a podcast, not write the questions, not to write the intro, but to do the audio engineering, which I no longer do. But for a while I was doing that kind of thing, too. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Well, of course, your writing is what a lot of people know you for today. And when I do these interviews on our podcast, I'm always thinking about the kinds of people who listen to our podcast recordings. And some of them are people who are trying to figure out how to use their gifts in ministry. They're thinking about seminary. They're not sure they're called to be pastors. They're wondering what other kinds of ministry a seminary education could prepare them for. Some of them love reading and writing. They wonder about, so what's it like getting into writing ministry? It seems like a really daunting thing that'd be really hard to do. Could you tell us just a little bit about your development as a writer? Maybe with a view to giving a little advice for people who think maybe this is something Lord's gifted them to do and wonder whether they'll be able to use those gifts down the road. 
>>Howard:
I'd be glad to. It's a wonderful privilege to get to write and to write about the faith. For me, it began as just a sideline writing pieces for no pay, just for whoever would publish them. And I will say it is a field that is hard to make an income in. So it is a great, you know, hobby, secondary ministry. 
But one thing that some people don't realize is that editing can also be a ministry. So I know there's a number of Beeson graduates who have gone on to be editors for Christian publishers and Christian websites. And that is one thing for people to consider if they like to write. You can still do quite a bit of writing, but also help other people with their writing. But more often, editing is the kind of job that can pay the bills. 
And while you're doing that, I mean, I was actually working for Beeson when the opportunity to write my first book came along. And, the Gospel Coalition was working with Crossway to try to publish more women writers, because especially women, I'm a happy complimentarian. I never set out to be a pastor, but sometimes in the Christian world, if you have a large church and you're a pastor, you can get a contract because publishers know your people are going to buy your books. So TGC and Crossway, we're trying to give Christian women a platform to publish books under. So Justin Taylor approached me and asked if I had any ideas I'd be interested in writing about. So that was actually while I was still working at Beeson. And the project that I started working on, I published part of it at the Gospel Coalition, and that led to me meeting my husband. So that ultimately led me departing from Beeson. But I think for people who want to write and want to do more of that, take the opportunities that come to you, use the connections you have to get published, but you almost have to pursue it as a ministry without expecting for it to earn your livelihood. And then occasionally those opportunities come along that, you know, do help pay the bills.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, as they did for you. I'm not suggesting that you're a millionaire author or anything, but you've been able to publish books. 
>>Howard:
Yes, it's been a huge blessing. For me, it helps me pay for my children to go to preschool and stuff like that. I'm so grateful for that. 
>>Sweeney:
How did your first book contract come to be? 
>>Howard:
Well, it was because Justin Taylor from Crossway approached me. 
>>Sweeney:
You didn't even have to go looking for him. He came to you. 
Howard:
He came to me. He had read some of the work that I wrote for TGC. And so a woman named Gloria Furman coached me through how to write a book proposal. Oh, I left out a very important piece! While I was here, Denise George had a class called something like writing to publish. And it was very practical. And she taught how to write a book proposal, how to write a magazine article proposal. So that was very helpful to me when I actually wrote a proposal for the book that became Seasons of Waiting. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, marvelous. All right, can you tell us just a little bit about the books that you've published, and then I want to focus on your children's books eventually, but what are the books that you have written over the course of your writing ministry? 
>>Howard:
So, Seasons of Waiting was my first book, and I wrote that, most of it my first year of marriage when we were in New York City, and it is about five different kinds of waiting that are a part of many people's lives, and they were a real theme through the Bible, so waiting for marriage, waiting for children, waiting for a home, waiting for healing, and waiting on a prodigal. 
So not everyone has each of those experiences, but I try to take them and set them in a theological context to see sort of the eschatological implications of those, and how there would be things in our life that we would be waiting for that we would never receive in this life, but that they could point us to the next life. And also tried to work through the question of, if you have a deep longing for something that is good, how do you separate that from sinful discontentment? 
Because, you know, God has given us everything that we need. So how do you sort of deal with that tension of accepting the life he's given you, but possibly longing and praying for another life. 
>>Sweeney:
Can we spend two minutes on that question? So how do you do that? That seems like a really important question for a lot of us. 
>>Howard:
Well, I'll have two different answers to that. So how do you do that? I would say the first answer I would have is, I like to think of kind of a military metaphor. Say you are fighting in World War II and you're in a desk job and you really want to be doing something on the front lines. I think you need to do that desk job to the very best of your capability, to help your country win the war. At the same time, you can be putting in those transfer requests, you know, telling those who are above you, you would rather be doing something different. Here's how you think you could be of service in that. And you can take those transfer requests to the Lord and say, this is what I ... 
Maybe you have a chronic illness. You can say, Lord, I trust that you have me in this place. I'm going to use my days for your glory, but I would like to be healed. I don't want to be stuck in bed, you know? So I think you can do both. You really try to fight the battles he has given you to the best of your abilities while also asking him to change your situation. 
And there are ways to be sinfully discontent. I won't go in. I mean, I think people know when they're being sinfully discontent or when you are somehow forcing a transfer that God hasn't authorized in your life. 
So that's the first answer. The second answer to how is a little bit more practical about like just coping with that tension of waiting. And the best advice I know is to do it one day at a time, to really look to God for manna. The Israelites could not gather it up and hoard it, and we don't have the grace to last through however long our season of waiting is gonna be. We don't have the grace to make it till next week, but what we do have is the grace God has given us today. 
So I like to ask myself, if there's something that I'm facing that's hard, Has God given me what I need to do this today? And if so, then do it and trust that he will help me tomorrow. And that makes it much less overwhelming. If you think I can't do this for five years, I can't do this for 10 years, but you can do it today. And that to me is a helpful way of sort of coping in real time. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, that's great. But I interrupted the flow there. We were talking about the books that you've done. We were on Seasons of Waiting. What else have you been able to write? 
>>Howard:
So that's the only book I've written for adults. Right now, I have no other plans to write a book for adults. It was a great experience, but it was hard. And if God put something burning on my heart that I think people need to hear, I'll write another book for adults. 
But I didn't write anything for a while after that. But as I was working for the Gospel Coalition, we started a thing called the TGC Book Awards. And we would take different categories of books. It's similar to Christianity Today's Book Awards and others, and we would just say, this is what we think was the best book in this category this year. The first few years, I oversaw the Christian Living category, and then we decided we should really do a Children's Book category. So I said, please, let me do that, because I've always loved children's literature, did not have children at that point, wanted to have children. 
That was a season of waiting my husband and I went through wanting to have children and not having them. So I started overseeing the Children's Book Awards. So it was really interesting how I would get sent all these brand new children's books from publishers. Some of them were terrible, some of them were great, but it was really interesting market research to see what is being published right now for children. I started noticing that there are real themes in Christian children's publishing. And at that point, there was a real theme of biblical theology, which was great. 
I think people had realized that children needed to see the whole scope of God's plan rather than teach them verse by verse or just story by story. And they didn't want moralism. So things like the Jesus Storybook Bible had really inspired people to do whole Bible theology with children. But as I read these books over the course of several years, I realized, wow, a lot of the books that really shaped me morally were fictional stories, and it wasn't moralism, but it still was a way of showing me how to live out the Christian life in a way that didn't feel like a Sunday school lesson, but it felt like a really good story. And there was just a growing desire for me to see this. 
So, as part of my work with the Gospel Coalition, I started talking with Collin Hansen about that maybe we could start to publish some of these. So we made a partnership with Crossway, and that was the beginning of TGC Kids. And the vision behind TGC Kids was to publish books that were story-driven, that were fun, that kids did not realize they were being taught, but that was teaching them lessons about how to live the Christian life and how to follow God's commands. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. All right. So as you got into this as a writer yourself, all of this shaped the way in which you approached the work of writing children's books? 
>>Howard: 
Definitely. It definitely did. 
>>Sweeney:
All right. And you've done two so far? How many have you done? 
>>Howard:
I have published three. And through the TGC Kids series and I have another future one coming out with that series. We've also published other authors in that series and I have a board book coming out from B&H in 2026 as well. 
>>Sweeney:
Fantastic. What's that going to be? 
>>Howard:
That is different. It's written at a much lower level for babies and small children, and it's about sleep because I as a mom realized what a big deal sleep is. 
>>Sweeney:
Let's get these kids sleeping better. 
>>Howard:
You really want them to, but I also realized that it's an issue full of angst for parents. So it is a book written, it looks like it's written for children, but really it's meant to encourage parents about God's faithfulness when he doesn't give sleep or when you're going without enough sleep. So it's rhyming, it's a bedtime book, but it talks about when children won't sleep, knowing the faithfulness of God to renew your strength.
>>Sweeney:
We've got people in the building right now who need this book. This is a season at Beeson where we've got all kinds of young families who are, mom and dad are new at parenting. And so many of them are talking about this. I didn't realize I just lost my sleep. You know, the rest of my life is going to be, I'm going to be tired. 
>>Howard:
And you do think that at the time you think this is how it's going to be from here on out, but it's not how it always is. But you need encouragement in that moment. 
>>Sweeney:
Has writing children's books, what has it done for you? Obviously, it does things for the kids and it does things for the families that get to benefit from these books. But has it grown you in discipleship? Has it changed the way you think about doing ministry? Has it affected you as a person in any way? 
>>Howard:
That's a great question. I haven't really thought about that much. I will say writing children's books has felt like a gift of grace to me. It has felt, you know, like I said, writing a book for adults was a huge challenge and I was glad I did it, but I didn't necessarily want to do it again. Whereas writing children's books to me has been full of joy and it's such an amazing experience to have a book that you've written turned over to a talented illustrator and then have it come back with beautiful illustrations that bring to life the story you've written. And even I've had the experience of my books have been translated into other languages that I don't speak. So to get a book that you wrote in a language that you don't speak feels like a huge gift of grace. 
So I don't know that it has, I haven't really thought about how it has discipled me in that way. And it's possible that it has in thinking about communicating ideas to children. But the thing that comes to the top of my mind is just, it's been an experience of grace for me. 
>>Sweeney:
Wow. So I've written lots of books for adults, but I've never written a children's book and the closest thing I have to the experience of working with an illustrator. Is just working with a publisher on what pictures are going to be in your book. I'm now, in response to what you've been saying, trying to imagine what that relationship is like, and maybe it varies, maybe it depends on the publisher and the project and that kind of thing, but are you friends with the illustrators who are illustrating your books, or how does that go? 
>>Howard:
I have never met them. I'm not friends with them, so there's a pretty big cushion between you and the illustrator. And I think that that's there for a reason. So that there's usually an art director in between you and the illustrator, and you're making suggestions, they're taking them to illustrator, the illustrator makes changes, they bring it back to you. So I think they really try to avoid ...
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, the author's getting too touchy about it. 
>>Howard:
... too touchy, because there's artistic temperaments on both sides. But the illustrator who's illustrated the books that I have already out is Samara Hardy, and she's been wonderful. She's been extremely responsive. I mean, she comes up with things that I didn't even think of. For example, in the first book called Arlo and the Great Big Cover-Up, she introduced a cat figure that's in the pictures, and the cat's not in the text at all, but you see the cat, and the cat almost functions as an external conscience. You see the cat look worried when the little boy Arlo starts to do something wrong. And it's just a brilliant way of using illustration to communicate to the children how they should be feeling about what he's doing. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, that's exciting. So what's the Lord doing in your life these days? I'm trying to wrap things up slowly, and I'm going to ask you in a minute how our listeners can be praying for you and your ministry moving forward, but what's on your plate these days? What's going on in your life? What's God doing in Betsy Howard's life these days? 
>>Howard:
Well, my little boys are five and three, and they're now in school four mornings a week, which is new for me. And it means I'm doing a little bit more work and picking up some more podcast work for the Gospel Coalition, which I'm enjoying. I'm also praying about what different book projects to work on. I'm only really considering children's books. 
But just navigating that transition of still being very present with my kids, also trying to use my gifts, and then be involved in our local church and hopefully be a help to other people there. There's daily need for wisdom there. 
>>Sweeney:
Oh, I bet. So, I didn't intend to ask you this, but I'm thinking about it now, and I bet there's some people listening who'd love to know. How have you figured out how to be a mom of two little ones who's also trying to write? I mean, how do you schedule it? 
>>Howard:
The only way it works for me is babysitting and carved out specified times. So I get tired by the evenings. My boys go to bed at 6:30, which is wonderful, but I can't really write in the evenings. I'm just too tired. So hiring a babysitter, having the babysitter at the house, I go to the library, I work on it there. I just can't really do both at the same time. 
But I think I've had to be okay with spending that money to, and my husband keeps them sometimes too if I need to write. So, but to me, it's, you know, you think, oh, work from home, that's easy, writing, but unless, you know, somebody else is looking after the kids, that's a hard thing to do. 
>>Sweeney:
All right, so our listeners want to pray for you, at least a little bit. How can we be praying for you and your writing ministry and your family these days? 
>>Howard:
We are just seeking God's will for our family in a lot of different ways. And in our own kind of waiting, we're trying to decide what sort of ministry my husband's going to do next. He's a pastor. He's pastored two different churches. And we aren't exactly sure what the future will be. So just for God to guide us. We keep saying we need him to guide us like the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. We need him to guide us. And I hope that keeps us here in Birmingham. But if God wants us somewhere else, we'll follow him. 
>>Sweeney:
Well, listeners, this has been Betsy Childs Howard. She's an alumna, former employee. She helped to launch the Beeson podcast. She's a well-known, beloved author of children's books today. Please pray for her and her husband, her family, her two little boys and her writing ministry in days ahead. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in. We love you and we're praying for you. We say goodbye for now. 
>>Mark Gignilliat:

You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our Producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.