AUSTIN, Texas (BP) — Bible teacher and author Christine Hoover of Austin Stone Community Church admits without pride that she always considered herself self-sufficient.

Then, just as she signed a contract with Lifeway Press to write a Bible study on 2 Corinthians, her oldest son Will was diagnosed with cancer.

Lifeway offered to postpone the publication, Hoover told Baptist Press, but she chose to forge ahead.

“I started researching and writing in the cancer clinic while my son was getting chemo,” Hoover said. “And then, just being in a real-life situation where I felt uncertain, weak, anxious, all kinds of things, riding a rollercoaster. I’d always heard what I call gem passages, these famous passages in 2 Corinthians about jars of clay or God being, His power being made perfect in our weakness. And to think about those things with true-life application right in front of me was really powerful for me.”

“More Than Enough: God’s Strength in Our Weakness in 2 Corinthians,” is Hoover’s second published Bible study and one of nine books she has authored, beginning in 2012 with “The Church Planting Wife: Help and Hope for Her Heart.”

She first envisioned “More Than Enough” as a study focused on how women can serve the Lord, with lessons from Paul’s ministry. But walking through Will’s illness and recovery changed her focus.

She decided that 2 Corinthians was an excellent salve for her present struggle.

“I want to be in this book during this time because Paul talks so much about suffering, about weakness, about the things that he went through, hardships, and how he found God to be more than enough of what he needed during those times,” Hoover decided. “I continued to write, but it kind of changed my angle because of what I was going through personally. It ended up being what it is now.”

She landed on the study’s current theme, exploring how Paul emphasized God’s strength in whatever struggle the apostle faced.

“He talks about suffering, he talks about ministry, he talks about generosity, he talks about weakness and all these things,” Hoover said of Paul. “He points the Corinthians back to Who God is. (God) gives them more than what they need in order to fulfill their ministry, in order to share with people, in order to endure hardship. And so that really is the framework for the study.”

Hoover designed the study to be a personal exploration for women individually, allowing them to see how God is more than enough for each one in all of her circumstances.

“I want them to come out on the other side with an understanding that God can be trusted, that our faith works,” she said. “God is real, and He does provide for women in that circumstance that they bring to the study. I want them to see that God is more than enough.”

Hoover, a women’s ministry leader, pastor’s wife and mother of three sons, said the study taught her more than one personal lesson.

She learned what it means to truly rely on God. She learned to view financial giving from a perspective of its inherent joy. But she also realized her sons needed to see in her and her husband Kyle, congregation executive pastor at The Austin Stone Northwest, an honest example of relying on God.

“I’m not saying it was performative, but I knew that I needed to help them see a real-life example of what it means to trust God and to be honest about the hard parts and to talk about the hard parts,” she said. “But then to give them an example and help them see how we were thinking about it in terms of our faith, that our hope isn’t in health or a good result on a test, but our hope is in heaven, in Jesus.”

Will’s recovery is considered miraculous, while doctors continue to monitor him. He was diagnosed with cancer in October 2023 while a 20-year-old junior in college, underwent surgery and chemotherapy and returned to college the next year, resuming his participation in track.

A top oncologist who consulted in Will’s care “has repeatedly said that the numbers that he’s seen, our son Will, the cancer markers were like astronomically off the charts,” Hoover said. “And he is now in the normal range, and the doctor called that a miracle. That he had not seen that kind of high number come down to normal. The Lord (used) medical intervention to bring healing to his body.”

Connect with Hoover at ChristineHoover.net or on Instagram @christinehoover98.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press)