But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.

Paul had something wrong with him. He calls it a thorn in the flesh and never says what it was, which has frustrated readers for two thousand years and is probably the point. Scholars have guessed at chronic illness, an eye condition, and recurring opposition. Nobody knows.

What he does tell us is that he asked three times for it to be taken away. Not once, in passing. Three times, deliberately, the way you ask when you mean it. The answer was no.

The reply he got is the verse. My grace is enough for you. It is not a promise of removal or even of improvement. It is a claim that there is enough supply for the situation as it actually is, unchanged.

Then Paul does something that reads as either mad or hard-won: he says he will boast about the weakness rather than hide it. He is not celebrating being unwell. He is saying that the place where he is visibly not coping turned out to be the place something else became obvious. If you are burned out and quietly ashamed of it, that is the sentence to sit with.