My story of answered prayer is about two different ways God helped me as I struggled with autistic burnout. Autistic burnout is a particular form of burnout experienced by autistic people. It is usually caused by pushing yourself beyond your healthy limits day after day for months or years. In my case, I'd been trying to push myself too hard for around four years without realising that I was burning out.
Then my burnout got severe enough that I didn’t have enough energy to get through work each day. When I pushed through regardless, I would fall ill every week or two, and my burnout would only get worse. I was halfway through a 6-week placement when I realised what was happening. My BRT and I prayed that I would have enough energy to get through this placement, that I’d be able to rest well before the next placement, and that I’d be able to finish that last placement to finish my course.
In the 5th week of my placement, my brain started shutting down. My burnout made me so exhausted that I couldn’t form memories properly, then I found it hard to remember why things worked differently at work and at home, and then one day it took conscious effort to remember why I was doing the things I was doing. I thought I had crashed and wouldn’t be able to finish that day of work, or come in the next day.
The first way that God answered my prayers was during that lowest day. He miraculously returned my energy levels to where they had been a few weeks ago, so I was able to finish that 6-week placement. My prayers going forward were that in only a month I’d be able to rest enough to do the next placement. The second way God answered my prayers wasn’t by giving me more energy again, it was by helping me accept that I wouldn’t recover in only a month. I couldn’t start that next placement, so instead I will be doing a placement in September. That wasn’t my original plan, but God has helped me to feel peace about this delay to my career, and has helped me to rest and recover over these six months.
In all this, I’ve learned that sometimes God answers my prayers with a miraculous burst of energy, and sometimes He answers my prayers by helping me be content with saying “I can’t do this, I need time to rest”.
Mark McArthur
Re:Hope West End
Bring your one main prayer request to God again today, knowing that there are many different ways he could answer you.
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