At The Ranch I'm amazed again and again how God chooses to use the broken lives of the Interns to pour into the even more broken and hurting lives of the students. Here there is no secret formula. It's just taking people who are more firmly rooted in Jesus and asking them to come alongside these troubled youth and pour what you can into them by doing life alongside them.
There is a structure that we are (as interns) expected to uphold. See my post The Daily Battle to get an idea of what a day at the Ranch might look like. There are also rules that we are expected to enforce just like any healthy household would have rules, wether spoken or not, of things that you definitely cannot do.
Some days I feel like I've been the worst example as an intern and could be the weak link in the team that the students will use to thier advantage. Perhaps there is some truth to this (like when I allow students to do things that maybe I shouldn't have) but it is not completely true. It is a lie that Satan wants me to believe because he knows that what I am doing is against him and he will use any means that he can to bring me down.
Other days I know that I am who I am and I will make mistakes, but there is always grace. The students need to see that. They also need to see that I am willing to work on myself and that "being transformed by the renewing of your mind" doesn't happen overnight. It is a constant work being done within me and the other interns around me.
As an intern I have seen God's grace so many times that it's hard for me not to give grace to others. Something that I think I need to work on is being more intentional about talking to the students about what they could work on but in a loving way and not in a condemning way. To come alongside them and root for them rather than tearing them down. Many of them have gotten enough of that in thier lives as it is.
I will probably be working on this for the rest of my life and will make plenty of mistakes because I'm a broken person ministering to broken people. Through Christ I am qualified to be exactly who I need to be in this broken world.
