Changing of the Guard

This year I celebrated the twenty-first birthday of The Precious, I watched Angel Doll and my Treasure graduate high school, and I said goodbye to Grandpa.  The guard is changing.  Does anyone ever feel prepared for the future?
We've done our best to train up our children in the way they should go, and now we get to watch them live out what we have taught them.  But that doesn't mean our work is over, only that our job description has changed.  We get to be the support system as our children test their wings, celebrate their successes, and maybe even make their own mistakes.  We are qualified to help them recover from, and forgive themselves for, mistakes they may make, because we have modeled that in our own lives.  At least, we are trying to!
And if we are REALLY blessed, we, like Grandpa, will someday celebrate a fiftieth wedding anniversary (and then some), and see our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even a great-great grandchild.
Ready or not, the future has come.  We have faith that God has prepared us to carry the torch.  We will continue to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us.  We will be mightier than Jeremy Renner.  The guard is changing, and whether we feel ready, we will trust that we ARE ready.  Our children are ready to be adults.  We are ready to witness our children becoming adults.  We will be ready if parents begin to need us more than we need them.  And we will hope to be as gracious as Grandma as she takes the helm without Grandpa.  Go in peace, Grandpa.  We will take it from here.