Lessons from the Porch at Kenley Cove

Mary Alice Kenley names everything: Stella the new stove; Sherry, the huge houseplant in the TV room; and on and on it goes. If you can get your head around that, it’s easy to see that she would name her houses. As she and her husband approached what she calls “a certain age” and decided it was time to move away from the city, they found a shabby little place on Logan Martin Lake in Alabama that they painstakingly chiseled into their sweet little spot. A friend’s daughter suggested they call it Kenley Cove, and it just felt right. Family went together and bought mugs for them that had Kenley Cove on one side and her favorite scripture on the other, so it was official!

Mary Alice lives in this spot with a man she calls Awesome Wonderful. Dr. Bob Kenley is a retired Christian school headmaster; Mary Alice says he is awesome and he is wonderful, so the moniker fits! She is a retired lobbyist. Awesome Wonderful chose to return to the classroom after retirement, while she chose—at age 60—to go back to school to learn how to help people through marriage and family counseling. That’s what she does a few hours a week at Kenley Cove.

These writings are taken from experiences in counseling couples, working with groups, and her own personal walk with God. You will laugh and you will cry and hopefully you will be encouraged. That’s the prayer from the porch at Kenley Cove.