S5:E2 Grace That Disarms: Turning Conflict into Connection

In this episode of We Do Whatever It Takes, Danny Ray and Kimberly dive into the power of Grace Grenades—intentional acts of love and forgiveness that defuse conflict and reset the atmosphere in your marriage.

Theme: You can choose to escalate a fight or disarm it. Grace doesn’t fuel the fire—it smothers it.
Scripture: Proverbs 15:1 — “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Counseling Insight: How small sparks can turn into wildfires—and how choosing grace instead can stop battles before they begin.
Magic Connection: Just like in magic, tension builds toward an explosion… but grace makes the fight vanish instead.
Challenge: The next time a fight is brewing, stop and drop grace. Practice responding with words that bring closeness instead of criticism.

This week, discover how grace disarms conflict and creates intimacy—turning your marriage into a place of peace rather than battle.

Transcript

Danny 0:21

Welcome back to We Do Whatever It Takes. My name's Danny Ray. I'm a pastor, magician, and husband, friend, I don't know, something like that. Father. We've been married for 29 years, and just thankful to be able to do this podcast, and we hope that it encourages you and helps you to become who God's designed you to be in your relationships.

Kimberly 0:47

And not that we are experts at all, and definitely not a perfect marriage here but we feel like we've learned a lot along the way and uh oh by the way i'm kimberly now i feel like i'm at an aa meeting

Danny 1:04

tell me about your aa meetings

Kimberly 1:07

and i am yeah mother wife and also an associate marriage and family therapist and i love doing what i do and get to meet with individuals but also couples and uh help with marriages So last week we introduced the idea of grace grenades. Boom. Boom. A grace grenade is an intentional act of love or forgiveness that blows up walls of resentment, diffuses conflict, and resets the atmosphere.

Danny 1:40

I like the way you emphasize

Kimberly 1:42

diffuses. I love it. It just is. Yeah, I'm just loving this idea.

Danny 1:47

So today we're going to be talking about with grace grenades, can you take a fight and you could either detonate it or you could disarm it.

Kimberly 1:57

Ooh. So it's kind of, we talked last time about having, almost having two grenades, right? One that we could, if we detonate it and we throw that out there, we could keep the fight going like we normally do. But

Danny 2:11

you're saying we normally keep fights going? Do we have a fight going on right now?

Kimberly 2:14

I'm saying the royal we. We in general, everybody we. It's a pattern we Right. But this idea that we're introducing now is this concept that you can disarm that grenade. You do not have to throw it and keep the fight going or blow the fight up. You can disarm that fight and throw a grenade full of grace, if you will.

Danny 2:39

Yeah. So that brings love, kindness, hope, grace into any argument or any situation or any struggle you're in. There's always the opportunity. to throw grace. There's a proverb that says...

Kimberly 2:54

Proverbs 51.1. 15.1. Oh my goodness. 15.1. Thank you for that. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Boy, I should just have known Proverbs 15.1. This is such a good one. People are like,

Danny 3:13

there's extra

Kimberly 3:14

Proverbs? Yeah, yeah. I wrote more. No, no, no, no. That'd be terrible. But this is one of those verses that plays out in marriage every single day. For sure. When tensions rise, we either light the fuse or... We

Danny 3:28

could drop that grace grenade that just snuffs it out that brings hope and grace and love into that situation.

Kimberly 3:35

Because grace grenades don't fuel the fire, they smother it.

Danny 3:39

Love it. So can you give us a counseling example? When you're in the office, people are often stuck or dealing with really heated situations. Can And you talk about what you do in those situations to diffuse or to help them to add grace to that situation.

Kimberly 3:58

Sure. In counseling, I see couples who let that spark turn into a wildfire, if you will. So somebody says something and the other person goes, ouch. And instead of saying ouch, they just kind of light that or maybe they pull the pin on their grenade and they just throw it right back. Not

Danny 4:19

a grace grenade.

Kimberly 4:20

No. not a grace grenade, a grenade of fire. I don't know.

Danny 4:25

Yeah. And in those situations, it becomes impossible to step back. It's like you've already fueled the fire. You launched it. So you feel like, oh, I need to win. And we've said this before, but if one of you wins a fight, you both lose. The idea is like there's 100% that you're both putting into this relationship. And when you're not doing that, it's going to hinder Yeah, yeah.

Kimberly 4:53

A sharp word, a defensive response. Those are the things that are going to get us on the battlefield, if you will, right? That we're going to just, all

Danny 5:08

right, this fight is on, and we're going to both arm ourselves. I was hurt by this situation, but I want to bring grace into it.

Kimberly 5:50

Disarm the conflict and say, actually, I don't want to fight with you. I think I'm just missing you. Or I think that I, you know, that there's something underneath this.

Danny 6:02

Yeah, we've talked about all kinds of things that lead to those arguments. But one of those is our expectation. Hypothetically, not that this has ever happened. Hypothetically, Kimberly says, I'll be home at 615. 620 rolls around. No. No, you know, text, no phone calls, 630 rolls around. i have the opportunity when she calls hypothetically at seven o'clock and says hey i blew it i forgot is i could respond with like you always right which isn't going to go well or you know what uh you give me so much grace i just want to give you grace and let's let's move on let's have um fun i will um heat up dinner when you get home you know whatever that is to diffuse that situation

Kimberly 7:15

yeah and that has actually happened so i will confess that um But yeah, and how about, so I give a counseling. What about a magic principle connection? Anything that's...

Danny 7:29

I think when you look at any type of magic, right, there's always a moment of tension that you're building to. You're trying to create that tension that brings either laughter because you've created the right tension or could create for a great magic moment. But you have to... You have to look at what's the, it's kind of like a music instrument, if you will, with no tension on guitar strings. Oh, that's a good, yeah. You can't make music. And so there's a certain amount of tension that's healthy in our relationships. You know, like it's to talk about our differences in finances that might not be just a conversation that has no tension to it, but it doesn't have to be my way or the high Yeah,

Kimberly 8:22

yeah. fixing a shelf something like that it doesn't matter it's still how do we approach that how do we do we want to make it a big conflict or is it an opportunity to connect and try and make the best of something where there is tension

Danny 9:07

one of the things we say that way is if we we go you know what I want to give grace in this situation but what might be better is to explain and this is giving grace is well by instead of blowing up is is explaining like hey this is important to me and that's one of the the that's a key phrase for us yeah we use is if it's important we say it this is important to me and try to explain why so like the the one with um time for for me growing up we were late going to everything as an adult

Kimberly 9:44

hang on real quick a little late or what kind of late okay just checking

Danny 9:49

yeah my my My family still, you know, we call it Farley time, which is my mom's maiden name, right? So that time is what it is. But as part of our relationship, something that's important to me is that we are in control of being on time. Because

Kimberly 10:09

as a kid, you weren't.

Danny 10:10

You didn't have any control over that. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the layer underneath to go. Why does this bother me? This is what's important. Yeah, which is amazing when you can do that. It does

Kimberly 10:40

help

Danny 10:43

us to connect when we're honest with each other and when we're vulnerable with each other. And that is a way of giving grace to each other

Kimberly 10:52

yeah because then I feel like I know you deeper when you say something like that and express that then it's not just about you maybe even feel my feeling could have been that you're trying to control me you want me to be on time it has to be on your schedule blah blah blah right all those kinds of thoughts but when you share it what's underneath and what's happened you know in childhood then I go oh well I don't want to make you feel that way

Danny 11:20

Yeah. And, and.

Kimberly 11:50

the reality is is that it takes more strength to to do that to be vulnerable but also to be the one that drops grace rather than dropping the insults or the the anger the hurt right it's not weakness it's actually the strongest move in the room to share your thoughts and feelings or to to drop that grace grenade

Danny 12:16

yeah it is it's part of what we want you to experience is grace changes the outcome of everything. It'll change the way you interact with coworkers, with family, with kids, with everybody. We talked about this last week, is if you imagine you're holding a grace grenade as you enter into different conversations and you think, how could I add love, grace, hope into this situation instead of just responding and reacting and in ways that might be out of character for you or not as thoughtful and kind as showing somebody grace.

Kimberly 13:02

And the reality is that when we practice this often, like as we get better at dropping grace grenades, then our marriage becomes a place of peace instead of constant battle, or it feels like a constant battle sometimes.

Danny 13:16

And that peace, the intimacy we talked about Those all lead to a thriving marriage and a marriage that is consistently in step with who God is and Him pouring out that grace, that grace upon grace we talked about. And then we're able to do that, and we're not doing what Proverbs says of just responding in anger, but we're giving a gentle answer, and that turns away wrath. Turns away wrath, yeah. And it's the harsh words that we use that stir up that anger.

Speaker 02 13:49

Ooh.

Kimberly 13:50

For sure. So are you ready to give our grace grenade challenge? Danny

Danny 13:55

loves a challenge. The next time you feel like a fight is brewing or maybe you're in the middle of it, stop and think about where can I add grace to this situation?

Kimberly 14:10

Come on. It kind of reminds me, I don't know about anybody else listening, but we were always taught stop, drop and roll. It kind of makes me think, stop and And yeah,

Danny 14:28

stop and drop grace. It changes the outcome and it helps you to learn. Side note on all this is the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it.

Kimberly 14:59

True. It takes practice just like

Danny 15:01

anything else. Give it a shot with something small and then you'll have the ability to do that with bigger and bigger things.

Kimberly 15:09

Yeah. So it's your challenge is remembering this week that you have a choice. We can't control the other person. I can't, you know, I can hope that you're going to drop some graces on me but that doesn't that's not a guarantee I'll be dropping grace on you well we've had a lot of practice but not everybody does right so if everybody is is starting out at this and we want grace to um ah

Danny 15:37

To help them move forward, to help them change their marriage, to help them live out who they're designed to be. Yep.

Kimberly 15:46

So you just have to start with that one thing and start with yourself, right? I can't control you. I have to control me and go, okay, I have a choice right now to drop Grace or not.

Danny 15:57

Well, that is episode two of We Do Whatever It Takes.