S5:E4—How Forgiveness Resets a Marriage

Welcome back to We Do Whatever It Takes! 🎙️ Danny (magician & pastor) and Kimberly (associate marriage & family therapist) share real-life lessons from 29 years of marriage—plus one very messy paint story—to show how unexpected grace can defuse conflict and build deeper connection.

In this episode you’ll discover:

• Why Romans 5:8 is the ultimate “grace grenade.”
• How to break predictable patterns of criticism, withdrawal, and defensiveness.
• Practical ways to surprise your spouse with love and forgiveness—even in the middle of a mess.

Whether you’re newly married or decades in, these simple but powerful practices will help you turn conflict into connection and make grace the normal response in your home.

Transcript

Speaker 01 0:21

Welcome

Danny 0:23

back to We Do Whatever It Takes. I'm Danny Ray. I'm a magician and pastor and I'm

Kimberly 0:29

Kimberly and I'm an associate marriage and family therapist.

Danny 0:34

Fantastic. So we're looking at this idea of grace grenades. How do we bring an intentional act of love and forgiveness that blows up those walls of resentment and diffuses conflict and resets the atmosphere? This is a marriage podcast that's designed to help you in the real situations of life.

Kimberly 1:21

Surprise has a way of shaking things up, which, I mean, come on, you are full of surprises. If you know Danny, and that essentially means a lot of surprises. I

Danny 1:34

like surprises.

Kimberly 1:35

And as a magician, that's probably a really good thing.

Danny 1:37

And that's one of the elements as a magician that people don't get to experience that shock or that wonder when you experience surprise. And so that's one of the things I love bringing to people. But we can do that in our marriages. When we talk about grace grenades, we could do that with grace, right? Shock people, surprise them with grace, surprise our spouse with grace when they feel like, oh, I blew it. But instead of getting what they deserve, they get your love, they get grace, they get forgiveness.

Kimberly 2:09

Yeah, for sure. And the ultimate surprise of grace is Romans 5.8. Did you see that? I'm like going with a biblical principle. I see that, yeah.

Danny 2:50

going our own way. And that's

Kimberly 2:53

the... And when we least deserved it.

Danny 2:56

Yeah. When we look at our marriages, that's the goal is not when our spouse comes hat in hand, when they're just like, oh, I have totally blown it. That's great when they're able to do that. But even when they don't, are we able to demonstrate that love that God demonstrates for us is why we are still sinners, why we're still at our worst. He demonstrated his love for us. And

Kimberly 3:20

when we do that, we're mirroring God's love for us in our marriages right when we show the grace that he shows us we turn around and show that to each other that has a huge impact and we're called to do it so even though it's not easy we still have to to show grace and in counseling I see I see couples who brace for the worst if you will which Okay. I bet

Danny 4:22

you

Kimberly 4:22

that like stops them in their tracks. And surprise is one of grace's greatest weapons, if you will. That's kind of a weird way to say it. meanness or I would just withdraw or whatever your go-to is.

Danny 5:26

Mine's definitely defensiveness and withdraw.

Kimberly 5:29

Okay. Okay. Wow. That was brave to share that.

Danny 5:33

Good job. As I tend to, you say something and I, I get defensive really quickly or you say something, I'm hurt and I just, I'm quiet. I withdraw. I don't, I choose to not connect, but that's what I am working on constantly overcoming and going Like, I know your heart. I know there's a thousand times that you've shown me grace and love, and I need to let that overshadow the hurt that I'm feeling in that moment and address it if I need to and not, you know, withdraw or be silent. Or if I'm able to overlook the offense to, you know, that's also a biblical concept. Absolutely. If I'm able to overlook it, but not to bury it. And

Kimberly 6:21

we'll talk about that in the next episode for sure. Did you have any like magic principles or tricks that you thought of with this one? It's okay

Danny 6:33

if you didn't. I mean, surprise is just like everywhere in my show. There's a piece I do where I have 10 cards selected. They're shuffled into the deck and somebody else shuffles them into the deck. And then I find the cards one at a time. But the way I find the last card is it in I feel like you just

Kimberly 6:58

blew the surprise. You just told everybody.

Danny 7:01

It's so awesome. But, you know, you begin to hear those,

Kimberly 7:05

no. Yeah, everybody's yelling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, it can't be in the gum. No way. Yeah.

Danny 7:11

Right. That's the shock that something impossible is about to happen. And I just think in our marriages, what would happen if gum was in the gum? Grace was one of those things that your spouse is like, no, he would not, she would not. But then all of a sudden it's like grace becomes the normal. Grace becomes the surprise act that you're able to give to your spouse. They expect a fight. They expect like this boom of like destruction or withdrawal or pain. And nope, they get a grace grenade. They get love. They get something else entirely. And it's a shock to the system And that shock, I think, will create intimacy and it will...

Kimberly 7:56

It's an opportunity to connect with your spouse rather than conflict. So we get so fearful of conflict. But if one of us drops a grace grenade, so to speak, we handle something differently than we normally would and we shock them with grace, then it's almost like your magic, your misdirection, right? It's almost...

Danny 8:23

Turns that conflict into connection. Yeah. Possibility of conflict into connection. Into connection. Yeah. And just to be clear, we're not saying in every possible conflict we're able to do this. We've talked a lot on here about conflict resolution. And sometimes you just have to work through it and work it out. Yeah. Yeah. And be able to talk about like, hey, this is why this hurt me and walk through those steps.

Kimberly 8:50

And I would say both like this walking through conflict involves having grace. Right. So it's not that it takes the place of working through the conflict, right? We still have to work through it, but it's calm and it's... Is

Danny 9:14

it calm? Let me remind you of one of our conflicts recently and you tell me how calm it was.

Kimberly 9:19

Oh,

Danny 9:19

shoot. Which one are you going for, babe? So I decided I was going to... paint a room that Kim's been painting for a long, long

Kimberly 9:31

time. Okay, okay. If you know us at all, we are terrible with projects. Yes, that is true. House projects, car, are there even car projects? We have no idea how to do that. But a house project, outside, inside,

Danny 9:46

it doesn't matter. Because

Kimberly 9:49

neither of us know how to do it.

Danny 9:50

But you're overseeing and like, are you sure of the screw? You screw it to the right? Because I know you know know what you're doing

Kimberly 9:57

and I yes you've gained some skills and we each have skills that we bring to the table with it but neither one of us

Speaker 01 10:05

do well

Kimberly 10:07

but you did not just say that is yours my love

Danny 10:15

projects are not our friend well she was out because you know with her there you know it's going to be a different that's true

Kimberly 10:21

we have we have a pattern for sure that we did not set up necessarily intentionally but But for all, what did we say, 29 years of marriage, it has been, oh, she's away. I'll do a project because she can't tell me no. She can't do

Danny 10:35

anything about it. You told me when I installed the floors, you're like, I don't like that color. I was like, oh, wow, that took me a week to install those floors.

Kimberly 10:44

But you kind of have to ask the person you live with, what color floors do you want? Five years

Danny 10:49

into our marriage or three years into our marriage. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, boy. You live and learn that way. We live and learn. When she was out, I decided I was going to paint this room. This is like last year, right? This one? Yeah. All right. All right. She wanted to paint it. And so I took the day, painted it. At the end of the day, she comes in. I was almost done, but I still have like all the plastic down, all the tape on the walls. It's close, you know, and she's like, I love it. I love it.

Kimberly 11:20

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. See? Loved it.

Danny 11:23

Yes.

Kimberly 11:23

People thought that I'm sure our listeners did Oh, no, you did

Danny 11:28

love it. throwing that away first.

Kimberly 11:57

I would love to see people's faces right now and go, oh yeah, Danny, that's a great idea.

Danny 12:03

I'm not saying it was a great idea. We know it fell apart. But Kim's like, don't do that. I'm like, it'll be fine. She's like, you should throw those away first. I'm like, babe, it's fine. I will take care of it. I'm just going to grab. And so I grab all the

Kimberly 12:15

corners. With a tiny bit snottier of an attitude than that. Oh, probably

Danny 12:20

so. It's fine. So I grab the corners and I start to take Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. out of that corner

Kimberly 12:56

pouring pouring pouring stop stop stop stop meant stop stop stop go figure and

Danny 13:02

I went fast fast fast

Kimberly 13:04

oh my gosh I don't know that I was ready to relive this I had let this go and here we are I'm feeling some anxiety over this this is not not what I wanted to relive but okay and there's still some paint there on the floor

Danny 13:19

you got the biggest I told you so

Kimberly 13:24

but who I'm Truly, I don't want the I told you so,

Danny 13:32

right? Because I didn't listen. Right. And we tried to get it up for hours and hours. But eventually she went, I need to give grace. And when she did give that grace, you know, it just that resetting and going this at the end of the day, it's carpet and it's paint. It's not life. It's not death. It's. Yeah. Perspective helps. Yeah. And I think also give grace in that situation. That's

Kimberly 14:26

good to know. I don't remember that part, but I'm glad you remembered that way. Okay, fair. I think what helps me, I don't know for other people, what helps me to give grace is knowing that I've screwed up too, right? I have made my mistakes that are permanent and, you know, messing up something on a project or a hole in the wall or whatever. I've made my mistakes and I also know there are more mistakes to come That I will make more mistakes. And knowing that, knowing that I'm not perfect helps me to offer and extend grace to you going, I also know your intent. You weren't trying to end up with paint on our carpet, that your intentions were good.

Danny 15:16

Also with that grace is understanding where we stand with God, right? Is that he's fully given us grace. that we're fully loved, that we're fully known, that he's paid it in full, gives us the ability to give not just ourselves grace, but others grace.

Kimberly 15:35

Absolutely. Amen to that. Yeah. So every time that you drop an unexpected grace grenade, as we're calling them, you rewrite the script of your marriage. And over time, those surprises essentially turn into safety. Like, okay, it's okay that I made a mistake because truth be told nobody yeah no and nobody likes it right like nobody wants to make mistakes that's not the

Danny 16:05

goal right and my intent was I've been going all day I wanted to get this all done at once because I want you to be able to see it all perfect and in my head you know faster was better obviously I didn't realize the next three hours

Kimberly 16:22

that situation it was not better but that's okay it it all

Danny 16:25

worked out. Imagine if it did go well, though. You know, you would have seen it that much quicker. All right. I had not thought of that, but okay. But back to intent is the intent wasn't to not listen to you. The intent wasn't to throw pain on the floor. Sure. And sometimes understanding our spouse's intentions helps us to give grace in that situation.

Kimberly 16:51

Yeah, I think it, in all honesty, it's not something that you can just jump to right away necessarily I think that takes a minute to a few minutes or even some time you know 10 minutes apart and breathing through it and going okay what's what was his intent like he he loves me he was not trying to put paint on the carpet forever and ever it was supposed to go on the walls like walking myself through that allows me to and like I said the me acknowledging I've got my I've, you know, certainly left permanent marks.

Danny 17:55

And I think when we have that mindset, it changes the outcome.

Kimberly 17:58

Absolutely. I think for me, what I thought you were going to say is picturing in one hand, the grace grenade, and in the other, the grenade of criticism. And we really have the option to throw either one. And one is going to draw you closer to each other and closer to Christ, and one is not. In

Danny 18:23

Proverbs, it says that on the tongue has the power of life or

Kimberly 18:27

death

Danny 18:28

yeah and we have that opportunity to speak life into our spouse every day to give them the the joy the hope the love that we all need um or we could tear them down and yeah and that just tears our our marriage apart as we um put our spouse down

Kimberly 18:46

for sure so with that we have our weekly grace grenade challenge danny loves the challenge

Danny 18:54

all right so So here is, here's the challenge. Normally, you know, when you think about a place, you might think of like frustration or criticism, but every day you have an opportunity to throw either that grace grenade or that criticism grenade, if you will, right? And so once this week, choose to throw that grace grenade. Maybe it's two, maybe it's three, but maybe you haven't thrown any grace into your marriage in a long time. This week in Absolutely. And just a little caveat.