Or any time when God seems absent and we find it hard to be thankful

Invent Danksgiving as the word for “hard gratitude” a la Ann Voskamp.
Have her propose it as a holiday for the Holy Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.

ChatGPT Prompt

1. The Sacred Ache of Holy Saturday

We live between Good Friday’s groaning and Easter Sunday’s glory.
But what of the day in between?

Holy Saturday—when God seems most absent, the tomb most sealed, and silence most complete.
It is a day easily skipped, yet it holds the fragile in-between where most of life is lived:
in the waiting,
in the ache,
in the dank tomb before the dawn.

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2. Naming the Day: Danksgiving

Danksgiving is the sacred practice of giving thanks in the dark—
before the miracle, without the music, still in the tomb.

Not gratitude after the story resolves,
but gratitude as resistance in the face of absence.
A hallelujah whispered while the stone has not yet rolled away.

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3. The Practice of Danksgiving

A simple liturgy for Holy Saturday:

• Light a single candle in a dark room—not to chase away the shadows, but to witness them.
• Write three gifts hidden within your sorrow or unanswered prayers.
• Read Psalm 88 aloud—the psalm that ends in darkness—and call it still holy.
• Break bread in silence, remembering the Christ who was broken before He rose.

Danksgiving isn’t noisy.
It doesn’t resolve.
But it remembers—even in the dank, God is not done.

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4. Eucharisteo in the Tomb

The word eucharisteo—“he gave thanks”—echoes from the Last Supper, uttered by Jesus
even knowing the cross awaited.

So we practice this cruciform gratitude:
giving thanks while still wrapped in the ache.

To name the broken as blessed,
To hold the dark and still believe,
To thank God while the stone is still in place.

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5. A Poetic Prayer for Danksgiving

(Common Meter – 8.6.8.6)

O God who waits in hidden tombs,
Beneath the stone, so still,
We bring our thanks through shadowed rooms,
And trust Your quiet will.

When light is gone and hope is faint,
And faith is bruised by grief,
Still teach our souls, like stubborn saints,
To cling to raw belief.

We break the bread with trembling hands,
Though joy has yet to rise,
And find You in the grief that stands
Beneath the silent skies.

Receive, O Lord, our dank refrain
These thanks before the dawn.
For from the soil of buried pain,
Your resurrection’s drawn.

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6. An Invitation

Let Danksgiving be more than a metaphor.
Let it be a day.
A holy offering from those still waiting, still aching, still trusting.

This Holy Saturday, will you join me?

“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it…”
— Luke 22:19

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Appendix: Danksgiving as a Practice When We Cannot Give Thanks

A.1 What is Danksgiving (Really)?

Danksgiving is not a habit, not a discipline, not another burden for the weary.
It is a grace for the moment when thanks won’t come.

It is not thankfulness for the hard thing—
but a way to hold space for God when you cannot say thank you yet.

Danksgiving is for:

• The days when gratitude feels dishonest
• The nights when hope feels naïve
• The prayers that sound more like groaning (Romans 8:26)
• The heart that is still bruised from trusting too soon

It is not a spiritual performance.
It is a spiritual permission.

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A.2 When to Practice Danksgiving

You don’t practice Danksgiving like a habit.
You fall into it like a psalm.

Use it when:

• You’re angry at God, but don’t want to walk away (Job 3)
• You’re numb, but want to stay awake (Psalm 13)
• You know the tomb isn’t forever, but it sure feels like it now (John 20:1)

Danksgiving is for those who say:

“I’m not thankful. But I want to want to be.”

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A.3 How to Do It (Gently)

You don’t need to say much. There is no script.
But if you want something to hold:

• Name the dark
  • “This is where I feel abandoned.”
  • “This is what hurts.”
• Light a candle, not to fix it, but to mark it
• Say one defiant thing—a whisper of belief or desire:
  • “Still, I want to trust.”
  • “Still, You are here.” (Habakkuk 3:17–19)
  • “Still, I breathe.”

If nothing else, just say:

“This is my Danksgiving. This is all I can offer.”

And that will be enough.

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A.4 Etymology: Words in the Shadows

Dank

From Middle Low German danke – “wet, moist.”
In English, it came to mean:

• Damp, dark, unpleasantly wet, often used in reference to tombs, caves, or cellars
• As in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “on the dank and dirty ground” (Shakespeare, Act II, Scene II)

Modern usage in internet and cannabis culture has flipped it to mean:

• Rich, potent, subversively excellent—as in dank memes
  This poetic inversion strengthens the word’s double meaning in Danksgiving.

Thanksgiving

From Old English þancian — “to think, to consider, to give thanks.”
The act of thanksgiving is not emotional overflow but intentional recognition.

In Greek, this relates to εὐχαριστέω (eucharisteo)—“he gave thanks” (Luke 22:19), which itself contains:

• Charis – grace
• Chara – joy
• Eucharistia – thanksgiving

Even Jesus gave thanks before the resurrection—in the dark.

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A.5 Conclusion

Danksgiving is not for the strong.
It is for the ones still here—even when the light isn’t.

When you can’t give thanks,
but you still want to stay near the tomb,
this is your Danksgiving.

A holy pause.
A cracked candle.
A whisper in the dark:

“Still—I’m here.”