It’s dark. It’s Jan. 1 and it’s so cold. My thighs are burning. Forty-nine percent of me is screaming, Stop! And 51 percent of me sets its jaw and defiantly says no. Cold rain is pouring down on us.

My friend Jeff Karwaski and I are trudging down a highway in Eastern Ohio. Then, the red and blue lights of a police car fill the air, flashing on the nearby trees. The officer calls out, “What are you guys doing?” I answer, “My friend and I are trying to run 100 miles today. It’s a fundraiser to build a house for a homeless family.”

How does a person find himself in this place? By trying to follow…

The Superman of the Hammack Clan

Amos Hammack (1930–1982) was and is the mighty man of my mother’s people. My grandfather. He was the one everyone told stories about. He never graduated from his one-room schoolhouse, but he started his own welding business and later went back and bought it. He could hardly read, probably because of dyslexia, but he learned to fly a plane and became an amateur stunt pilot. He raced stock cars and always finished, even when it meant crossing the finish line on three wheels. He was crushed by a crane, but he was all right. He once knocked a man out with one punch for calling him a liar. He literally built the church where my family worshiped; they’d proudly show you the steel girders he welded in the ceiling. Despite coming from poverty, he left my grandmother a small fortune.

It took a locomotive to kill him. It really did. Some say he died of stubbornness. His truck stalled on the tracks, and he wouldn’t give up. His dad died of stubbornness, too. The name Amos is still passed on in my family.

I grew up hearing all those stories. No one ever said this next part out loud, but it’s what I heard: “Being epic, that’s where you get value.” The culture of my school was the same. The craziest guy was respected. The one who would jump off the highest cliff and who would fight at the slightest insult. Understanding this internally and being Micah Amos Ramsey, I walked around thinking I was the toughest. I challenged just about anyone bigger than I. So, I got beat up a lot from kindergarten to eighth grade. By the time I was a freshman, I was pretty tough.

How Far Is Far Enough?

In 2007, I was coming to the end of my seminary career at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. After three years of a steady diet of coffee-flavored sugar milk and fast food, commuting an hour each way, and studying the rest of the time, my body proved that it was epic—epic at making fat. That’s not just my opinion. One of my professors said, and I quote, “Micah, you’re getting fat.” One day, my own mother recoiled after hugging me, exclaiming with a trembling voice, “You’re squishy aaaaall the way around!” And normal tasks were getting difficult. So I started running.

At 50 pounds overweight, it felt like I was running wearing a gallon of milk as a necklace. Among my classmates at the seminary, I announced that I had started running. A respected classmate, and an athlete, was immediately interested. He asked, “How far?” I answered, “Two miles.” His response was, “Oh.” Then he turned and walked away. But what I heard was, “Not far enough, not strong enough, worthless.” So, I started running farther and running in races. I ran a 5K, which is 3.1 miles. Then I started running trails at Brady’s Run. I was invited to run a half marathon, 13.1 miles. I was invited to run a 30K, 18.2 miles. And all the while, when I was running, I would check my mileage on my watch and ask, “How far?” No matter what the answer was, I still didn’t know if it was enough, enough to have value.

The Ultra-Runner

One day I watched a TV show called I Shouldn’t Be Alive. In this episode, a woman was running far from civilization in a desert. She fell down a cliff and broke her pelvis. She spent days dragging herself out of the desert on her elbows, doing crunches at night to keep her body heat high enough to not die in the cold. The narrator kept saying, “She only survived because she was an ultra-runner.” When I heard that term, ultra-runner, it echoed in my heart and escaped my lips as a whisper, “ultra-runner.”

Although I didn’t process it completely, my heart thought, “That must be far enough.” An ultra race is any distance greater than a marathon, 26.2 miles. The next step is the 50K, 31 miles. I ran The Bigfoot 50K in December, in snow and rain through flooded creeks. It was so bad that one-third of the people that registered got the dreaded D.N.F., Did Not Finish. It hurt, and I came in second to last, but I was now Ultra. Surely now I had undeniable grit, strength, and value.

Trying to Run 100 Miles

One day, my running buddy suggested that we try to run 100 miles in one day as a fundraiser for the Uzor family. They had lost everything in a house fire, with the mother and a young girl being badly burned. I was in. We started our run at midnight. Once I passed 30 miles, my thighs were screaming, and I found out that’s OK. You can still run on screaming thighs. Knee pains crept in when we were just past 60 miles, and our run had turned to a walk, or, as I like to call it, the ultra shuffle. When we reached 75 miles, I asked that dreaded question, “Do you think that’s far enough? Will people think we did enough?” Jeff said, “Yes.” So, we stopped. Unceremoniously, we climbed into the van, barely.

Still Not Enough

It’s been a tough year as a pastor. I’ve had some sort of emotional break. Insults that previously would have rolled off my back started to puncture. Remarks that probably should have elicited an emotional response of a 2 on a scale of 1–10 elicited an 8. I lost the ability to find my words and to piece them together. When that would happen, my heart would break, and I would cry.

Some people talked about accumulative stress; some have referenced compassion fatigue. We’ve had some cherished friends, family in Christ, leave Eastvale RPC, some even leaving the faith. Whatever they did, whatever they said, I heard, “You’re not enough, you’re worthless.” Their leaving pressed on all the wounds left by others who left in the last 15 years.

I served on Synod’s Judicial Commission, a work that took immense amounts of time and mental and emotional energy. We, the commission, tried in earnest to honor Christ; but it was clear that our extensive efforts were resulting in many complaints ascending to Synod. I was afraid Synod was going to say, “You are not enough.” I broke. I became a preacher who couldn’t preach. A shepherd that could not lead, feed, or protect the flock. And, on top of that, every lack of success in my home felt like another flashing neon sign, shouting, Failure! What I had always feared was upon me. I was proven worthless.

What Does It Mean to Empty Yourself?

Not long before my crash, I asked Rev. Kelly Moore to mentor me. My first assignment was to answer the question, “What would it mean for you to empty yourself?” My heart resisted saying something new. I wanted to run down the same old path, shrug and say, Put off the old man and put on the new. But somehow I knew that it was time to come with fresh eyes. I went to Philippians 2: “Christ, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond servant.” What did Christ empty Himself of; what is this equality with God that I am in danger of trying to grasp?

I found the answer in Revelation 5 in the worship Christ receives there: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing…and dominion forever and ever!” Was this it? Was I a glory thief, grasping at equality with God? When I stood as a kindergartner to fight a 7th grader, was I trying to establish might and glory and dominion? Did I imagine that my worth was in my success as a pastor, father, husband, or runner? Yes. How foolish! The many lessons and many ways Christ must teach me! It seems even the simplest lessons of Christ must be unfolded for eternity so that I will keep seeing with new eyes. Advancing from strength to strength, singing the new song of the heart uncovered fresh once again. My glory, my value, is in Jesus loving me, His emptying Himself and dying for me (Gal. 2:20). Success for me is in pointing to Christ and His Word.

Just Keep Running, Just Keep Running

With my worth being in Christ, I’m still running. Seeing Christ’s creativity in the trees and the sunlight shining through the leaves, enjoying the heat, the cold, growing through aches and pains, enjoying the call of the eastern towhee and the 25 songs of the blue jay, the red-tailed hawk and the bald eagle soaring overhead, the painted turtle sliding into a pond, I empty myself, rejoicing in Christ, using the body and what strength He has given me, and I enjoy His pleasure trying to point to His dominion, His riches, His honor, and His glory.