VL - Issue 40 - July 2021

More documents

Info

God’s Love Knows No Boundaries THE STORY OF JOSH JACOBSON BY H. JOSEPH GAMMAGE It was the championship game of semi-pro soccer, and the score was tied. The Las Vegas stadium hushed as our fullback paused, ready to blast the gamedeciding penalty kick between the posts. The thud of his toe striking the ball with cobra-like precision broke the tense silence. The goalkeeper tried, but the ball ricocheted off his fingertips and puffed the net as it bounced into the goal. I’d waited my entire life for this moment. Soccer was my god, and I was singing hallelujah praises to the synthetic, air-filled orb that I worshipped. I looked up at the board for our winning score, but suddenly, instead of elation, all I felt was letdown. Champagne corks popped around me like Fourth of July fireworks, but the words “is this it?” echoed through my brain. The revelry didn’t last long once we cleared the stadium gates. My disappointment must have shown because, as the glittering lights of Las Vegas disappeared in the rearview mirror, my wife looked over at me and said, “Who are you?” I had no answer. Our long drive home to Phoenix was quiet. Hitting the peak of my soccer career and finding it fleeting and meaningless left me empty. A restless dissatisfaction began to build within me, and I started looking for fulfillment in other places. Unfortunately, nine months later, the State of Arizona had an answer to my wife’s question. Who was Josh Jacobsen? Sex offender. Destroyer of innocence. I was finishing up a long day as a physical education teacher when I got a call to come to the principal’s office. There, local police greeted me with serious charges of child exploitation. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the stench of the Maricopa County jail intake. Because I was not only an elementary school teacher but also a coach for a girl’s youth soccer league, my mug shot was splashed all over the papers. I looked like a battered, mangy old sheepdog. PHOTO RIGHT: The game of soccer and the affirmation of people were once Josh’s gods. NEXT PAGE: God’s love truly knows no boundaries. Today, Josh and his wife, Maria, share the grace of the only God worth serving. 16 Issue 03 / 2021 VICTORIOUSLIVINGMAGAZINE.COM
PHOTO BY TOM ROWE erything else I had known as a free man. Eventually I bonded out, but I was looking at 25 years in prison, no job, no place to live, and, worst of all, no hope. My god, the air-filled orb, offered nothing. Alone and on the streets, I longed for someone to talk to. After a while, I remembered Maria, my college sweetheart. We’d met playing Division II soccer at Grand Canyon University. GCU was Christian based, but I had only attended it because it had a great soccer program. Despite the many years that had passed since our time there, I called her. Even knowing the nature of my charges, Maria was compassionate. We began dating, and she stood with me as my court battle raged on. We joined a competitive co-ed soccer league sponsored by Christ Church of the Valley (CCV). Something about those people was different. They were kind and understanding, and it was the first time I’d ever experienced such a feeling around Christian people. Still, I did not tell them about my charges as a sexual offender. Eventually, I agreed to a plea: nine months county jail time and lifetime pro- My victim was one of my 13-year-old soccer players. I was 31 years old, and never would I have imagined myself doing such a detestable thing. But I did. When your god is an air-filled orb and your church is a 120-yard chalked-up field of grass—your life is out of control, whether you’re aware of it or not. Soccer was my escape. My marriage was crumbling, and I used that as an excuse to begin having affairs with the soccer moms in the league. Then I found myself basking in the starry-eyed idolization of my young, schoolgirl players. Their admiration somehow filled a void in my heart that an airfilled orb could not satisfy. The encounter with my victim was brief, but it was enough to bring everything in my life to ashes. That sounds cold, but my focus was only on me. It would take time in a jail cell and the heart-piercing Word of God for me to fully recognize that my ash heap was nothing compared to the destruction I had caused. My wife served me with divorce papers as I sat in the Maricopa County Jail. It was almost anticlimactic. Yes, my marriage was over—but so was my career and evbation. I self-surrendered and walked into the rancid stench of my protective custody pod. The jail doors slammed shut behind me. There I was. Now what? The next day, during a standard inmate movement, I was accidentally chained to a line of inmates getting shuffled into a general population pod. The panic in the eyes of the detention officers who rushed me off Main Street and into a protective custody pod revealed to me my permanent stain as a sex offender. Even among the ranks of prison, I was at the bilge depths of society. I was unlovable and untouchable. I felt like the equivalent of a leper in Jesus’s day. New Year’s Eve came, and there wasn’t much to celebrate in the pod, except for the sweet sound of Maria’s voice on the payphone. As I strained to hear her over the ruckus around me, she told me that I’d be receiving a visitor the next day, someone from CCV. Who in their right mind would come down to a rotten jail cell on a holiday to visit a leper like me? The next morning, I was handcuffed to a marred, rat-chewed desk in Visitation. The man who sat down opposite me had VICTORIOUSLIVINGMAGAZINE.COM Issue 03 / 2021 17
Page 1 and 2: REAL PEOPLE | REAL STORIES | REAL H
Page 3 and 4: ISSUE 3, JULY 2021 Humble yourselve
Page 5 and 6: ISSUE 3, JULY 2021 CONTENTS 8 9 15
Page 7 and 8: Through the stories of Victorious L
Page 9 and 10: STEPPING FORWARD God’s weapon of
Page 11 and 12: TRANSFORMED LIVES 300 articles and
Page 13 and 14: God has blessed me greatly, but ple
Page 15: STEPPING FORWARD The Importance of
Page 19 and 20: STEPPING FORWARD hastily open the d
Page 21 and 22: One day, a coworker invited me to c
Page 23 and 24: BY NOAH VIEKE PHOTO BY SALT ON MY L
Page 25 and 26: STEPPING FORWARD Embrace Your Purpo
Page 27 and 28: there. My life became a witness to
Page 29 and 30: STEPPING FORWARD God’s Provision:
Page 31 and 32: TRANSFORMED LIVES ESCAPING EGYPT BY
Page 33 and 34: GOING DEEPER: Christ Can Make the D

VL - Issue 40 - July 2021

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?