The True Gate

Stenosis grows stiff and hardened,

Opens only just a thread;

Blood must strain with rising pressure,

Burdened pathways lie ahead.

Walls grow thick from constant labor,

Strength that bends toward breaking soon;

This is not the heart made healthy,

This is not the Maker’s tune.

Regurgitation swings loose and failing,

Cannot seal the backward flow;

Blood returns where it should not be,

Circles where it ought not go.

Chambers stretch like tired canvas,

Volume swelling past design;

This is not the heart made ordered,

This is not the holy line.

The healthy gate stands firm and faithful,

Opens wide and closes true;

Forward flow in perfect cadence,

Strength and rest in balanced view.

Pressure steady, volume gentle,

Every beat in harmony;

This is how the heart was crafted,

This is how it’s meant to be.

There are gates that strain and falter,

There are gates that leak and fail;

But one stands pure, unbroken, steadfast,

One true path on which we sail.

For the heart has many chambers,

But the soul has only One:

There is one Way to the Father —

And that Way is Christ the Son.

Not the narrowness of stenosis,

Not the looseness of the leak;

But the strong and living doorway

Where the lost find what they seek.

Three kinds of valves stand before the learner:

One too tight and one too free;

One alone is strong and righteous,

Opened wide at Calvary.

Teach the body, teach the spirit,

Sing the truth in memory —

Stenosis tight, regurgitation leaky,

But Christ the Gate stands perfectly.

Pressure burdens in stenosis,

Volume burdens in the leak;

But the healthy valve moves freely,

Strong yet gentle, never weak.

So the heart reveals a mystery,

Written deep in flesh and bone:

Only one gate keeps the rhythm —

Only Christ can lead us home.