Welcome To My Drawing Room

I am a huge fan of Victorian England. From the squalor of the tenements to the mansions in Belgrade Square the era epitomized the best and the worst of times. Suffragettes, workhouses, the first World's Fair, Florence Nightingale, Jack the Ripper, the grieving Queen Victoria, all elements that contributed to the burgeoning Industrial Revolution.

The Victorian era was a time of double standards. England had abolished slavery as the era began, yet ruling and conquering other countries in the name of the Crown during this time expanded the kingdom around the globe. The male, female role demonstrated the vast gulf in double standard. Divorce legislation in 1857 allowed a man to divorce his wife for adultery; however, a wife could only divorce her husband for adultery if it was accompanied by cruelty.

The Victorian Era was about appearance, what was publicly acceptable. An individual could live like hell in private, as long as his public persona demonstrated an accepted level of morality and honesty. Remind you of anything?

My favorite ideal in the Victorian era is the drawing room. Behind the doors of the mansions on the tree-lined streets the drawing room was the social hub of the respectable upper class. Here the 'general of the household', the wife, placed all the finery her home had to offer. Every decorative accoutrement of the Victorian home was on display while the wife held court, received visitors, served high tea and gossiped. The drawing room offered the impression of luxury, leisure and wealth, making that first impression a lavish, lasting one.

Visitors & friends were never allowed past the drawing room. To be allowed into the inner sanctum of the home the individual must be a family member, and then only in certain circumstances. It was all about the appearance of stability and stature. It must maintained at all cost.

If a household fell on difficult times with money in short supply the house would be run on less heat or food before the lavish decorations in the drawing room would be sold to make ends meet. Furnishings, art and family possessions would be sold from other parts of the house to pay bills. Every stick of furniture in the home would be sold with the drawing room the last to be relieved of any of its décor. Maintaining a large home in wintry England called for fireplaces to be kept burning with coal. As money for heat dwindled many fireplaces were no longer lit, except the drawing room fireplace. The bigger and brighter the fire, the great the appearance that the cost of coal was immaterial to you.

This façade would leave visitors believing that the household was in running order. Invited guests would hang out in the drawing room assuming that the appearance indicated that all was well with the household.

As Christians we have invited Jesus into our lives. All too often we have left Him lingering in the drawing room. He isn't allowed in to the inner sanctum or the corners of our house to see what we are truly about. It is to this same room that our church & family have been allowed to linger. Because of fear and embarrassment we have maintained the façade of the drawing room, never fully being able to use the entire house for its true purpose.

What happens when the church or a family member wanders into a room of your life that it is full of inappropriate furniture, or empty and devoid of life? We become indignant and feel that they have overstepped their boundary. After all we are about presenting the appearance of appropriateness.

Jesus wants us to be able to throw the doors of our heart and life wide open to Him. Ephesians says, ‘In opening every aspect to Him, He will provide you with strength from His glory to be able to live an overcoming life.’

Ephesians 3:17-16 ~ May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit, Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality. May Christ through your faith actually dwell, settle down, abide, and make His permanent home in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all God's devoted people, the experience of that love what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it; That you may really come to know practically, experience for yourselves the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience; that you may be filled through all your being unto all the
fullness of God, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! (Amp Version).

We need to understand that it isn't enough to invite Jesus into the drawing room of our lives. He wants to live in every room. Allow Jesus to live, settle down and set up housekeeping in you.

My two goals are that the drawing room of my life is comfortable for all, reflecting the entire home and to have all the rooms of my life inhabitable by everyone.

Kim Angela

Author's Note: I grew up in a three story Victorian house. My bedroom had been part of the original drawing room, it still had stainglass windows ~ who finds stainglass windows for a home in Canada at the turn of the century? It was all about appearance.