Jesus ministering to Individuals

Jesus with the woman who touched His Robe

Jesus was a great example to us of ministering to the individual.  He was once in one of the narrow streets of Jerusalem when he felt power (the Bible says virtue) go out of him and He asked,
"Who touched me?"  There were many people around so He was not referring to being bumped or jostled by the crowd.  He was referring to a deliberate touch to be healed.

The woman who touched him was probably begging.  She had been suffering for years with an issue of blood.  This meant that she was considered unclean in the then Jewish culture.  We don't know her age, but if she was young that meant that this poor woman could not marry.  She had spent a great deal of money on doctors to no avail.   She was destitute apparently.  Jesus recognized her faith and she was healed.  It is amazing to me that she had that kind of faith to the point where she could believe that she could touch the hem of Jesus' robe and be healed.   She was such an example to us.

Jesus with Nicodemus

Later on in his ministry a leader of the Jews named Nicodemus wanted to know about what Jesus had been teaching and so he, Nicodemus, came to see Jesus at night.   Jesus took the time to explain to Nicodemus all about being born again of the water (baptism) and being born of the Spirit.

Woman at the Well with Jesus

When he was traveling through Samaria Jesus spoke with a woman at the local well.  Many Jews would have nothing to do with the Samaritans but Jesus did not believe in that kind of prejudice.  The woman had a very different type of life.  She had had several husbands and she was living with a man who was not her husband, but Jesus cared about her.  He did not condone her behavior but he did, by his kindness to her, show that he cared about her.  She was the first person who heard Jesus declare that He was the Messiah.   Jesus did not chose to tell this first to the leaders or even his disciples, but he told it to this Samaritan woman. 

 In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints our prophet, Russel M. Nelson,  has been teaching us how to minister to one another.  Jesus took the time to meet the needs of others and we all need to reach out to others.  This means reach out to EVERYONE and not  necessarily those of our own faith, our own political persuasion, our own socioeconomic status, or of our own race... etc. etc.

Cinco de Mayo La Batalla de Puebla

This post is in Spanish   An English post follows it.  

Battle of Puebla 

Batalla de Puebla

En la Batalla de Puebla solomente 2,000 Mexicanos derrotado 6,000 soldados del ejecito de Francia.  Los soldados de Francia ejercito Frances era fomoados de soldados profesionales.   El ejercito de Mexico era por la mayor parte granjeros.  En General de Mexico que gano' la batalla fue nombrado Ignacio Zaragoza.  General Zaragoza nacio' en Texas.  El tenia solomente 33 anos el dia de la batalla.  Tambien el General Perfirio Diaz ayudo' Mexico mucho en la batalla por medio de un ataque de calvario.   Con un tercer de soldados es un miraglo que los Mexicanos gano' la Batalla de Puebla.
Menos que 100 Mexicanos murieron en la batalla.  Casi 500 soldados de Francia murieron.

Despures de el derrota de su ejercito en Puebla, el  Emperador Napoeon III,  de Francia mando' 30,000 mas soldados a Mexico.  Eventualmente Fracia gano' la guerra, pero despues de algunos anos  el ejercito y govierno de Francia fueron expulsados.  La primer Batalla de Puebla dio' los Mexicanos la confianza que teneia el poder luchar el ejercito de Francia.

En este dibujo de la Batalla de Puebla cada soldado Mexicano, y el General con su caballo, eran dibujados individualmente y yo corto' cada uno y pegue' sobre el campo.  NO era facil.   El general sobre el caballo es General Zaragoza y el dibujo es de la primer minutos de la batalla.                         

Cinco de Mayo the Battle of Puebla

 Battle of Puebla

 Many people think that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's independence day.  It is not.  It is a celebration of a great Mexican Army victory over invading French troops.  Emperor Napoleon III of France was trying to force Mexico to pay their debts and he also saw the Mexican default on loans as a chance to spread his empire into the New World.  This could not have happened due to the USA non interference Monroe Doctrine. . . however, the United States was rather busy with our own civil war in 1862.

The Mexican army was commanded by a 33 year old general named Ignacio Zaragoza.  His calvary general was named Porfirio Diaz.   The French commander was General Charles Lorencez.
Lorencez's army of 6,000 crack French troops attacked a small essentially militia force made up of somewhere between 2,000 and 4,500  Mexican citizen soldiers.  Most of the Mexican army was probably farmers.  The French were professional soldiers just from much experience in European wars.  They were also well equipped with state of the art muskets and bayonets.  The Mexican Army had some firearms but many of the farmers were armed only with machetes.  That is rather amazing.

The battle started at dawn and went til dusk.  The French charged twice with artillery support.  For  their third charge the French artillery was out of ammunition so the infantry charged without artillery support.  The French army was driven back all three times.  A cavalry charge by General Diaz was the last straw and the French army withdrew.

Napoleon III must have considered this an affront to his aspirations for spreading his empire and so he sent 30,000 reinforcements to Mexico and eventually they took Puebla and Mexico City.  But the First Battle of Puebla had given the Mexicans the confidence that they could fight the French.  Although Napoleon III put his cousin Maxamillian on the throne in Mexico, it did not last.  After only a few years the Mexicans deposed him and executed him via firing squad.   So the Mexican people got the rule of their own country back.

Some think that by then the American Civil War was over so Napoleon III did not want to face off against a highly armed and mobilized USA.  In fact, I think the US ambassador told Napoleon III that he better get out of Mexico.   So he withdrew his support of Maxamillian, which led to Maxamillian losing his throne and his life.

With their knowledge that they really could stand up to the French the Mexicans took their country back.   I think the Battle of Puebla is sort of like the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War.  Those battles showed the American colonists that they could stand up to the British Army.  Like the Mexicans, we Americans lost a lot of battles before we won a few.   We Americans did not win independent rule til many years of war went by and we defeated the British at the Battle of Yourktown.  Interestingly enough, we were aided by the French. 

The general in the drawing is General Zaragoza and some of his army at the start of the battle.  The individual drawing of the horse and each soldier were drawn independently and then I cut them out to place them in layers on the drawing. 

Unicorn by a Lake

Unicorn by a Lake

I hope one day we find out that Unicorns are or were real.  I know this is not very scientific for a guy with a masters in Geoscience... but I love to draw Unicorns.  I guess I also love to draw horses.  Horses are amazing animals that up until the internal combustion engine were our primary source of transportation.  Unicorns are very much like a horse and many artists eschew the traditional cloven hooves and tufted tail and make their unicorn drawings much more horse-like.   I usually draw unicorns that way as well.   This is a non-traditional unicorn, although if you look closely you will see cloven hooves. 

T. rex sleeping and Didelphodon hunting

Tyrannosaurus rex Sleeping

This is a sub-adult T. rex sleeping.  You could add stars and a moon in the sky if you want.  The T. rex pictured is a sub-adult, not quite a full grown adult.  It laid down on some ferns for a comfortable sleep.  Yesterday I drew a Triceratops calf and mother sleeping.  I decided to do a sleeping T. rex today.  The picture at the bottom of today's post is more complete. . . I explain why below.

I thought about it and decided to add a couple of things to the above drawing and scan and post the update.   .   .  .   .  OK, I just did so.  I added a moon and a few stars and 2 small mammals.  There WERE mammals living with the dinosaurs, but they stayed small to avoid being killed and eaten. . . or to avoid being stomped on.  The mammals of the Mesozoic were all fairly small and could burrow into the ground for safety. 

Still, Didelphodon vorax, a marsupial mammal from T. rex's time, was no cowering coward.  It had very robust canine teeth.  A new study indicates that it had a bite force stronger than even the hyena.  In fact, Didelphodon's bite force was the strongest of any known mammal.  It was about the size of a modern Virginia opussum.  Yet it had a very robust skull and a terribly powerful bite and clearly was a predator.  Even some small dinosaurs would have been at risk.  It was probably active at night. . . it was nocturnal.  This would give it some safety from larger dinosaurs.

Didelphodon vorax Skull photo

In the past some paleontologists have speculated that perhaps the growing mammal population was eating dinosaur eggs at the end of the Cretaceous Period.   Now it appears that perhaps some mammals could have preyed on dinosaur young as well as their eggs.   There was a marked decline in the number of dinosaur species in Montana over the last several million years in the late Cretaceous Period.  Maybe Didelphodon was preying on the young of the dinosaurs.  Of course, the Meteorite is what finished off the large dinos.   Both Didelphodon vorax and Tyrannosaurus rex lived in what is now Montana during the late Cretaceous.

The new study about Didelphodon vorax was by the Burke Museum and the University of Washington paleontologists.  They also found that marsupials appear to have evolved in North America and moved south.

T. rex sleeping and Didelphodon hunting

Didelphodon is on the right and its prey is hiding under a fern on the left.   If you take the two pictures together, the first is a couple of hours earlier in the night and the second is later when Didelphodon comes along hunting for small prey.  Didelphodon would have to be careful to not wake up the nearby T. rex when it caught the prey mammal.  

Unicorn with Fairy Princess

Fairy Princess shares an Apple with her Unicorn Friend

As far as I know, the  unicorn is always considered a magical creature of light and good.  Fairies are USUALLY depicted as creatures of light.  Both are usually considered sentient beings. . . that is, aware and intelligent with the ability to talk and communicate at a human level.  So it makes sense for the two sentient magical beings of light to be friendly with each other.   So my drawing makes sense.  The Fairy Princess is sharing an apple with her friend, the Unicorn.   The fairy is Princess Sandolina.  The unicorn is Gambolia.

Although fairies are often depicted as very small, sometimes they are more human sized or small human sized.  Also, some stories have fairies with the ability to grow from tiny to human size for battle.  I specifically refer to the fairies of the Fablehaven series of books.  I highly recommend those books.  The author is Brandon Mull.


Copyright notice:  All drawings on this blog that were done by me, Robin A. Lyman,
    are Copyright: Robin A. Lyman from 2006-2018.  Other drawings are at this point all done by Grandnieces and Grandnephews.  They individually own the Copyright for their drawings.  

Triceratops Sleeping

Triceratops Sleeping

This is a drawing of a Triceratops adult sleeping with her calf.  The calf has a frill that arches over the neck to protect it from small predators.  The adult has a more forward facing frill that could act somewhat as a shield in a defensive fight against a T. rex.  The adult Triceratops has forward curving horns as well.  These differences in adult and juvinile Triceratops was recently pointed out by Dr. John Horner.  The Pterosaur is a Pteranodon.  All these animals are from the Late Cretaceous Period of North America.

The foliage is indicative of the time period as well.  There WERE flowering plants.  New discoveries put flowering plants way back to possibly even BEFORE the dinosaur era.  That explains the bushes with flowers.  There were some broadleaf trees such as ginkgo.  There were cycad trees that look quite a lot like palm trees, but if you look closely you will see pine cones in them.  Cycads are actually conifers.  They are related to pines, firs, and spruce trees.  You may also notice ferns.  Ferns have been around for hundreds of million years.  They are non-flowering plants.   But they are not conifers. They don't make seeds, they reproduce with spores off of the bottom of their leaves.

Artists don't usually draw dinosaurs sleeping. . . but certainly dinos HAD so sleep.  So I drew a pair sleeping.  Since Ceratopsians most certainly lived in herds, the rest of the herd would be nearby. 

Printable version of this drawing is found by hitting the top buttons:  "All Printables" and "Paleontology".  However, remember that newer drawings are at the bottom of the All Printables list and at the bottom of the Mesozoic Era list in the Paleontology section.