DTSKH, Wow you live in Ohio!!! I am moving up to Columbus, hopefully in June, but I will get back to that as I want to say something very important to you about being baptized.......open your bible and find where it says that you can not enter heaven unless you are baptized....it is not in there. Christ died on the cross for our sins so we can have eternal life with him, he finished the job on the cross, what he did for us on that day alone is what allows us to spend eternity with him. My ex mother -in-law who was raised Catholic was very upset and told my ex and I that if we had a child, the baby would need to be baptized in case it died so it could go to heaven. I respected her fear and would have baptized the baby (had we had one) so she would have peace but I also her that works do not save us. There is nothing we can do that will get us into heaven except accept Christ. He alone covers our sins, we are not saved by "works" but by faith. Also, the act of being baptized is a public profession of our accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, it is just a public profession, it symbolizes dying to our sins and being re-born in Christ. If we were saved by works alone or with additional works, then where is it written which works will do the trick???? I do not know which denomination you belong to, I am non denominational as I just do not care for man made traditions and did quite a lot of research on the Catholic faith as I noticed there were a lot of man made traditions and understand now why there are so many. All we really need to remember is Jesus died for our sins, accepting him and having a relationship with him is all that is needed. I am quite positive your mom is in heaven with my mom and they are each looking down at us and praying for us. I too feel the exact same way you do about feeling that one day more is one day without mom but one more day closer to being with her. I look forward to seeing her again, hugging her, feeling her soft skin, hearing her laugh, seeing the sparkle in her eye. Satan is not only the father of lies, but the master of trickery and deceit. He will plan false notions in your head to make you think things , whisper ever softly if you are sure your mother is in heaven, when these thoughts enter just say out loud, "Christ died for our sins, my mom's sins and because of this she is with him for eternity" and she is. I also heard in the sermon on Sunday, and for some reason I thought of you and wanted to share this in case you were thinking it, but it was about Christ dying for our sins and there is no purgatory that some believe when you die you need to go to purgatory and this is wrong thinking. The pastor said, "Christ said when I die I go to prepare a place for you, not two places for you, but a place for you." Jesus never said he was going to prepare purgatory and we had to go there or some of us had to go there before they could enter heaven,,,,,,it is not written in the bible, there is no proof to support this. Jesus simply died on the cross to atone for our sins and he finished the work on the cross, his death alone sealed our fate to enter heaven. I could go on and on but I think I made my point. God is good and faithful, since 2005 I have endured many losses but God does not give us more than we can handle and he allowed all my pain and suffering to occur back to back like they did because they truly helped me deal with the loss of my mother. had I not had to mourn the loss of my baby, the loss of ever being able to be a mother, the loss of my husband through an affair on his part, I would not have been prepared to face the loss of my mom. And I see how he prepared me and walked with me and at times carried me and still is. The Lord does work in mysterious ways that is for sure, just look at us, we connected on this forum and we both lost mother's who we were so very close to, miss terribly, and you live in Ohio and soon I will be too. God ordains our paths in life, he leads us to a place in time that we find others who can help each other walk along the path he has chosen for us, and who will help us along the way, The Good Lord works through people, that is how we know he is still a living God. I think our paths crossed for a reason and I thank God for this. You are a blessing to me, and I pray I am one for you as well. Maybe one day we can meet and have lunch and share stories about our mothers. Do not worry about her, I am so sure she is in heaven. I will check back again and I am not sure if we can put our email add's in here but here is mine if you wish to contact me via email summerngreece@yahoo.com. Have a good and blessed day...

Thanks...I enjoyed them!

I agree the child should be free to express their feelings in whatever way they can word it. They don't understand hierarchies and family politics. What irked me is I didn't bring any sort of ranking into the equation at all in the post that people keep refering to and yet that's what it got turned into. I nor the girls ever mentioned anything at all in the post about their mother or I being better, or the best or #1 but since the bio mom was the one who the girls were questioning that's what it got turned into. Mom was perceived by the other posters as "the winner" so I got tore apart. The double standard just gets me. I all the sudden went from step parent sewing having a conversation with step daughters to the underhanded wrecker of bio mom who was in some way trying to make her look inferior because the girls father bought me a sewing machine. I handled the situation no difference than you and "ranking" never even came up but I turned into the competitive witch. I think you did nothing wrong at all. A____ should be able to express himself however he feels and so should the girls.

I got a smile just seeing your name on the front page (since I "know" you from the CF). But the quotes were really good too. waving at you from over here! -Robin