Girl likes me but we can't date?

So there's this girl from my church, and she has the biggest crush on me. I think she's attractive and I'm all for dating her but.... my mom really doesn't like her for whatever reason, and my mom always tells me she doesn't like this girl. Like on a daily basis. And I want to stay on my mom's good side, because we already have a lot of problems as it is. This girl has tried so hard to hint that she likes me, and I just play dumb because I don't know what to do. She even said something like "I'm not this happy around anyone else, don't you think that means something?" And of course I had to be like "nah" because I didn't know what else to do. So the problem is that I know this girl is about to tell me she likes me and I don't know how to handle it. We are great friends and I want to keep it that way, help please? I'll award best answer!