The laws outlined in Exodus 22:16-23 show the value God places on human dignity and respecting people. The desire for dignity and significance creates opportunities and needs in our relationships with our loved ones.

If you feel loved by your spouse, you can relax, knowing that he or she will do you no ill. You feel secure in your spouse's presence. You may face many uncertainties in your vocation. You may have enemies in other areas of your life. But with your loved one, you feel secure.

Your sense of self-worth is fed by the fact that your spouse loves you. After all, if he or she loves you, you must be worth loving. Your parents may have given you negative or mixed messages about your worth, but your spouse knows you as an adult and loves you. That love builds your self-esteem.

Love is not the answer to everything, but it creates a climate of security in which we can seek answers to the things that bother us. In the security of love, a couple can discuss differences without condemnation. Conflicts can be resolved. Two people who are different can learn to live together in harmony. We discover how to bring out the best in each other.

Take time to pray and:

Thank God for giving you someone who helps you recognize your self-worth;

Ask Him to help you do the same for your spouse;

Ask Him to bless your relationship so that it will bear fruit for Him.

Take time to discuss and reflect:

On what do you base your self-worth?

On what does your spouse base his or her self-worth?

How can you help each other guard against situations and people that can damage your self-worth?

Consider these passages for further study on self-worth:

Psalm 139:13-15 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

When I think of my self-worth, I do my best not to rely on anyone else to determine what my self-worth is. Everyone else has their own opinion, and I wanted to base it on my own decisions and not others. I love hearing the ideas of other people, yet that should not determine who I am. How independent are you in determining what your self-worth is?