Over the past week, Gabrielle Giffords has kept busy. She wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about gun control, sat down with her husband for a network television interview and even went skydiving in Arizona.

The former congresswoman was marking the three-year anniversary of the day she was shot by a would-be assassin outside a Tucson supermarket, an incident that left her brain damaged, killed six and wounded 13 others.

Giffords has been open about her difficult rehabilitation and her commitment to the new gun control organization she and husband Mark Kelly founded. But her most recent foray into the public spotlight was different. This time she offered a hint - just a small one - about her own political future.

"Maybe," she told NBC's Savannah Guthrie when asked in an interview if she would ever run for office again. "A little bit later, a little bit later."

Last Tuesday, the day before the anniversary of the shooting, Giffords wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called "The Lessons of Physical Therapy" that discussed both her past struggles and her political hopes.

"It's gritty, painful, frustrating work, every day. Rehab is endlessly repetitive," Giffords wrote. "And it's never easy, because once you've mastered some movement or action or word, no matter how small, you move on to the next. You never rest."

During the course of her treatment, Giffords said she asked herself, "If simply completing a normal day requires so much work, how would I ever be able to fulfill a larger purpose?"

It was the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that spurred Giffords and Kelly to create the organization Americans for Responsible Solutions. It's mission: To change current gun laws and curb gun violence. Giffords said she and Kelly, both proud gun owners, "knew it wouldn't be easy, that special interests were arrayed against us, that congressional dysfunction was an enemy."

Indeed, it hasn't been easy.

In her recent NBC interview, Giffords expressed her disappointment with Congress, saying "Congress … the worst," and "so sad, awful awful."

But in her op-dd she remained resolute.

"Every day we will recruit a few more allies, talk to a few more elected officials, convince a few more voters," she wrote, "We can get tough and win elections."