This word came to me like a vision—a need to transform all I had left behind, the feeling of what was already healed. It’s like sitting down to ask how I can use what I’ve learned as a steady thread in my life so it won’t ambush me on every date, in every memory, with every scent or melody that dares to spark a different feeling.

I’ll confess I spent hours before this word, meditating on what it could mean for me and what it might allow me to share.

I tried to wander around the idea of rebuilding my feelings—or my thoughts about what I’d rather not remember—yet what returns, inevitably, every time I want to help or leave a lesson behind.
So I chose to let myself remember, to feel, and perhaps to suffer a little less each time I speak of it. Why? Because through that process I discovered that all those sensations that once tormented me, stole my sleep, and weighed on me now and then could become tools—making me stronger, less fearful and, without sounding proud, a little wiser. I was learning to turn what I once called “bad” into something good: to move forward with the purpose of helping, teaching, and above all, accompanying. Because although we like to believe that anyone in pain has someone to lean on—family or friends—the truth is we’re sometimes lonelier than we imagine. Out of pride, or the fear of “bothering” others, we stockpile aches, anxieties, and fears that trap us in a place no one else can rescue us from—because only we know it exists.

That place where no one can come near because they don’t even know it’s there—much less heal or repair what, on the surface, “looks fine.” So what are we to do?

Re-create. Yes, re-create the heart, the spirit, the way you feel. It’s like gathering the ashes that remain, moistening them, and sculpting a new sensation that brings peace and calm.

I lived this through the love of God, who taught me—step by step—how pain and sorrow could be turned into love: the love in words given and received; the love lodged in the memory of a caress; the sounds that arrive, unexpectedly, rebuilding moments that still carry that faint fragrance of joy, of quiet, of bliss.

Even when this re-creation works almost like a miracle, everything feels strange in its own way. It’s hard to grasp that you’re already rebuilding and, because of that, what you clung to— that deep ache—begins to fade as if it were choosing to cease. It hasn’t vanished; it becomes another kind of feeling that grants you peace yet steals the thing you’d been holding for so long: that relentless suffering that kept your thoughts busy. Then comes a peculiar confrontation: you don’t know if you truly want to stop suffering, or if you simply can’t let it go because it had become a kind of “comfort.” And so you learn to re-create again, differently: through self-love, through the will to pursue a real life purpose—not those little daydreams you let in just to tell yourself that life goes on and so do you.

Somewhere in this reflection I realized there were other things I needed to overcome. Not everything goes the way we imagine, and at times God shakes you awake to show another perspective—to make you truly believe in the path you’re drawing and refuse to give up. There’s a deeper danger there: feeling like a failure right in the middle of your purpose.

After this re-creation—this transformation—you might think nothing worse can happen, that walking hand in hand with God means no more obstacles, that now everything will flow beautifully. But no. I’m not being pessimistic: when a new purpose is born in you, you still have to fight for it. Weathering your greatest grief doesn’t “settle your account” with life. No. It means a person is being rebuilt—braver, with a different character—someone who knows there are things not worth the worry, and others that deserve attention, but without that old anxiety.

When you grasp this and focus on your growth as a person—on your character and your feeling—you can say you’ve found the re-creation of your being. Your threshold for pain shifts and, believe it or not, the pain you once felt makes you stronger and more hopeful about life. For me, the transcendence of pain is the perspective you gain from your trials and what you choose to hold as you cross to the other side of the river. All of it is built on faith. And that is THE GIFT.