Reverend Rhonda Britton shares her greatest gift

We asked you to share your #CBCGreatest Gifts with us. Today, Reverend Rhonda Britton tells us about one of the best gifts she has ever received.

For Reverend Rhonda Britton's family, 2003 brought one change after another.

Growing up in Florida, Britton had been very close with one cousin, and that year she watched her cousin get used to the idea of her oldest child leaving home and joining the military.

Not long after, the United States decided to send troops to Iraq, and soon the new soldier was overseas and in a combat zone.

Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Jordan wrote to say he couldn't get leave and would miss the family Christmas for the first time.

Britton, the pastor of the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, spent Christmas Eve reassuring her cousin that Jordan, who was around 24, was just fine.

The soldier had been deployed for about a year, and his mother had urged the rest of the family to write to him constantly but asking them to avoid mentioning any bad news. Jordan would do the same.

"I'm not sure if he was ever honest with his mom about whatever duties he had and whether he was ever in harm's way," said Britton.

Her cousin had stayed in fairly good spirits, but hearing from him in December hit hard.

"She was just kind of frantic, I guess, and just heartbroken that he wasn't going to be home for Christmas," said Britton.

The next day, around 11:00 a.m., "he blew us away when he walked through the door," she remembered. He had gotten leave but decided to surprise them.

"It was just like a thunderbolt hit the room when he walked in," she said. "It was just like, wow! This is just the best Christmas gift, not only to know that he was OK, but to see him and to see that he was OK."

Everyone cried, and the memory is so strong that it tends to come up when any of Britton's relatives are going through a hard time and need to believe their luck will change, she said.

"Sometimes when you need a little bit of encouragement about something else that's going on, you just say, 'Remember that Jordan walked in and just surprised us all?'"

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You can email cbcns@cbc.ca, or tweet us using #CBCGreatestGift. We'll keep putting them together to share with everyone else.

And remember to tune in to CBC TV for The Greatest Gift, a special program we're preparing for the holidays. It will run at 11 p.m. Dec. 24 and again at 6 p.m. Dec. 26.