I've been struggling a lot with my faith lately. This whole year has been tough, and while I know that that's no reason to grow away from God and my faith, it definitely has led me to that. I've struggled with the fact that my co-worker was killed at age 16 by her boyfriend in March. Before that I struggled with my classmate collapsing on the basketball court during a game (thankfully, he lived. He's actually back in school!). I just, I've had problems being close to God. I know God exists, I've just pushed him away. To be honest, I'm really bitter towards him. I don't understand why he'd put one community through so much in such a little time (there's more than what I listed). I also, I still don't understand why he'd take my coworker away. I know he has a plan for everything, but to be completely honest, I'm not the biggest fan of his plan right now. So yeah, I've been struggling with all of that lately. I've fooled people into believing that I'm fine with my faith, but I'm really not. I'm sick of feeling like this. I feel like I'm living for no reason at all. I've started cutting myself because I just can't stand myself. I push people away, because I'm too afraid to get close to them... I think something is going to happen to them which will hurt me even more. I just... I don't even know what I'm asking in this post... I just need advice. I need to change how I live, I just don't know where to start.
I agree with Joshua, God has not been doing this and He also does not abandon you, even though you might push Him away, since you are hurt by these situations and the loss of or attack against people that were close to you. People make all kind of bad decisions, murder is a really bad one. The Bible says that satan was a murderer from the beginning. He is behind all this calamity. God does not force us to be with him, he at times has to let things happen, because people made their decisions. He hates it as much as you do and more. Sin always leads to death and innocent people many times suffer from it. We don't always know the detailed circumstances behind why things happen, but one thing is for sure: God is just, even though you might not see it right now. He does a lot more behind the scenes than we see or recognize. A lot of times He gives warnings and people don't heed them. He wants them to come to Him but they reject Him. He wants to protect them, but they walk out of His protecting hand. There is more to this, but don't want to get into this right now...
Cutting is a bad idea. It's an attack of the enemy, you do that and it plays right into satans hands, the one that did all that to your friends to begin with, now he is trying to get to you. He is a bad dude and he is sneaky and deceiving. He messes with your friends and then he has you blame God for it and the result is that he now is trying to "comfort" you in his way with things that are bad for you and lead you to himself away from God (the ONE who can protect you and help you overcome). The devil is just there to kill, steal and destroy, but JESUS came, so you have life and life more abundant. He promised that He has a plan for your life, a good plan, to give you hope and a future.
The devil has a plan for your life also, but his is the one of destruction, to make you miserable and he tells you that God doesn't love you if He makes these things happen to your friends (which actually the devil did) and that He must have rejected you. His plan is leading always to death and it starts with things like cutting and then goes over to worse things (alcohol, drugs, other addictions etc) until he has you where he wants you.
This is not where you want to be.
Start reading your Bible again and listen to God speak to you. HE wants you to come back to Him, He is right there throughout all of it, waiting. Try praying again, just talk to Him, tell Him what and how you feel, ask Him to take away the pain, to engulf you with His love, to show you what awesome things He has planned for you. He listens, He answers, if you come to him with an open heart seeking Him again.
Blessings!