For a player's life total to become 26, the player gains or loses the appropriate amount of life. For example, if your life total is 4 when Providence resolves, it will cause you to gain 22 life; alternatively, if your life total is 40 when it resolves, it will cause you to lose 14 life. Other cards that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly.

Revealing multiples of Providence from your opening hand won't cause your life total to become 32 or any number other than 26.

A player's "opening hand" is the hand of cards the player has after all players have taken mulligans. If players have any cards in hand that allow actions to be taken with them from a player's opening hand, the starting player takes all such actions first in any order, followed by each other player in turn order. Then the first turn begins.