If continuing to use your current hosting provider is important to you, I suggest you ask them to integrate Let's Encrypt on their end. (That could include just letting you get Let's Encrypt certs through cPanel; it doesn't necessarily have to mean a lot of coding for them.) We've been talking to a number of providers of various shapes and sizes who are doing this or planning to do it. It's the best option for hosting environments where the customer doesn't have administrative access.

Your web hoster should integrate a way to automatically get certificates. Many already do. If they don't offer that you may want to consider using another webhoster.

If you have it scripted in a vm, I think that you should set up a vps that turns on every month and runs it.

Ah. I think the trouble is that Lets Encrypt was created and promoted by tech people like me who like having their own VPS with root access.